From classrooms at all level of schools and colleges to corporate board rooms to sports coaching centers as well as studios too, interactive whiteboard industry has developed enormously with sales of US $1 billion worldwide by 2008. An interactive whiteboard known as IWB is an interactive display board mounted on a wall or a stand, connecting to a computer and a projector. The use of the projector is to display the computer’s desktop on the board’s surface where you can use pen or fingers to control the computer on the board itself.
For general operation of the Interactive Whiteboard, the Software is required onto the computer which permits the Interactive Whiteboard to be exercised as a HID or Human Input Device. The image from your personal computer is projected on the whiteboard from a Digital Projector which is connected to video output of the host computer. You can adjust the system i.e. aligning the pointer, activate programs, menus, input text by invoking an On-Screen Keyboard and even use handwriting recognition, in the same way as you use mouse. These options in an interactive whiteboard elude the requirement of computer every time making the whole teaching process very trouble-free.
Commonly, an Interactive whiteboard uses the Digital Pen or Stylus which is electromagnetic, your finger or any other token pen for interaction between the user and the matter that is projected. The interactive whiteboards ranges from $32.99 to $1,648.99 as per the type of technology used. The major categories of interactive whiteboard which are the most in demand in the world market in recent days are:-
1) RESISTIVE TOUCH BASED IWB – this is the most widely used interaction system in interactive whiteboards. A membrane on the surface gets deformed with pressure and makes contact with the Conducting Back-plate. The point of touch is analyzed electronically and is recorded as a mouse click. The different pointers used are a stick or a pointer or a stylus.
2) ELECTROMAGNET PEN BASED IWB – the tip movement of the Stylus tip is used for determination of the (X, Y) to coordinate on this whiteboard. When the pen is near the whiteboard, the mouse pointer tracks it. This interaction ensures usual pen action that functions well even if you lean on the whiteboard during writing. This also has an advantage of in-built capability to capture multiple inputs through multiple pens.
3) IR PEN-BASED IWB – this ultrasonic and portable, Interactive Whiteboard based on IR pen, uses a device or a bar to scan an area of 3m to 1.5m hence giving a 110″ space of whiteboard. It also has a special feature of addition of brackets for information to be shared in different rooms.
4) WIIMOTE OR IR BASED IWB – in this mode a Wii Remote as well as the Infrared (IR) camera is used to track IR light, generated by IR light pen. It is the most portable and reliable than other IWBs. The only disadvantage is that it is not available with large stock of learning software.
5) VIRTUAL WHITEBOARD- it is an apt alternative to any other IWB as it turns surfaces into virtual whiteboards. It detects the position of an active IR Light Pen as it comes in contact with the surface of the image giving all the advantages of a physical Whiteboard.
AUTOPOST by BEDEWY VISIT GAHZLY
