3. Interactive Whiteboards

There are two types of interactive whiteboards in common use:

1. Electronic, interactive (i.e. pressure sensitive) whiteboards designed for a) electronic pens (dry-ink pens) or b) ordinary whiteboard pens. Examples: SmartBoard and PolyVision Webster.
2. 2. Ordinary whiteboards equipped with sensors that detect signals (infrared or ultrasonic) from a micro-transmitter mounted on an ordinary whiteboard pen. Whenever the pen is pressed against the whiteboard, the sensor detects this and transmits the picture to the computer. Examples: Mimio and eBeam.

Type 2 whiteboards are the cheapest; ordinary whiteboards are being used and a video projector is not necessary. However, they are not particularly user-friendly in a setting where you do a lot of writing on the whiteboard (i.e. in a classroom). Often the sensors fail to detect the signal from the pen properly, and then the picture on the whiteboard becomes unsynchronized with the picture drawn on the computer, see the figure below. Furthermore, a signal might be detected when it shouldn't be, for instance when you put the top on the pen.

This can be very confusing in a video conference, because the picture seen by the local party (the picture on the physical whiteboard) is not the same as the one seen by the other party (the computer picture of the whiteboard notes sent through the video conference).

Type 1 whiteboards are more expensive, but also work much more effectively in a setting which involves extensive writing on the whiteboard. The pressure-sensitive surface detects the writing/drawing on the whiteboard digitally, and transmits it to the computer, thus avoiding the synchronization problems with type 2 whiteboards. We prefer to use only dry-ink pens on a pressure-sensitive whiteboard to minimize cleaning and maintenance, and to avoid the pitfall by using a waterproof pen.

An introduction to interactive whiteboards is given in the section Using interactive whiteboards in Course 1.

How to actually use the interactive whiteboard is described in the section New possibilities with digital whiteboards in Course 4.