Independent School Educators' List (ISED-L): Re: Feedback on Polyvision eno boards?

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Re: Feedback on Polyvision eno boards?

Matt,

Whoops. Yes, the pens are Bluetooth. Not sure why I typed USB!

And yes, we have to manually pair them with our Macs as well.

We use Alkaline batteries. I'd be interested to hear how long your
rechargeable batteries last.

We don't give our faculty Bluetooth mice as a rule, but a couple of faculty
members have their own, and that's where we've realized that there is a
conflict with trying to pair both a mouse and a pen.

-Colin

------------------------------------
Colin Bridgewater
Middle School Technology Coordinator
The American School in London
One Waverley Place
London NW8 0NP
United Kingdom

On Fri, Dec 11, 2009 at 4:33 PM, Matt Pearson <Mpearson@mcds.org> wrote:

> Hi Colin,
>
> Thanks for this feedback. I am about to order three after having demoed
> one a bit. Our pen uses a AA battery...do you have a smaller version of =
the
> pen? I plan on using Eneloop rechargeable...do you use rechargeable or
> Alkaline? Also, did you mean Bluetooth and not USB? The pen we have is
> Bluetooth and on a Mac the auto pairing will not work and has to be manua=
lly
> done. Not as smooth as the auto pair. Do you have Bluetooth mice?
>
> Cheers,
> m
>
> *****************************
> Matt Pearson
> Director of Technology, Security and Safety
> Marin Country Day School
> 5221 Paradise Drive
> Corte Madera, CA 94925
> Phone: 415-927-5950
> Fax: 415-945-5150
> Email: mpearson@mcds.org
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: A forum for independent school educators [mailto:
> ISED-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU] On Behalf Of Colin Bridgewater
> Sent: Thursday, December 10, 2009 12:23 AM
> To: ISED-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
> Subject: Re: Feedback on Polyvision eno boards?
>
> Mitch,
>
> We've had three Eno boards in seventh grade English / social studies
> classrooms since August. It's still a bit early for a full evaluation of
> them, but here are some initial impressions:
>
> positives:
> =95 teachers can use regular white board markers on them as well as using
> them as interactive white boards - this has been especially great in a
> middle school environment. There is no worry about using the wrong marker=
on
> these boards, and it gives the teachers much more flexibility.
> =95 the board itself has no wires, so there is nothing that can go wrong =
with
> it. If anything breaks, it will be the pen, which is easily and quickly
> replaceable
>
> concerns:
> =95 everything relies on the USB pen - and it's sometimes fiddly to get i=
t to
> pair with a laptop the first time and doesn't seem to work if the laptop
> you're using also has a USB mouse connected.
> =95 because there is a camera in the USB pen, you do have to hold it fair=
ly
> perpendicular to the board so that the camera picks up what it's supposed=
to
> see
> =95 the pen uses a single AAA battery. One teacher has had to replace the
> battery every two weeks, while the other two teachers are averaging a
> battery a month.
> =95 we weren't impressed with the EasiTeach software which comes bundled =
with
> the Eno boards, so we purchased Smart board licenses to be able to use th=
e
> Smart Notebook package with our Eno boards. Our rep told us that Polyvisi=
on
> is working on their own branded software to go with the board, so we're
> hoping that will be something we can use down the line.
> =95 The latest Polyvision driver (1.8.5) caused part of our Smart softwar=
e to
> stop working, so we've had to uninstall and downgrade the driver.
>
> Let me know if you have any specific questions.
>
> What's the SmartBoard Notebook 10 software glitch? We (touch wood) haven'=
t
> seen that yet...
>
> -Colin
>
> -------------------------------------------
> Colin Bridgewater
> Middle School Technology Coordinator
> The American School in London
> One Waverley Place
> London NW8 0NP
> United Kingdom
> TEL: +44(0)20 7449 1442
> FAX: +44(0)20 7449 1357
> colin_bridgewater@asl.org
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Mitch Bostian" <mbostian@theberkeleyschool.org>
> To: ISED-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
> Sent: Wednesday, December 9, 2009 10:21:05 PM GMT +00:00 GMT Britain,
> Ireland, Portugal
> Subject: [ISED-L] Feedback on Polyvision eno boards?
>
> Hi, all --
>
> Can anyone offer some feedback about Polyvision's eno interactive
> whiteboard?
>
> I searched the ISED archive and found one related
> Promethean/SmartBoard/Polyvision thread from last spring -- points in tha=
t
> thread were well taken (about software, in particular -- as I'm currently
> watching our SmartBoard Notebook 10 software glitch up on fairly regular
> basis...), but didn't see very much about the Polyvision product itself.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Mitch
>
>
> *****************************
> Mitch Bostian
> Middle School Director
> The Berkeley School
> 1310 University Avenue
> Berkeley, CA 94702
>