Comments on: SmartBoards vs. Promethean…the research starts and maybe ends here

By: K.M.

K.M. — Tue, 27 May 2008 23:28:46 +0000

Clay - just to make sure you make a decision based on all of the info - there is a height-adjustable mount for wall mounted SMART Boards (with the projector attached) or just a height-adjustable floor stand if you are using a mobile one. If your ‘clincher’ is the ability to raise/lower the height, that is possible with both brands.

By: Clay Burell

Clay Burell — Tue, 27 May 2008 08:02:02 +0000

(Dana, from what I’ve researched, both work with Macs.

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By: Clay Burell

Clay Burell — Tue, 27 May 2008 08:00:39 +0000

Blast, I wanted to use my webcam to say I think I’m getting sold on Promethean. My iSight wouldn’t fire up when I allowed permission to my webcam. Anyway, thanks for tipping me toward Promethean. For me, one clincher is the ability to raise and lower the board with ease, since I plan on teaching (privately) primary kids EFL and HS kids academic subjects. Promethean wallmounted has a bracket that the unit slides up and down on. Sounds easier than stacks of phone books.

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By: Dana

Dana — Fri, 23 May 2008 16:21:20 +0000

Does anyone know how compatiable each type of board is with MAC computers?

By: James King

James King — Fri, 16 May 2008 16:32:18 +0000

Our school has both and the majority of us prefer the smart board. To respond to nick above, yes the pens do get lost, I’ve lost quite a few since we’ve had the boards, the bigger problem though is that I often put the pen in my pocket and wander off with it leaving the next teacher pen less. Happens at least once a week and is very infuriating. I’ve also left pens at home and had issues getting a spare pen to use. Although there are 4 pens on the smart board, it doesnt matter if they get lost since you can stick anything in the tray.

You could go on about numbers of resources but have you actually looked at them? Any content I have ever sampled from promethean site has been very poor. Although SMART have less I have found what I did get to be much higher quality. The numbers quoted here about how many members of the forum aren’t very useful if you actually look only about 1500 people have ever written more than 2 posts, and since the forum has been going for a lot longer than the smart one I’d say thats pretty poor, having said that I do think their forum is very useful as is the smart forum.

You’ll never get past the touch idea though, touch will always win this race in my opinion, it is what people gel with much more easily, the technology leaders of the world like microsoft and apple arent creating pen based solutions, its all about touch. If promethean made a touch board I’d probably be happy using it, although their software is harder to use and has lots of features that arent used much making it more complicated to navigate.