Get ready for the next Generation of IWB's

I won't rave on about this for too long as I accept that that SMART, Promethean and a few other players totally dominate the IWB market at the moment and are the products to have in your classroom.  However last week 2 new products hit the market adopting technology that I have banging on about for a while now that could potentially remove the need for expensive interactive boards in classrooms.

Epson's Brightlink (Looks to be the more refined of the 2) and the Boxlight Projectowrite are 2 products that completely remove the need for a board.  Obviously they need a surface to be projected upon but both work fine on a wall or best of all on a traditional white board at a fraction of the expense.

This cuts out the 2 biggest costs of an IWB being the Board itself and the installation expense.  Both systems utilise infra red technology that was uncovered by the invention of the Wiimote.  Essentially you require an infra red pen or pointer and the receptor is built in to the projector.  Both units are multi touch which instantly puts them miles ahead of their competitors at less than half the price at under $2000 for both units.

Be warned however there is little to no software to support these units and they basically interact with your OS as a mouse and pen.  I am a SMART board user and clearly the best thing about them is their interface and software to support learning.

Surely there are software companies in the wings creating multi platform IWB software that will turn this technology from a glorified mouse into a powerful teaching tool.  Microsoft, Apple & Adobe are you onto this???

Anyhow here is more information on this topic and I have included a couple of videos below that highlight the POTENTIAL of these projectors.  Remembering that POTENTIAL is a very big word.

Boxlight ProjectoWRITE Video - Gotta say it looks a little clunky thus far

Epson Brightlink Video - Great image but does'nt really show us it being used - no software yet??

Would love to hear your thoughts

Amazing Interactive Wiimote IWB - For anyone that missed it the first time

This will probably be nothing new to the majority of edgalaxy readers out there.  But it amazes me how many tech freaks totally missed this the first time and were amazed them self by what little known researcher Johnny Lee nutted out about Nintendo's Wiimote and it's capacity to do far more than play video games.

As is outlined by the videos below he produced a product that supassed a $5000 Interactive whiteboard for around $50.  I made one last year and it worked an absolute treat and I thought to myself at the time "this is end for Smartboards, Promethean and allthese other big plyers inthe IWB market".  We are heading towards 2010 and I still have not seen a mass produced wiimote IWB package that takes advantage of this technology and I am not entirely sure why this is so, whether it's Nintendo, the Big IWB companies or just plain laziness on the part of a nerdy entrepreneur to bring this product to our classrooms.

Anyhow, words cannot explain this below are a couple of movies that do.  Check out Johnny's site to see what else he has been up to late at night.  And I would love to hear you feedback, experiences and thought on the Wii IWB.