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10th September 10
Trail : home / Early Years Interactive Screen Project 2007-8

Early Years Interactive Screen Project 2007-8

This Project has been supported thoughout by the Children Sevices School Improvement Team of Cumbria County Council.

Background

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About five years ago I visited a school where large IWBs had been installed into every teaching area, including the nursery. The staff were provided with substantial wooden stepping blocks to enable the younger pupils to operate the IWB. I watched FS children using the IW board and observed:

  • They were required to be too close to the 'image' to be able to see the whole of the screen;
  • Their body blocked the relevant part of the image, but they could not easily move to a position which would reveal their working area because of the confines of the blocks;
  • When they concentrated on the task, they had to be accompanied by an adult to ensure their safety;
  • They could never reach the whole of the board from any one block level.

It was evident that this arrangement was ineffective and under certain conditions even dangerous. I decided to look for alternative methods of allowing pupils interactive access to this form of technology.

2005-7

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We had decided that an Interactive Plasma Board was a solution, but in 2002 the plasma board was prohibitively expensive and the overlay technology visually too poor, inaccurate and expensive to be viable. Prices fell in 2003 and 2004 but the options were still not viable. It wasn't until the BETT exhibition in 2005 that I found the solution. An interactive infra-red overlay, the first of its kind in Britain, on a 42" Panasonic Plasma Screen being demonstrated on the Integrex stand. The price was comparable to IWB installations in local schools so we bought it.

Seven Smart Interactive Plasma Boards were purchased through Matrix Displays, eight schools signed up for the project and the 8 interactive plasma boards were installed.

By the end of the year, we were amazed by the response of teachers, parents and pupils to the boards. We had made assumptions about what would happen, but most of our volunteers succeeded beyond expectations. Inevitably some styles of working were enhanced when using the boards and there were some things that didn't work at all.

 We embarked on the second year project schools in the late spring of 2006. At BETT 2006 I visited the U-Touch stand, makers of bespoke interactive overlays for industrial and commercial uses. We had very specific requirements and they were able to create two versions, infra-red and optical touch-sensative, to allow us to compare the two technical solutions with pupils, as it appears that the more obvious choice may not be the most child-friendly option.

By creating our own combination of elements with the help of Matrix Displays, we feel we have got a much ''better' final product then the previous year.