Posts made in January 13th, 2009

Word Wall

Posted on Jan 13, 2009 in Software | 0 comments

One of the products that caught my eye at the ASE conference this weekend was something called Word Wall.

Word Wall is, in essence, a piece of presentation software for an interactive whiteboard. It allows you to make flipcharts like you would in Smart Notebook. It would be ideal for users of other IWB’s such as Hitachi/Interwrite boards where the software that comes bundled with the boards is not as user friendly as the software that Smart or Promethean users gets.

The first interesting bit is that Word Wall comes with a big bank of interactive buttons and activities that make it quite easy to add fun activities for lesson starters or plenaries. These integrate really easily with the “CleverClick” voting handsets that Word Wall also sell. These handsets have a small screen and allow you to text in answers as well as simply voting a, b, c, d. They even use predictive text!

The second interesting bit is that, when you save a flipchart that you have made you get the option to share it. This means that, if you have an internet connection, a copy of your file gets added to a central online library of flipcharts. These files are then accessible to any other Word Wall user. This is a very neat idea that should mean that pretty quickly there will be a large bank of user-created content that teachers can share and download. I wonder if Smart or Promethean have seen this yet?

If you don’t have a Smart or Promethean board and are in the market for a piece of software to get the best from your board (or just from your projector) then Word Wall may be something to take a look at. The handsets are also quite fun, and add a little more than just voting on answers.

If you are going to the BETT exhibition, Word Wall will be demonstrating their software and clickers at the show. Failing that you can order an evaluation copy from their website: http://wordwallweb.com

ActivSoftware Inspire edition

Posted on Jan 13, 2009 in Interactive Whiteboards, Promethean | 0 comments

Promethean users might be interested to know that from tomorrow (Wed 14th) you can download a preview version of the new ActivSoftware Inspire edition. This will eventually replace both ActivStudio and ActivPrimary and will be available for Mac, Windows and now Linux computers.

Available exclusively to Promethean Planet members, the tailored preview specifically invites feedback, offering you the opportunity to help develop the final version.

Activsoftware Inspire Edition will be offered in two editions – Activsoftware Inspire Personal and Activsoftware Inspire Professional. The personal version will be available for free to everyone, including teachers, students and parents via download from Planet.

Existing users of Promethean’s Activstudio and Activprimary software can upgrade to the Professional edition and download the software from Planet at no extra cost. New customers will be able to purchase this full version for a promotional fee of £99/€99/$99.

Activsoftware Inspire Edition comes loaded with new tools, flipchart page templates and activities, and can be upgraded to support dual pen functionality, allowing two students to use the Activboard at the same time for true, real-time collaboration.

Please note that the preview version automatically expires on March 1, 2009 so you have about 6 weeks to play with it. The commercial release of the software will take place later in March.

You need to be a promethean planet member to access it. To find out more, go here.

Whiteboard Survey

Posted on Jan 13, 2009 in Interactive Whiteboards | 1 comment

I’m interested to know what brands of boards my readers are using. How many of you use Smart, how many Promethean and how many of you are using other systems. I’ve set up a quick PollDaddy poll to find this out.

Could you please take a minute to make your selection from the options below.