Whiteboard, smartboard and beyond the obvious enabling new learning and working styles

I was triggered to blog about this because I read a post from Alex Vermeule, a former Colleague at Microsoft where he pointed at the Free Internet Whiteboard

So far most digital whiteboards do come with some proprietary software and are pretty limited in terms of:

• Sharing (locally and accross the internet)
• Manageability
• Collaboration
• Useability

So there are easier solutions, specially now the multitouch overlays are becoming mainstream and thus affordable. Instead of having a traditional setup with a whiteboard and a projector (so you are allways standing in the beam, that's why I dislike them most I guess) you can also take a 50 or perhaps even 60 inch LCD panel with touch (multi or single, however multi would increase the useability) overlay. If this is not big enough you can even take a full wall with a touch panel (this is expensive and custom made) on a rear projection wall (takes some space). That gives the ultimate flexibility

The great thing of taking a LCD panel is resolution per euro (so you can have a relative cheap HD panel) and the backlit so you never stand in the beam again. Also the system can be managed easily when using it as a monitor from a pc (which you need anyway)

Then just use onenote as your whiteboard tool. This is easy to use and extremely flexible. You get:

• Handwriting recognition
• Share accross the internet or local network via mail
• Direct sharing with the participants so anyone can write at the same time
• Easy search through all notes taken and tagging items
• Copy/past functionality as in all other windows apps
• Easy to share with other classrooms as well
• Use of templates
• Use of multiple notebooks
• Integrated audio/video recording (for recording sesions) with the option to search and listen/view back specific parts

This will provide you with much more flexibility and in general for lower costs. Again if you use a HD panel with a multitouch overlay you can have some nice multitouch applications available but even more important all other applications will run in HD as well (like video) and you can use it for regular presentations made in eg powerpoint of videoconferencing

Also since it can be shared for live collaboration within a meeting/class room but also over the internet if fits much better in the new world of work and in new classroom concepts, distance learning etc (and students can easily add their own notes to the shared notebook as well as view/listen back recorded classroom sessions)

One alternative solution (low-end and free) is

Chris Live Tech Support Video Help Add to iTunes

This is not a mature product and I would not reccomend this in classroom sessions or business meetings however there are still some nice areas of use (like an interactive wall accross different facilities within a company so people can express thmeselves in a nice way)

What you give up compared to most traditional systems (like the ones from smart technologies)

1. Automatic discovery which pencil you take (the color) or the cleaner
2. ..................?

So how bad is this. Perhaps bad for a few old fashioned teachers reluctant to change but if you sometimes want to use your finger to write, or just have a simple pencil (stylus) you can just select the role on the screen with software. So no need for different pencils for different roles, Just one and assign any role you like to this (this gives much more flexibility since there are many more roles than the standard predefined from a smartboard)

What do you gain

Well this list is much longer

• Flexibility (you can easily use it for much more)
• Scaleability
• Collaboration options
• Sharing options
• Manageability
• More cost effective

The great thing is at last you see for example smart already offering an LCD based solution however there are still too many limitations in my opinion compared to other systems