It’s been about 3 years since projectors and Interactive Whiteboards exploded into Irish classrooms and almost 85% of them are now equipped with them. One of the more annoying things about technology is their relatively short life span. For example, laptops usually have a 3 to 5 year lifespan before they start slowing down. Unfortunately, projectors and Interactive Whiteboards are no different and an unattended projector can start losing its effectiveness after a couple of years. I believe that next year will see a dramatic rise in projectors breaking down. Companies around Ireland are already starting to offer “packages” to maintain equipment. For example, our sponsors, Liosdoire Computers, are offering services for projectors and they’re even offering trade-ins for projectors that it’s too late to save.
In order to minimise expenses like this, it is recommended that projectors are cleared from dust every so often and that filters are cleaned. The video here shows how to clean the most common projector in Irish classrooms – the Sanyo PLC-XL50, which is attached to most Promethean Interactive Whiteboards.
Not a SMART move
SMART, the company behind the Smartboard Interactive Whiteboard announced that their software “SMART Learning Suite” which includes the only program teachers probably ever used “Smart Notebook” can no longer be sold or used with other displays. While this probably isn’t going to affect that many Irish primary school teachers since we’ve moved way beyond Interactive Whiteboard software, … Read more