Wormbog

It turned out to be a very busy end to the summer and start of the new school.  We are back in school now and I am trying to get back in the habit of posting.  I continued my hunt for the best IWB solution over the summer and came to the point of purchasing 2 for our school that we are still waiting to get delivered.  I will let you know what direction we took in the next post.

The first product we were able to demo in house was the PolyVision Eno Click.  The eno was delivered by a PolyVision sales rep who went above and beyond in coming to our school to setup the demo and spending the afternoon helping me understand how to use the hardware.  He also spent a great deal of time talking about the different software options such as RM Easiteach and Wiz Teach.

The eno click is very easy to install and setup.  The board has large magnets in each corner and can be installed without any tools over a magnetic whiteboard.  There is no wiring needed to setup the board.  The pen connects with the host computer via bluetooth.  It took us about 5 minutes to get the pen to sync with OS X.  I had download the software and drivers from the PolyVision site prior to the setup so once we got bluetooth working we were able to get right to work.  The calibration of the board took another minute and we were ready to go. Another big positive of the board is that it is designed to be written on with standard dry erase makers and can be used just like a regular white board.

If you stopped here with the review you would think I was ready to go out and purchase these for every classroom in the school.  We did not do that, for a couple of reasons.  The biggest issue with the board was writing on it with the interactive pen.  It just did not feel natural and even after using it for a week and did not feel any better about it.  I do not see that it is a great tool for writing on the board.  The other big issue was that teachers would still have to have their backs turned to students to work with the board.  We also tested the eno mini slate but I found that to be very difficult to use because you can see what you are writing on.  Another issue for me was the requirement of the pen.  I have grown found of the touch response of the iPad and want an IWB that gives us similar functionality.

I do not see the PolyVision Eno Click as a bad product.  It does what it was designed to do well.  In a high school classroom I do not see the educational benefit of the eno.