Clevertouch smart screens or similar

[bubbakin]

Anyone got one & if so how do you rate it? We've got interactive whiteboards with active inspire & OHP. Also have a smart board that's probably been out of action more often than working due to technical issues!! So thinking of upgrading & just after reviews! Is there anything on these smart screens that you can't do but could with interactive WB? Thank you

[Stargirl82]

Following! We are converting from lower to primary, and I need to purchase a new iwb for our new classroom. We have promethean and activ inspire too.

[BlackCatSmushyFace]

We have the clever touch boards. They are horrible. I never use them interactively. We have touch screen tablets that doc to keyboards. They are much more useful. The software is rubbish. You can't (to the best of the support teams knowledge) convert any of your flipcharts over to clever touch nor smart so anything you have will be rendered useless.
I hate them.

[bubbakin]

I'm assuming if you have a slideshow in PowerPoint that would work playing from pc? Or have I misunderstood what these clevertouch screens are???? Can they not be used to transmit what's on your pc to the screen & then used interactively?? Thank you

[BlackCatSmushyFace]

We connect wirelessly with wepresent software. Yes you can use PowerPoint or any other software you have. It will all display. It's the interactivity that is very poor. Writing on it is pretty much impossible. Even scrolling down or using the "next page" buttons on the presentation only work intermittently. As large TV screens they are great but as interactive tools they just don't live up to either smart, promethean or star boards that I have used in the past. I am happy to acknowledge this may be because of the computers we use to drive the board but I doubt it.

[bubbakin]

Thank you blackcat!

[GreyVelvet]

I've used clever touch and smart boards. I much much prefer smart boards. Better in every way unless you basically just want to do a presentation in which case you may as well just have a tv

[LockedOutOfMN]

I don't know what my board is. I do not recommend it one iota. It's massive and basically only works as an overhead projector (i.e. project slides onto the board or a video clip with the speakers - I teach secondary English so often listen to recordings of poems being read aloud and sometimes watch scenes from plays we're studying). The interactivity doesn't work at all; I can't write on it with the interactive pen as it freezes after about 3 letters and then makes the desktop computer crash.

Also it claims to be overheating all the time by displaying a large yellow warning notice across 1/4 of the screen which distracts all of the students but IT Support tell me the signal is broken and it's not overheating at all (it's been two years and it hasn't melted or exploded...yet. My classroom is about the same temperature as the surface of the Sun, though).

Because it's so enormous, when the students enter the - tiny -
classroom someone always manages to brush against it and that then sends the mouse attached to the desktop computer crazy for 10 minutes and requires a forced restart of the desktop. Plus it's so massive that no one behind the front row of the room can see the bottom 1/3 of the board and so students have to stand up all the time to see it.

Oh, and all of the remote controls have been stolen so we have to climb onto a chair to switch it on manually on the side of the ceiling projector, and have none of the nice functions like "freeze" that the remote control would enable.

I would rather have one of the old fashioned boards that you could project onto but also write on with a normal whiteboard pen.

Sorry for sounding so grouchy.

[cricketballs]

We have one - the only good thing about it is that you can alter the height small people problems!

The interactivity is terrible, very difficult to write on if you have a part of your hand that also touches. It's background noise is also loud even when muted. Give me my prometheon (sp) anyday

[BlackCatSmushyFace]

Omg. How did i forget the humming of the speakers?? I spent far too long thinking j was either developing tinnitus or going slowly mad. The low level hun of powered speakers... just loud enough for me to hear at the front but notnloud enough for anyone else! It has to be on mute at all times but evenly time u turn it on it resets to "just audible hum" . Argh!!!!

[bubbakin]

Gosh not a lot going for them!! Explains why a class I saw with one in had a good old fashioned flip chart at the side!! They do say the running costs are considerably lower than OHP & smart board but then if the screen doesn't do the job you want it to then cost is irrelevant!! Thanks all x

[GreyVelvet]

That would be why my last school had them, budget, but they didn't think about the impact on its actual use... it was just never used.

[WombatStewForTea]

I'm not sure what mine is but it's basically an interactive TV. I hate it I'd give my right arm to have my promethian board back.

[CandODad]

Make sure you can change the height of it. I used one in a school that had a motorised height control and it was a god send. I have an interactive smart board in my room at the moment which is great but I can only use the top half due to it being rather low.

[SheStoodInTheStorm]

I think we had active inspire boards that all got changed to clever touch....they are useless. Barely interactive, if the children come up to touch something it never works so I have to do it from the computer. Writing on it is awful. Don't do it!!