6:40 pm Smartboards
All the parts are in and I’ve had a little over a week to play with the system. I’m working on a detailed write up and video of everything I have learned so far, but it’s going to take me a while to polish the document and video. Until both are ready I thought I would share some of my initial impressions:
1) Interactive whiteboard are WAY TOO MUCH FUN.
2) Once you get the system down of pairing the remote, placing it in a secure location, and running the software, the whole process takes about 5 minutes and you only need to do it once per day.
3) Where you place the wiimote is important. The best place seems to be straight in front of the board, on the ceiling.
4) The boonjin SmoothBoard software works very well. I’ve played around with some of the deeper settings and so far it’s worked beautifully.
5) I tried pairing two wiimotes on different sides of the board (front-left and right). The advantage to this system is that if one wiimote’s view is blocked, the other can take over. This worked fine with the laptop with built in bluetooth, but there was a lag with the laptop where we were using an external USB blutetooth adapter.
6) The penteractive IR pens work like a charm. I think the batteries in a few of them were a little low upon delivery which resulted in poor performance — mainly jagged lines due to a dim bulb. Once I swapped in new batteries (each pen comes with an extra set), everything behaved properly.
7) The four main programs I’ve played around with so far are: Microsoft OneNote, Google Earth, Google Sketchup, and M2Screen Annotator. OneNote is the program I use with my tablet (IBM x61) every day in class. The program works well, but you have to write larger letters. The wiimote tracking reolution isn’t quite smooth enough for small letters. Google Earth is a BLAST to use with an interactive board. I love dragging terrain around and swinging the globe around while standing in front of class. I have only started using Google Sketchup and my immediate reaction has been — why the heck didn’t I start using this program sooner. It’s perfect for so many of the things teachers at STJA have been wanting to do. Being able to interact with the program with an interactive board is wicked. M2Screen annotator is a free program that lets you write on any screen. You can save what you’ve sketched or blank the screen with a single click. I’ve had fun with this program an Google Earth. I load a part of the town and then pretend I’m giving a lesson on possible changes to campus. This pretend lesson has meshed well with potential ways to use Sketchup: We could build downtown St. Johnsbury ;)
8) An IR pen with a pressure sensitive on/off switch that also has a button to turn on would be ideal. When you’re writing it takes a little while to get used to NOT pressing the button when you’re “picking up” the pen — i.e. not writing. Kinda annoying at first but not that bad once you get used to it. If there was a way to include actual pressure sensitivity (the harder you press, the brighter the signal?)… now THAT would be neat. (Example:pressing harder = thicker lines)
9) The Gorillapod tripods have worked out REALLY well. I put the stick on mounting bracket on the top of the wiimotes over the little speaker holes. That way I can take them off the tripods and they still fit into the Nyko charging station.
10) Everything seems to work fine if not better on my MacBook using the Wiimote Whiteboard software. I haven’t played around with it too much but the blue tooth pairing was smoother and everything worked fine.
11) In order to pair the wiimote to the computer, the wiimote needs to be in discovery mode, which is accomplished by pressing the 1 and 2 buttons at the same time. This needs to be done every time you turn on your computer which means you need physical access to where you are placing the wiimote. (You also need physical access if you’re using s charging station.) So…. this means that every morning I stand on a table to place the remote on my ceiling once it’s been paired.
12) It takes a bit of practice to point the wiimote directly at the center of the board, especially if you’re placing it on your ceiling. You can easily get it to cover the whole board by placing the wiimote far back from the board… and everything will work if you do that…. but the closer you are the better the tracking resolution. The closer you are, though, the harder it is to place the wiimote. With practice it does get easier.
13) To make the wiimote placement permanent you’d need to overcome to issues: pairing and power. It is possible to rewire the remote and add a plug adapater. You could then run the plug to an outlet. You’d then have to figure out a way to pair the remote remotely, which entails pressing the 1 and 2 buttons. I’d imagine there has got to be a good way to do this remotely. A page was online right here detailing how a school was wiring their own power and I think their own remote pairing system, but the page is down and I can’t find a cache of it anywhere.
14) As far as I can tell the only way to turn off a wiimote without a Wii system is to take out the battery and put it back in again. There’s probably a better way, but I haven’t found it yet.
K, that’s all for now. More soon.
You must be logged in to post a comment.