High tech

[ffutures]

Just glanced into one of the labs to see one of the science teachers using an interactive whiteboard (cost £800), AV projector (about £1100), installation (£500-ish), sound system (£150-ish) and computer (£400-ish) to simulate... a blackboard. Black background, white scrawled text, etc.

OK, yes, I know you can use it for other things, but it seemed very silly somehow.

Comments

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

They aren't actually in the catalogues I have, but assuming a big roller blackboard costs the same as a big roller whiteboard, about £320 for the board and £36.00 for installation. Not sure about the rigid type but I'd guess about 40-50 pounds per panel plus the fame and installation.

Did either of you ever come across the whiteboard that Ricoh (I think) used to make which incorporated a low-resolution scanner? You pushed a button and the surface rolled past a scanning surface and was printed out on fax paper. The whiteboard had a roll of white material that was four "boards" wide, and you could have one, two, or all four surfaces scanned to each sheet of paper. They never built them with a computer interface as far as I know. When I was selling 2nd hand computers we had a dozen or so as "end of line" manufacturer's stock which sold around the £800 mark, I think they originally cost about three grand.

[armb.livejournal.com]

The ones we have at work are only two "boards" wide. Hang on. Panasonic KX-B530.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

That looks a lot nicer than the ones I remember, but those were definitely four boards wide. I suspect that the Panasonic ones actually work properly, not sure that was true of the ones we were selling.

[ckd]

Yeah, I've seen one of those scanner/whiteboards. No idea how long it's been installed, though, or what it cost when they got it.