The Best Addition to My Classroom

My interactive whiteboard has been by far the best addition to the technology in my classroom in the past two years.  It has completely changed the way my classroom operates from planning to content to activities, and as a bonus I never have chalk handprints on my pants or Smurf fingers from Vis-a-vis pens.

I consider myself very lucky to have found about this little project a year-and-a-half ago, and I am still shocked that it hasn't completely exploded in popularity.  You see, I don't have a $2,000+ piece of equipment hanging from my wall.  I have a $35 piece of equipment hanging from my ceiling... a Wiimote.  [Increasingly] Many classrooms are now equipped with digital media projectors, and once your classroom has this one piece of hardware you are only about $75 away from an interactive whiteboard.

All it takes to build your own IWB is a Wiimote ($35), a bluetooth dongle ($10-20), an infrared light ($20 for a nice pre-made IR pen), and one or two free software downloads.  There is a bit more of a learning curve than using a SmartBoard as it works by "vision" rather than pressure, but for the savings, I couldn't be happier.

For anyone interested, the following links are great resources for further investigation.  I strongly urge you to check them out and give it a shot.  It really isn't as complicated as some of the explanations make it seem at times; and above the fact that it is an awesome teaching tool... it's really, really cool (and fun to play with).

http://wiiteachers.com/ - A great source for materials (avoid the economy pens, the next step up is worth the extra $$$.

http://www.uweschmidt.org/wiimote-whiteboard - Some nice software to make it work.  Pentabulous is also a good one, but not as capable as this one.  Linktivity Presenter is a must also.

http://johnnylee.net/projects/wii/ - Some amazing stuff.