Wednesday, August 25, 2010

The IWB upgraded


We have seen this coming but I didn't think it would be quite this soon...

Samsung has released a 64" touch panel that when you look at TCO and intallation costs would give most interactive whiteboards a run for the money...



From their website...

The exciting new 650TS touch screen for education is a must have for any classroom. Combining the simplicity of a whiteboard and the power of a computer, the Samsung 650TS eBoard will enhance almost any learning environment. The exciting new 650TS touch screen will increase student participation, provide better visual presentation and therefore create a better learning environment. The 650TS eBoard occupies less space than other interactive boards. It has low power consumption and can even deliver high-quality images under the brightest lighting condition. The lifespan of the 650TS LCD panel is approximately 50,000 hours (or about 30 years when used 6 hours a day).



Not exactly portable as an eBeam and projector set up. But certainly for a fixed installation this is the next step in providing display and interactive technology in the classroom.

For more information -

The cool thing is that we now sell them from our office. Can't wait to get my hands on a demo unit.



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Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Making your own iwb content

Seems I've taken a holiday from my blog...

Unfortunately I wasn't on holiday... I've been working harder than ever before at my current job as well as a few home projects which I'll show later when I get them a bit further along.

I had an author contact me recently - she was looking for a way to create here own interactive whiteboard resource to go with some picture books that she has written.

Now back in the day I used to use Authorware, Director and Flash to generate interactive multimedia, but that is now over 10 years ago and I have not kept up my skills.

So I went on the hunt for easy to use cheap/free tools to create stand alone multimedia packages that included basic computer based training stuff like quiz es, cloze, matching and drag and drop type activities.

So here is what I found

CourseLab - This is the system we are going to use. Nice interface, no coding if you don't want to and easy to use. Best of all it's free.LAMS Authoring EnvironmentImage via Wikipedia

LAMS - more server based but again easy to use and set up - Free too

Xerte - More coding than what I would like - but would be really good once you get your head around.

eXe - Easy to use but not enough "fun" stuff for our purposes (storybook), but for secondary and tertiary courses this is very quick and easy. Again free.


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