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.
The Demise of the iPad?
There was an interesting article in the Irish Independent regarding American schools’ adaption of technology. It appears that Chromebooks are being used in more schools than iPads. Chromebooks are laptops that run Google’s own operating system, Chrome, which is basically an Internet Browser and you require an Internet connection to get much use out of … Read more
I took a visit to PC World today as I was in Liffey Valley and it looks like there’s going to be some fun and games with cheap ultra mini laptops. Pictured here is a mini laptop from a company called Asus. The screen is only 10 inches and it runs its own Linux operating system. It also has a 2 or 4GB hard drive, which isn’t very much. The cool thing about these laptops though is their size and cheapness. You can’t run any Windows software on them (well, technically you can but they would work way too slowly) but nowadays you can get good stuff for free on the web. This model (2GB) costs €269 whereas the 4GB model would set you back €299.