Comments on: PolyVision ēno whiteboards: A great alternative to the SMART Board

By: Dave Kootman

Dave Kootman — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 16:45:11 +0000

Just to clarify on IWBuser’s post, Inspire can be used on any IWB brand. One of the versions is even free, which Walsh mentions in another post. You can write on many brands of IWB with dry erase markers, but it is not always recommended, as some brands, such as Promethean have an anti-glare coating. If you keep rubbing it over time, the coating can come off. The coating is meant to decrease the “hotspots” that appear from the LCD protector light. You may want to look into and see if you find certain products to have high glare or hotspots.
Disclosure: I work for Promethean.

By: Next steps in considering Interactive Whiteboards for our (Higher Ed) classrooms | Emerging Internet Technologies for Education

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 14:21:05 +0000

[...] Version” mode if you don’t actually own an ActiveBoard from Promethean (see this post to learn more about the Promothean product line). I’ve started working with it, and [...]

By: uberVU - social comments

uberVU - social comments — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 19:25:30 +0000

Social comments and analytics for this post…

This post was mentioned on Twitter by EmergingEdTech: PolyVision eno whiteboards, solid alternative to SMART Boards, this week’s main post @EmergingEdTech: http://bit.ly/9raOd...

By: IWB User

IWB User — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:10:15 +0000

@KWalsh – I have seen the Sharpie thing done on SMART Boards, on Egan Teamboards (another touch one like SMART), etc.

my URL isn’t active yet… sorry, posted it too soon. I’ll share when I have it up and running – your posts are good content for the site in development.

By: Promethean’s Interactive Whiteboard and related instructional products | Emerging Internet Technologies for Education

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 20:44:12 +0000

[...] Steps So far in this series we’ve learned about SMART Boards online, reviewed a demonstration of the PolyVision ēno offering, and examined Promethean’s offerings. Our next steps will include: tryout [...]

By: K. Walsh

K. Walsh — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:28:26 +0000

Thanks for your informed feedback “iwbuser”! I was not really clear on the ability of other whiteboards to use other app’s applications. I should, however, clarify that the rep who presented to us made it quite clear that other apps would need to be licensed – they were not encouraging pirating by any means. As for the Sharpie thing, yes, I realize this can be done on some other whiteboards, but again, not on the touch-sensitive technology boards that are out there. I agree that displacing these pens can be costly.

As for getting excited about this technology – I won’t deny it. I think a lot of schools have spent more than they need to for technology that is not as flexible as the approach PolyVision and some others use, which have writable surfaces, have no electronics built into the board, and so on. I am still adamant about the importance of understanding the differences between these offerings.

By the way, what is “http://iwbuser.com”? The URL shows as invalid (even if the ‘www’ is added).

By: IWB User

IWB User — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 19:25:51 +0000

All IWBs can use any software – that is not unique to Polyvision Eno. What is funny is that you state how you can use SMART Notebook with it – but that goes against the EULA for Notebook, as it would with ActivInspire and others – you can use them anywhere, but you have to pay for them with other IWBs. If Polyvision rep was saying to just use SMART Notebook, then he was encouraging you to pirate software.

Writeable surface – that sharpie and then write over it with another marker where the alcohol breaks it down and wipes away can be done on all IWBs – i’ve seen everyone do that, especially when they are just letting the sharpie sit for only a few seconds on the surface. Promethean, SMART, etc – all their surfaces can handle that same ‘trick’

There is nothing to break on the board – but there is an expensive pen to break, lose, etc. SMART the pens aren’t ‘real’ so lose em and just use something else (plus many students prefer the visual cues of picking up a color and writing in that color as opposed to having to click for colors). Promethean has a pen, but they are cheap to replace. Lose your Polyvision pen and you are out of luck for interactivity until you buy another $200+ pen That’ll add up real quick and blow that TCO out of the water…

Sounds like you got enthusiastic about a sales pitch where competitive items where presented that really have little relevance to the instructional usage and benefits.