As with chalk boards and bulky televisions on wheeled carts that became obsolete and eventually vanished from classrooms, overhead projectors are increasingly joining them in school districts’ discard piles.
Likewise forsaken are the once touted SmartBoards that allowed teachers to connect their computers to projectors, as well as other “interactive whiteboards” that allowed teachers and students alike to treat their whiteboards like touchscreens. Now school leaders throughout the Toledo area are leaning into actual touchscreens — and touchscreen monitors in particular.
Jason Dugan, director of technology for the Maumee schools, said a project to replace interactive whiteboards with flat screens has been underway for the past five years and has been done grade-by-grade starting with the elementary schools — with officials currently looking to replace projectors in the seventh and eighth grades.
Similar initiatives are ongoing in the Springfield, Washington Local, and Toledo Public Schools, among others.
The monitors will allow educators to do everything they once did with the interactive whiteboards, but with clearer images and an easier workflow, Mr. Dugan said. And, of course, the screens will allow educators to play videos, so few if any students will experience that thrill of seeing their teacher wheel a television -— now flat screens — into the classroom.
“It’s funny how things still circle back around and but look different — they’re used differently and they have more bells and whistles,” he said. “We remember we were excited when we saw the TV was coming from the library and we were like, ‘Oh, now we get to watch a movie.’ Now the kids are just used to it because it’s always in the room.”
“SmartBoards and other interactive projector technology had their place and allowed students to perform tasks that many youth today take for granted on iPads and other devices,” Mr. Dugan said.
But over the past 15 years or so, their drawbacks became increasingly apparent to educators as newer technology spread.
For example, monitors allow districts to do away with the various cables and room layout necessary to provide space for the projectors. Those systems also developed, over time, calibration problems with pens or sensors for the projection, and sometimes systems wouldn’t work well with other computer software. Replacing bulbs and cleaning filters were ongoing expenses.
Installing flat-screen televisions or touch monitors is much simpler, the latter devices essentially operate similar to an iPad, and they’re much cheaper — costing $1,000 or less for the flat screens and roughly $2,500 for the touch monitors compared to between $3,200 and $7,000 districts spent on SmartBoards roughly 15 years ago.
Mike Martinez, technology director for Toledo Public Schools, said SmartBoards fell out of that district’s favor around 2015 when the company began requiring annual software contracts. That’s when TPS switched to interactive whiteboard company Epson.
“We stepped away to avoid the full subscription and the cost and trying to figure out, ‘OK, this school has this subscription, and this school has that subscription,’” he said. “That kind of became the straw that broke the camel’s back for our district. But every technology has its frustrations.”
Unlike smaller districts, Mr. Martinez said Toledo Public Schools has taken a more gradual approach to replacing interactive whiteboards. New schools — such as the Pre-Medical and Health Science Academy being built inside the Toledo Technology Academy this summer — and remodeled classrooms are likely to get new flat-screen monitors and touchscreens. Otherwise, he said officials, are taking requests from teachers when planning to swap out the interactive whiteboards.
But while classrooms are slowly being emptied of projectors, they still have a home within some districts, and not just in storage rooms. Projector companies have pivoted, Mr. Dugan said, to find other enticing uses, such as in gymnasiums; Maumee students use the LU Interactive Playground allowing them to throw balls at targets the projectors display on the wall screen.
How long the projectors, or even classroom flat screens, will endure in the schools is unclear, Mr. Dugan said. After all, virtual-reality headsets are gaining popularity both in and out of classrooms. In another 15 years, they might replace iPads and Chromebooks, or some new technology might emerge to supplant them all, he said.
“Who knows what things will look like years from now — I mean, is everyone one day going to just put on one of those VR headsets and virtually attend whatever school they want to go to?” he said. “It’s insane to think about what things might look like years from now, and it makes it exciting and scary at the same time to wonder what they’ll think of next.”
First Published June 11, 2022, 6:13 p.m.
