Saturday, March 17, 2012

TeamBoard and Elluminate Live

One of my colleagues a few days ago posed this question... How would Elluminate Live work on a TeamBoard? Good question! One that needed further investigation.

To back it up for a minute, I have been using Mimio Teach with Elluminate Live for the last two years. I decided on it after testing it against Smart. I found the latency with the Smart pen and touch just impossible to overcome. The same latency was not apparent when I used Mimio Teach. The Mimio Teach worked so well in fact that I have two other colleagues that use this technology in their online teaching... to stand up and avoid bad ergonomics.

But, being the technology geek that I am, I viewed the TeamBoard question as a challenge, one I just had to test out.

The TeamBoard that I tested Elluminate Live on was one that has what I believe is called variable resistive technology. Basically different pressures draw different thickness in lines and writing. When I pressed hard on the board and did not lift my finger off the board, the writing seemed okay and the latency in writing was not too bad. However when I lifted my finger off the board to write something in math like 3x, the writing became illegible. Moreover if I changed the resistance to the touch, essentially presses lighter, there were gaps in the writing in Elluminate Live.

So, to answer my colleagues question, would Elluminate Live work on a TeamBoard? The answer I have is, from my testing, not well.

For me, I will be quite happy using my Mimio Teach to remain standing while teaching virtually. Again I have to thank Graham Pilon for introducing me to Mimio.

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