Wide Screen Tablet

With so many projectors and monitors using the widescreen format, I can’t quite figure out why most tablets are still stuck in the traditional 4:3 format? Hitachi breaks the mold with its StarBoard T-19W Interactive Display. Its 19-inch touch screen is perfect for writing, drawing and scribbling anything from an organic chemical molecule to stanzas of a poem. The screen has a wireless pen and whatever is on the T-19W gets projected onto a screen for the whole class to see. At 12-pounds it’s too heavy for roaming around the class but is great for a teacher podium up front.

FRIDAY FREEBEE: Worksheet Central

Are your school’s worksheets looking like they’ve been photocopied within an inch of their lives and are barely readable, much less usable? SchoolExpress has a collection of 14,000 classroom worksheets available for download for free. The sheets are categorized by age and class and come with answer keys. Just download and print or put on the screen. A big bonus is that the site lets teachers make professional looking quizzes and tests. On the downside, it takes five or six clicks to get to the right worksheets and the site has annoying ads on it, a small price to pay.

Type and Go

Even the smallest and lightest notebook is still a chore to carry around the classroom to give students the personal attention they need, but a wireless keyboard and projector or big screen monitor can let a teacher roam and stay connected. Adesso’s WKB-3100 keyboard combines a full set of character and Function keys with a 0.7-inch optical trackball and 2.4GHz transmitter. With a range of 30-feet, the WKB-3100 has thousands of different settings so that adjacent keyboards don’t interfere with each other. It requires a pair of AA batteries and costs $80.
 

All Together, Now

Space is so tight at most schools that they can’t consider getting traditional desktop PCs. Enter the latest round of all-in-one computers that combine everything from the processor, RAM and optical drive to graphics electronics and screen into a svelte package that is often only slightly larger than a monitor. Because they have control over every component, all-in-one PCs can cut costs and power use as well as space, making them must-haves for the classroom.

Based on an 18.5-inch display, Viewsonic’s VPC100 is thoroughly up to date and its Atom processor can handle most classroom or library activities, from Web research to word processing. It comes with 1GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive and a Super Multi DVD drive that can work with a wide variety of discs, although not Blu Ray ones. On top of wired networking, the VPC100 includes wireless WiFi and Bluetooth so that it can connect with a slew of accessories. The PC costs $600 and consumes about 60 watts when being used, or about half that of a traditional desktop computer.  

Forget about what a desktop PC costs, because an inexpensive system can cost hundreds of dollars a year in electricity bills. Tangent’s VITA LT is an all-in-one PC with an 18.5-inch display that is small and uses only 24 watts, or about one quarter the typical desktop PC. On top of a built-in Web cam and networking, the VITA LT includes a flash card reader and DVD drive. Available in white or black, pricing for schools starts at $1,000.

The Interactive Board that Speaks to the Class

Interactive boards are a great way engage the entire class in an impromptu lesson but most lack the ability to amplify sound so you’re stuck with the projector’s crappy speaker. Panasonic’s UB-T781 Interactive Elite Electronic White Board does that one better with a set of integrated speakers for either the audio material of the lesson or a teacher’s microphone. That way, everyone can not only see what’s going but hear as well. The 77-inch board has a USB hub as well as RM Eastitech software.

Squeaky Clean Classroom

Who hasn’t worried that all the harsh chemicals used to clean classrooms could actually be hurting children, teachers and janitors. Activeion has a different approach that might actually clean a school better by using nothing more than ionically charged tap water. The sprayer creates negatively charged nanoparticles that are able to break up dirt and grime, leaving just about any surface clean. Just squirt and wipe dry. There’s a video that shows how it works and the system is endorsed by Healthy Child Healthy World While the sprayer costs a hefty $300, think of all the drums of cleaning chemical you won’t have to buy.

FRIDAY FREEBEE: Lincoln’s Birthday

If you’re looking to bring Abraham Lincoln’s life into perspective on the 200-th anniversary of his birth, a series of videos, slide shows, essays and original documents at the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History is enough to build several class lesson plans around. On top of commentary by historians, like James McPherson and Sean Wilentz, there’s a series of podcasts on the 16-th president.

 

FRIDAY FREEBEE: Seek, and Ye Shall Find

What’s worse than sifting through the millions of Web sites with Google or other search engine in front of the class only to forget what you’re looking for or lose your way and have to start over. TigerLogic’s Yolink is a great way to stay on track with Web searches. The best part is that it divides the screen in two panes with the main site on the left and highlighted search hits on the right. Start by typing in your search term in the YoLink toolbar. At any time, you can save the results and share them with the class. It’s a free Internet Explorer add on that’s a 9MB download. The interface is thankfully free of ads at the moment, but the company plans to use them as a way to pay for the software and service in the future.

FRIDAY FREEBEE: Let There Be Light

Need some cash to upgrade your school’s lighting equipment because your electricity bills are out of control? The top prize of Lutron’s Greenovation Bright Green Dream contest can provide $15,000 for renovating your school. Just have your students imagine how to cut your school’s electricity use and carbon footprint while enhancing the learning environment. The submission can be on paper or digital, and the deadline is October 12, 2009. Any questions? Try the Q&A about the contest.
 
 

Robot Parade

Is it better to teach programming with a teacher showing how to write code or to have students create their own programs that control a bunch of robots? The latter is how Flowol 3 by Keep I.T. Easy works. The software shows students how to create useful and complicated applications by moving around flow chart items that connect to a variety of circuit boards and robots. The action is previewed on the interface’s main screen so the kids can see what will happen when they change a single item. The software works with PCs and Macs, costs $95 for a single use license and the hardware (which is sold by Kelvin) adds about $180.