Education Week - June 14, 2017 - 15

connect to the display through GoogleCast, sending what's displayed on their screens onto the TV
display.
"When teachers see this technology, it basically
changes their view on how kids can share and collaborate in the classroom," said Moore. "The teaching dynamic starts to change."
Although the TVs can have a higher upfront price
than projectors, Moore figures that the long-term
maintenance will be less. "If you buy a quality TV,
they have a long life," he said. "And you don't have
to replace bulbs."
While 70-inch TVs can be $1,000 or less, prices
rise quickly after that. Currently, 90-inch models
can be $5,000 or more. For comparison, Epson's
projectors, for example, can range in price from
$300 or so for a portable one to $2,400 for an interactive version, Meyer said.
However, Moore's approach is not so easy if the
flat-panel TV uses a different operating system, is
on the school's wired-versus wireless-network, or
the school hasn't standardized on a specific brand of
laptop such as a Chromebook.
Donna Williamson, the technology director for
the Mountain Brook schools in Birmingham, Ala.,
has looked into flat-screen TVs but needs a display
that is "software-driven and hardware-agnostic."
GoogleCast won't work for her schools because the
district has a mix of devices, including iPads, Windows laptops, and Chromebooks.
"You have to be able to accommodate whatever
walks into your room," she said. In addition, she's not
convinced that a 70-inch display is large enough for
students in the upper grades to see from the back of
the room. "With projectors, you can get a 102-inch
diagonal display, so everyone has a good view," she said.
Those are points that Epson's Meyer likes to
emphasize.
"There's nothing that competes with the kind of
image sizes we can do," he said. "We can produce up
to a 300-inch image from a $400 projector in a very
small package. That can be important in a classroom
where students sit 25 feet away."
Connectivity can also be an issue, whether it's a
projector or a TV, Williamson said. Sometimes, the
display needs a connection to the wired network,
but the mobile devices are on a different, wireless
network. "Being able to connect the classroom devices to the screen in a way that is easy, controlled,
wireless, and hardware-agnostic is a feature that is
second only to size," she said.
In many ways, educators said, classroom projectors have become more like interactive whiteboards.
Julie D. Judd, the chief technology officer for the
Ventura Unified district in California, has installed
Hitachi interactive short-throw projectors that can be
mounted above a traditional whiteboard, turning the
whiteboard into an interactive system. The projector
connects via infrared technology to a pen so a teacher
can write on the whiteboard. Using software, the projector captures whatever she writes on the board.
"It's like an endless whiteboard," Judd said. ■

Who Needs Expensive
Virtual Reality?
This district is creating
an immersive experience
with plain old projectors

essie Creech teaches advanced Spanish
at Mountain Brook High School
in Alabama. Her students speak the
language and read nonfiction texts in
Spanish well. But reading Spanish literature
is challenging because of its complex,
descriptive narratives. The students
struggled to understand an excerpt from
Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred
Years of Solitude, for example.
That prompted her to think about
how she might create a more conducive
atmosphere, like the tropical jungle in
which the narrative is set. "I wanted
my students to feel like we were in a
different place," Creech said.
She started researching possibilities.
When she came across a university lab that
was using classroom projectors to create an
immersive learning experience, she decided
to give it a try. With the help of Donna
Williamson, the technology director for
the Mountain Brook district, and funding
from the district's Institute for Innovation,
she experimented with different types of
projectors and software that could tie the
images together.
After experimentation with the
technology, Williamson realized that none of

those modern projectors worked very well.
So they took a simpler path. Creech now
uses four basic projectors, each positioned
to project on a different wall. Using the
computer, she can stretch an image from
one projector to cover multiple walls,
producing a panoramic effect. Or she can
project a different image onto each wall. She
might put a picture of a jungle on one wall,
for example, a map on another, and a quiz
about the book on another. She's installed
tile board, an inexpensive substitute for
whiteboards, on her walls so she can write
on the images as well.
Williamson said the next step is to
make the system interactive.
Meanwhile, Creech is looking for
better ways to change the images in each
projector. She's experimenting with a
Myo device from Thalmic Labs, a bracelet
that allows a person to control devices
remotely through gestures.
One day, virtual reality may be ready for
the classroom. But right now, it's just too
expensive, said Williamson.
In the meantime, she said Creech's
solution is simple, inexpensive, and
effective-and it shows how schools can
apply current technology in creative ways
to meet the needs of students.
"We want the curriculum driving the
technology," Williamson said, "not the
technology driving the curriculum."
-TAM HARBERT

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Education Week - June 14, 2017

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