How to Create a Smart Board on a Budget

Leaders must be flexible to be successful. That we have known for a long ti

me. Being a flexible leader also means being a problem solver and overcoming small budgets and other obstacles to ministry. Our guest blogger Jeremiah Monts is such a leader. He faced a vexing problem that many churches face. Schools are introducing new learning technologies that churches can’t keep up with due to limited budgets. One of the new learning technologies is called smart boards. Smart boards are interactive learning devices that serve multiple functions simultaneously such as projection screens and a multi-touch interactive white board. I can speak from experience that using this new learning technology captures attention and involves learners in active ways rather than passively watching a PowerPoint and making occasional comments.

Jeremiah works as the youth and children’s minister in a small southern Illinois church that operates on a tight budget. He wanted to provide a way of reaching his teens that was lost cost but was capable of gaining their attention and keeping it. He shares below how he created his own interactive whiteboard and how you can as well. Read on and see how easy it may be to become a technology do it yourselfer.

Jeremiah is willing to help you through any of the steps described below. You can contact him at rjmonts@gmail.com. Enjoy. If you try it out let Jeremiah or I know about your experience. Now…

Here’s Jeremiah

Hello, my name is Jeremiah Monts, I am a youth and Children’s minister in Southern Illinois and one of the aspects of ministry I enjoy most might surprise you. I enjoy the lack of resources that accompanies ministry. I am often energized by ‘MacGyvering’ together solutions. It is the thrill of the hunt, the joy of creating, and the payoff of persevering through a do-it-yourself (DIY) project that gets me ready to face the challenges of ministry. It was the lack of a whiteboard in our high school Sunday school classroom that led me down the path of creating a DIY interactive whiteboard.

Here’s what you’ll need:

· Pentabulous (free)

· Classroom Presenter (free) OR

· ActivInspire (free personal version w/registration)

· Video Projector

· Computer

· Wii Remote Control (must be Nintendo brand)

· Bluetooth adapter ($5-$20 online)

· IR Pen (Instructions to build your own or $10 - $25 online)

Optional parts:

· White Peva Shower Curtain Liner

· PVC pipe (I used 8 three foot sections, 2 six inch, and 4 one foot sections. I also used 4 couples, two L joints, and 4 T joints.)

· Tabletop microphone stand

Here’s what to do:

1. Install your Bluetooth adapter

a. Just plug the adapter into an open USB port, Windows (XP/Vista/7) will automatically install the needed drivers.

2. Install Pentabulous

3. Change your monitor settings so that your displays are mirrored, or your only output is to the video projector.

a. If you don’t remember to do this your screen will not be calibrated correctly and your IR pen will not be accurate.

4. Run Pentabulous

5. A dialog box will appear and ask if the wiimote is already connected or if you want to connect wiimote. Choose connect wiimote.

a. Press the 1 and 2 buttons on the wiimote simultaneously; the indicator lights on the wiimote should begin blinking.

6. If the connection times out, move the wiimote closer to the Bluetooth adapter and repeat steps 4 through 6.

a. Sometimes the wiimote connects and Pentabulous crashes. If this happens, run Pentabulous again, but choose the wiimote already connected option in step 2. If Pentabulous crashes it will not disconnect the wiimote.

7. Position the wiimote so that the front of the wiimote is pointed at the surface or screen you will be projecting onto.

8. Press the A button on the wiimote, this will begin the calibration process.

a. If the screen does not read the pen, you will need to adjust the position of the wiimote. You will have to recalibrate the screen if you move the wiimote.

9. Open your preferred interactive whiteboard software.

Now what?

If you have the space available, then you can further improve your whiteboard by using a rear projection set up. A shower curtain liner is a cheap rear projection screen material, and a wooden or PVC frame is relatively easy to build and is also economical. This will improve your experience, because you will not need to hold your IR pen at an angle and you will not have to worry about blocking the screen. If you don’t have the space for a set up like this, then you can project your video against a standard screen or a wall but you will need to make sure that the tip of IR pen is in view of the wiimote camera.

Now you are only limited by the interactive whiteboard software that you use. Here are some ideas that I have done with both the classroom presenter software and the activinspire software.

· Students having problems remembering a key vocabulary word, like covenant? Add a new screen and play a quick game of hangman.

· Have a series of questions on the screen about a passage that you are reading. Tell students as they discover an answer in the text to go up and write the answer.

· Matching games! Match pictures to text, scriptures to scriptures, pictures to pictures, events on a timeline, etc.,

· All answers/questions/text can be edited on the fly, unlike PowerPoint, and can be corrected as necessary.

· Display a passage and teach basic Bible study skills, like identifying repetition of words, contrasts, comparisons, lists, cause and effect, etc.,

· Demonstrate how to use free online study tools (if you have internet access) like NET Bible or BibleWebApp.

The more you use an interactive whiteboard, the more comfortable you will become with the possibilities.

WINDOWS 7 USERS

When running pentabulous on a Windows 7 computer I encountered a simple to solve, but hard to understand problem. If you receive an error that says, no wiimote found in list, that does not mean that the wiimote is installed incorrectly. When pentabulous installs the wiimote, Windows 7 tries to go to the internet to find the appropriate drivers. This takes time which creates a timeout error code in pentabulous. There are two ways to solve this problem.

1. A dialogue box will appear in the lower right hand corner of the screen when connecting the wiimote. The dialog box will say that it is installing a new piece of hardware. Click the dialogue box. Once open find the link that says, skip obtaining drivers from windows online and click the link. The hardware should then install before the timeout error occurs. If the timeout does occur, wait for the dialogue box that says the hardware has been installed and then close the error message.

Allow the error message to stay open while Windows locates drivers from the internet. You may have to push the 1 and 2 buttons on the wiimote if the lights quit blinking, but eventually the driver will install and you can close the error message.