Determined to make us jealous that our kids' childhood experiences are more marvelous than ours, SMART Technologies will tomorrow unveil the SMART Table, a primary education "interactive learning center" (we'd rather call it
Surface Jr.). It'll be available Spring of next year, and will work out of the box with learning applications that can be operated by any number of kids and all their fingers. Other
classroom multitouch devices are on the horizon, but most of them are a little further from market than this Canadian contraption, which includes custom lesson plans, gesture support and a (touted but unspecified) wide viewing angle. At $8,000 we're not sure it's an option for public schools whose budgets only have room for essentials, but if you work at a school that's totally loaded with cash and think the kiddos would dig this, feel free to look at SMART's short promotional vid after the break.
posted October 22nd 2008 10:07PM
My God, we're living in the future.
I kind of assumed crayons, cardboard and pens and scissors would be around forever. Maybe not.
Yes. It's the future. And the kids, they should get off my lawn. I'm busy printing off email and it's very difficult to get the googles to work properly if you're not paying attention. It's very scary this technology, what with all those internet tubes clogging up all the time.
And yeah, so expensive. I mean - pardon me while I consult my multiplication tables to do the math here - but $7000 as a one-time cost vs. $250/year/student X 30 students for books/other stuff that needs to be replaced. That's only $7500, right? Wait. Um. Nevermind.
I'm sorry, but, get over yourself. Most of all electronics and software, including the best and most respected brands and technologies the world over, are 'proprietary.'
Your definition of proprietary, however, is stupid. 'OMG, don't make anything unless it's made from off the shelf components that anyone can get, oh, and make sure that it only costs 60 dollars total, or no one should want it.' Google isn't exactly the heart of 'open source.''
Wow, mr Grouchy, I guess you missed the part about "wouldn't it be great" and "type of." And I hardly think, especially considering there have been early open source implementations, that a surface needs to be an expensive, proprietary proposition.
Fun:D:D
Great, even more shit for kids to spread and share their germs with.
I used to work for SMART Tech and it's got some great technology, but it's a bad company to work for and I'd recommend to buy elsewhere.
Everyone STFU. This is one step closer to Ender's Game style desks.
Hate to say it but i reckon Surface is going to be a cheaper and more flexible alternative when it's released =(
It's a good idea though, just drop that price!
They will need a lead weight in the bottom of that thing when the kiddies start pushing and shoving (my turn, no mine, give me).
And now it will be so much easier to share things, like the common cold, mono, pinkeye, and mersa. Yeah thanks be to technology for being such a great equalizer in society. Now we can all share every communicable disease possible and much quicker. Forget hands to yourself kids!
Seriously it will probably be quite helpful for some lessons, but the pressure for teachers to create ways to make the huge expense useful probably isn't thrilling for the tech challenged teachers. And the poor school I.T. guy, oh vey!!
Do I need to remind the teacher not to accidentally sit his wifi camera with his kiddie porn on the thing? Could be slightly embarrassing and career ending. Well that's one way for Darwin to thin the herd.
Hardly the first multitouch. Hitachi has been supplying a multitouch competitor (the Starboard FXDUO) to the Smartboard for sometime. It's hugely popular in schools because it also worksbetter.