Current mood:	geeky
Entry tags:	digital, elearning, electronic, hardware, projector, school, white board, wireless

etoys for the staff

Electronic or interactive white boards are a new and expensive eLearning toy for schools. Ministers of Education seem to like having their photograph taken standing next to one. Sales people have been pushing them at the past couple of conferences. I keep filing their glossy brochures into the little round filing cabinet by my desk.

Whilst the demonstrations look interesting, I still have to be convinced with a good example of its practical use in the secondary school classroom. A quick search found some whiteboard activities listed on the UK BECTA website.

We have just invested in two portable Mimio wireless units from DIB that allow us to couple a laptop and digital projector with a conventional white board. I have assembled all the different parts in this kit. Seemed like a better and cheaper option than purchasing a swag of dedicated electronic white boards that might just gather dust in various classroom corners.

It will be interesting to see how these new units are used at school over the next few months.