Need help choosing classroom technology?

By Katrina Spiller,

National Business Manager, Integrate AV

Interactive flat panels (IFPs) are one of the core technologies of the modern classroom and it is fair to say this revolutionary technology manages to replace the old smartboard and projector technologies from today’s classrooms.

All new schools have an IFP for learning spaces and existing schools are also not too far behind, adopting IFPs at an extremely fast rate.

Many education departments across Australia are heavily involved in classroom digital transformations. They are making significant investments into school technology budgets to fast track the technology gap between new and existing schools. The NSW Department of Education is currently making efforts to close the technology gap between metro and rural, regional, and remote schools by providing a digital uplift to more than 1000 schools across the state. Given the importance of IFPs in the future classroom, it is important to understand what an IFP is and how you would go about deciding on an IFP solution for your classroom.

IFP is an acronym for interactive flat panels, which are touch technologies. The IFP is an LED or LCD panel that allows users to touch, interact, collaborate, cast, brainstorm and annotate the content displayed from one or multiple sources. In short, it operates like a giant android or windows tablet and can be used as your imagination sees fit. There are many brands of IFPs in the market today and it is quite easy to get confused as to the best solution. Some brands fit the budget but do not meet the specifications required. Others have the technical specifications but do not have local support. When deciding to purchase an IFP, you need to pay attention to the total package being offered. You will quite often find when comparing brands, you are not comparing apples with apples.

There are a limited number of physical panel manufacturers in the world, so the underlying display technologies for many of the manufacturers is actually the same. To help you in your purchasing decision, here is a checklist for comparing IFP solutions: • What operating systems do they support? Your IFP solution should support MAC, Windows, iOS, Google, and Chrome. • What soft ware is being off ered? Soft ware off erings vary dramatically. At a minimum, you should get annotation soft ware but you should look for more than this. What education content is available and do they have any free resources to download?

• Are there any ongoing soft ware costs? This is an important one to understand as you will need to pay year aft er year to continue to use the soft ware.

• Do they support BYOD/ classroom collaboration? Bring Your Own Device initiatives encourage people to bring their own tablet or laptop to interact with the IFP.

• Is the IFP a commercial grade LCD? It needs to be. • What is the warranty? You should be looking at onsite servicing for a minimum of three years (regardless of the location). Most manufacturers are providing a fi ve-year onsite warranty currently, with some even off ering seven years onsite. • Is there training/ professional development available? Once an IFP is installed, you want teachers to make use of the technology. Having training and professional development available aft er the purchase is paramount to a successful deployment of IFPs. • Price. The budget will be biggest driving factor when purchasing an IFP. When you compare the above, you will get a good idea of the overall value of the package.

Image courtesy of BenQ

Choosing the size of an IFP depends on a variety of factors but when talking about IFPs, bigger is defi nitely bett er. Replacing an older smartboard or projector/screen with an IFP usually means the size will be smaller; sacrifi cing size while gaining more information on the screen. Most of the projectors used with the older smartboards or screens were 1024 x 768 resolution, whereas the majority of IFPs are 4K so you are gett ing four times the resolution and four times the number of pixels than your older device. The IFP will also look brighter and have a much higher contrast ratio than a projector, which means it is easier to see a smaller IFP from the back of the room. The most common size being installed in learning spaces today is 75”. One of the leading and established brands in the market is BenQ. BenQ has heavily invested resources in classroom technology and off ers apps including wireless casting, cloud whiteboarding, ability to log into personal cloud drives. These apps are available straight out of the box. There are no hidden or ongoing costs aft er purchase. Being a global brand, BenQ off ers diff erent models and sizes of IFPs which fi t into everyone’s budget. They off er onsite warranties no matt er where you are in Australia. They also have locally based technical teams to assist with any support required.

BenQ has partnered with many third-party soft ware and integration companies to provide a complete education solution, so teachers have fl exibility to use whatever they want and however they want to. Some of these companies include Extron, Crestron, ViVi, Kahoot, Seesaw, NutiQ Snowfl ake, Clickview, Team Viewer, and Google for Education. are equipped with a germ resistant/anti-microbial coating, antiglare layers, fl icker free screen technology and low blue light sensors. All screens are 4K with 20 points of touch. BenQ screens are made to handshake with all the major operating systems including MAC, iOS, Google, Windows and Chrome so integration with your BYOD is at your fi ngertips with no calibration required.

Integrate AV has partnered with BenQ for close to 10 years and has a dedicated education team who can assist you with an IFP solution for your school. Integrate AV is a supplier on contract under the NSW Department of Education Multimedia Solutions State Contract, QLD Department of Education Standing Off er Arrangement QEDSOA-71789 and the Tasmanian Information and Communication Hardware C150 contract.