I decided that this week I would post about what seems to be the three most popular options for incorporating an interactive whiteboard into your classroom.
My school has recently purchased a Smart Board and after a few discussions with my classmates regarding the uses of SBs in the classroom, I would have to say they are way more versatile than I had originally thought. The drawbacks seem to be the portability and cost. Smart boards run anywhere from $1,400 – $10,000 depending on your needs and desires. It seems as though the type of projection (front / rear), can really effect the efficiency of this product. When using the SB in class, we were noticing that the projector and lighting in the classroom were affecting the touch sensitivity and calibration to of the SB. Our school has debated on wether or not to mount the SB in our conference room, or, place the SB on wheels and make it portable. After playing with the SB, I can say I think it would be more beneficial to have the SB on wheels so that teachers can check it out and use it with their students. The software that accompanies the SB has some awesome interactive lessons, if this is mounted in the conference room, I cannot see the benefit to students. The drawback I see to making the SB portable is having to hook up, unhook, and calibrate the SB into every room it is moved to. This could be a nuisance.
Next, I looked at the Mimio. The main differences between the SB and the Mimio are size, portability and price. A Mimio will work on almost any surface, you can use the whiteboard you already have in order to create an interactive whiteboard, and you do not necessarily need a projector to use a Mimio. Mimio’s only cost around $500-and up, again, depending on your needs. The calibration does not seem as difficult and these seem much more portable and affordable to place in additional classrooms without having to replace all of the whiteboards which already exist. I did not find the same amount of resources / galleries of lesson plans for educators with the Mimio as I did with the SB, but I just might need to do some additional research.
The new kid on the block seems to be the Wiimote. I found a lot of information and various ways to create a Wiimote. The gentleman in the video below is quite handy and makes the Wiimote look extremely user friendly and easy to use. The portability and versatility of the Wiimote seemed to match that of the Mimio. Although the Wiimote seems to be less hardware to purchase, but I can see that my school would need to purchase a lot of hardware to create an interactive whiteboard using the Wii. We would have to purchase the Wii – $300+, plus the additional items to create the Wiimote which I am guessing would cost $100-$300. So, I might, or might not be saving money for hardware when compared to the Mimio. Again, I did not find a bank of resources / lesson plans to use with the Wiimote, which could be a setback when compared to the SB.
I have decided to start using the SMART Board and its software, and see how my staff responds to incorporating an interactive whiteboard into their curriculum, and then decide if we need any additional interactive whiteboards in our building.
If you want some tips for using your smartboard, visit SMART’s new user community http://exchange.smarttech.com/forum
Hi, Kevin is grading this weeks blog but I was looking for final projects and found this. Interesting analysis. I like the minios also but in a sort time I was in the TIE course before the web went down, I got the impression you did not need to buy the Wii and the total cost was about $100. A friend told me I could just find the instructions on Youtube. Check it out. Alison
You do not need to purchase a Wii to use the wiimote, but you do need a bluetooth receiver on the computer.
You don’t need to buy the whole Wii system, just the Wii Remotes, so for about $40.00 US for the Wii Remote, $16.00 for a USB-> bluetooth adapter and another $5.00 for the pen system, you have a complete whiteboard system. Also, the Wii can do multi touch, so multiple users at the same time.
At atbout $60.00US per unit, you can outfit 10 classrooms for about the same price as a Mimeo with a few extras. When looking for the biggest educational bang for the buck, the Wii system is an easy choice.
Search for Johnny Lee Wii for more details and also check out the instructional videos from
Nipsing in Onterio Canada for lots of great info and resources!
Cheers!
I just built a Wii-board for my school. Total cost: $75.31 including taxes. No need to buy the Wii system, just the remote. There are tons of online resources about this now.
A few notes on the Wiimote… To use the Wii setup, all you need is the Wii Remote ($40 – don’t need entire Wii system), a Bluetooth Dongle ($20 and only if your computer doesn’t have it built in), and an IR pen ($10 or make one). I just built and tried this out this weekend and it works great! My computer has built in bluetooth, so I only spent about $50. Highly recommend – big bang for the buck and worked great. I liked the java program located here http://www.uweschmidt.org/wiimote-whiteboard
The site blow has pictures of what you need.
http://www.classroom20.com/forum/topics/my-wiimote-whiteboard?page=1&commentId=649749%3AComment%3A305318&x=1#649749Comment305318
Yes, you really can do this for under $75! And it’s not too difficult to do.
It’s funny how someone like me can leave true and honest feedback, and it gets deleted, wow. I was providing accurate and true information based on my experience with the technologies and it was deleted. Pretty poor judgment considering people are trying to find accurate information on both technologies. At least make it clear that you don’t need to buy a $300 Wii system. It is kind of implied by Alison, but not “confirmed”.
I truley apologize for my previous post, I apparently didn’t have my browser refreshed or something, and jumped to the conclusion that this site was being “biased” and “censored”. On the upside, I used the Wii remote several times today and again, no issues. What I do recommend if using this Wii tool is to be aware of a useful utility that Windows has built in for accessibility. It is called “On-screen Keyboard”, and can be found by going to Start, All Programs, Accessories, Accessibly and finally On-Screen Keyboard. I also found it helpful when using “Paint” was to change the working area by increasing the whitespace – this can be done by clicking on Image, then attributes. You can then save your written notes for later use – or print out multiple copies.