Do a quick search of the internet, and you are sure to find a variety of articles on using an interactive flat panel to boost student engagement. Really, flat panels are geared towards educators – large screen with touch technology that begs for interactivity to showcase its features. Most ‘Top 10 Teacher Tips’ will include increase classroom collaboration, take a virtual fieldtrip, prepare for assessments, and gamify for learning new concepts. But when schools closed in the spring, this awesome tech sat lonely in many classrooms. With the debate still going about the learning environment for the new school year (as of this writing, many districts have opted to start the Fall totally virtual), educators may ask, “But what about my panel?”

Like many school districts, Washington’s Monroe School District was suffering with technology and equipment that was anywhere from eight to 12 years old in a world where anything older than four is considered a dinosaur. “We had all sorts of different equipment across 376 instructional spaces,” says Rachelle Butz, executive director of digital learning and infrastructure for the district. “It was problematic from a learning standpoint because teachers won’t use technology if they can't trust it to be reliable when they are delivering lessons.”

The typical classroom has changed a lot over the past few decades. With all of the exciting new tech innovations that have emerged, the chalkboard no longer reigns supreme.

Today’s students are digital natives, so it makes sense to incorporate displays into the learning process. But what’s the best way to use this technology? You want to make sure your students are learning as much as possible, but you also want to keep things fun so they won’t get bored!

In late 2015, the Woodhaven-Brownstown School District in Michigan passed a bond of almost $55 million for building renovations. While the bond was primarily for its secondary school, the district decided to include Yake Elementary, which for years had been without the funds to update classroom technology.

Yake’s media specialist, Joe Heacox, was part of the team that evaluated potential purchases. The technology they decided on was Boxlight’s ProColor 75” interactive flat panel displays. The team determined, and school leaders agreed, that the displays’ cost and longevity made them the best choice.

Whole-class learning is a key aspect of the modern classroom, but how do you find the right solution for your school? There are a variety of options, so you need to take a closer look at each one to determine which is the best choice for your students, teachers, curriculum, and budget.

The search for the new interactive classroom technology can be incredibly daunting. How do you know what’s right for your school? How do you differentiate between the various solutions available? Will it be simple for both teachers and students to use? And how do you find the best solution to fit your budget?

Kevin Ryan, Director of Educational Technology and 21st Century Learning

The schools in Kildeer Countryside School District 96 had already been recognized for their academic excellence by the US DOE and the Illinois State Board of Education. Still, district administrators recognized that significant changes needed to be made to our classrooms, and better technology needed to be acquired, in order to help our students acquire the new skills mandated by today’s educational standards: effective communication and collaboration. So, we focused our attention to revamping classrooms to fit the learning needs of 21st century students, and we turned to our most trusted partners to get the job done. Working closely with these partners made all the difference in our successful implementation. Following are the lessons we learned along the way in terms of products and partnerships, which are inextricably connected.

You’ve examined all the requirements: room size, HD vs UHD, the size of the interactive area you need for the number of students you want to have working together, and the display with the best classroom software. Then you come to the final factor: budget! Budget is often not a small factor, especially when you need to outfit 10, 20, or even 100 classrooms. Sometimes the answer to your display requirements and needs is an interactive projector.

Large flat panel displays fill an increasing number of living rooms with dazzling images that bring the theatre experience into the home. Many of today’s students are accustomed to high definition (HD) – for them it has become the expected standard. As educators and schools strive to find ways to better engage students and motivate learning, they are recognizing that using interactive HD technology in the classroom could be one way to achieve this. But the search for the best choice of interactive flat panel display – one that offers stunning images, touch technology, and seamless integration – can be daunting.

We have pulled together eight things you need to know to determine whether a flat panel display is the right choice for your classrooms.