No, this isn't a science lesson. Instead I am about to embark on a experiment using a 50" plasma screen in a junior classroom as an alternative to a projector or my favourite multiple VGA monitors. I have looked into the comparison between LCD vs Plasma and confess to be still unsure which is best. LCD seems to have the advantage of no "burn in" issues which plasma claim to have fixed but still warn about. Plasma still has much better contrast ratios and a wider viewing angle but those differences are rapidly disappearing. As is the price difference. They are almost identical. I have ended up with plasma because I can get a bigger 50" for the same price as a 42". Size does matter! ;-)
The screen is being driven by another experiment, a touch sensitive LCD screen. In addition I have wired up an activboard slate to give a pen based solution. To even further complicate and test the limits I can control the whole system from my tablet PC using VNC or get it to follow (mimic) my tablet with the same VNC connection. Altogether this should let me try a variety of ways of interacting with the computer and also a variety of software programmes for presenting to the class.
Here is the hardware
An ACER Aspire RC500 multimedia PC with 512mb, TV/FM, multicard reader, firewire, running XP Pro. (this is a 3 year old machine!)
A Viewsonic 19" touchscreen controlled by serial port and run from a vga splitter
An AWA 52" plasma screen run from a vga splitter
An ActivBoard slate/pen wired to the serial port of the computer to get hardware activation of the ActivBoard. This is tethered because there is no eWhiteboard to receive it wirelessly.
Wireless mouse and wireless keyboard (comes with the Aspire)
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