ViewSonic’s ViewBoard promotes increased wireless connectivity and collaboration in the classroom.
With schools working across multiple platforms and supporting student devices with various operating systems, ViewSonic’s product manager, Michael Zhang, tells Education Matters that it is common for teachers to want their interactive learning displays to support wireless casting to complement their whiteboarding functionality.
It was this drive to simplify things for educators that inspired ViewSonic to make its whiteboarding and vCast Software Suites on its ViewBoard Interactive Displays device agnostic and easy to use.
ViewSonic’s ViewBoard boast a myriad of features including a bright and sharp 4K display, 20 points of touch, excellent wired and wireless connectivity, eye-care technologies, powerful and clear speakers, a powerful internal processor powered by Android which drives PC-free operation and internet connectivity to name a few.
To add to the ViewBoard and its whiteboarding prowess, ViewSonic have designed the vCast wireless collaboration software to support all BYOD devices. vCast will facilitate wireless casting of multiple devices simultaneously with content displayed via a split screen.
“We want our whiteboard solutions to be simple and easy to use to encourage both teachers and students to utilise the classroom devices in an engaging and effective manner,” Zhang says.
“At ViewSonic we strongly believe that technology has a major role to play in enhancing the pedagogy. The wireless screen sharing allows for further interaction and engagement,” says Zhang. “It does this by supporting two-way sharing between the ViewBoard and student devices. It can also wirelessly show content on multiple ViewBoards, or other displays.”
Zhang reminisces that the idea of interactive displays first stemmed from digital projectors.
“We have come a long way since then with interactivity now embedded in LCD Flat Panels (like TV’s) that are bright and easy to maintain. No need to worry about calibrating or changing lamps.”
Zhang explains.
“We also wanted to make sure that while connectivity and collaboration are important, we provided an impressive digital whiteboard application that can help support teachers in developing, presenting and improving their lesson plans and templates.”
ViewBoard is designed for school environments, and can be readily connected to school networks. They are flexible enough to be deployed in a variety of classroom settings, such as on motorised height adjustable wall mounts or mobile trollies to support group learning. They also require little to no maintenance over their life-span, so teachers don’t need to worry about their classroom being out of action.
Teachers today can walk up to the ViewBoard, import all of their content needed for the lesson and begin teaching without delay or fuss. Classrooms that adopt “team teaching” have more than one interactive display which can show the same content via vCast.
There is a growing trend for additional displays in classrooms, and the vCast application allows students and teachers alike to share content and presentations over multiple displays.
For schools with multiple ViewBoard displays, remote management is easily supported via the ViewSonic vController software.
Following a year of disruption in the classroom, Zhang says that the experience of remote teaching is like a preview of what classrooms will be like in the future.
“We have to ensure the technology going into classrooms supports the varying styles of lesson delivery that could be required at any point in the future,” Zhang highlights.
“This means ensuring that classrooms can support collaboration with students within the physical classroom, students joining the classroom virtually, and a hybrid of both. And all the while, we need to provide an equitable experience for all students. I think technology is the perfect platform to enable this to happen. Now teachers have the technology to deliver a lesson via video whether remotely or in a classroom. This also bridges a lot of challenges students face in a physical classroom,” Zhang says.
“Of course, there are other key areas outside of technology that need to be addressed, such as: on-going training, support and upgrading of infrastructure to ensure that classroom technology can be utilised confidently and to its full potential.”
To support those in the education sector adopting new technologies, Zhang says ViewSonic is committed to making its products user friendly and ready for the changing landscapes within today’s classrooms.