Devices have come a long way, even if we just consider the last handful of years. With more flexibility at their fingertips, schools are finding significant benefits in adopting newer technologies that improve collaboration in the classroom or enterprise, increase productivity, promote creativity, and improve student outcomes and overall end-user experiences on campus. Everything from your network appliances to your end-user computing devices will have an impact across your institution.
The focus of this article is on Interactive Displays, and how ScholarBuys was able to assist North Greenville University in adopting new touch displays to replace existing displays on campus that were rendered useless after an unfortunate event.
Darren Shahinian
Higher Education Account Executive
North Greenville University is a private Baptist university in the Foothills of South Carolina. The University has been serving students since 1892 and is committed to a liberal arts education in the conservative Christian tradition. Programs for traditional undergraduate, graduate, and online study can be found at WWW.NGU.EDU
I have worked with North Greenville University for several years on a variety of technology initiatives, and Jeremy Bolden – Engineer and Academic Technology Specialist at NGU – reached out to explore some replacement options for some displays that were impacted by a stroke of bad luck.
“We experienced a power surge in one of our buildings that damaged display hardware in one of our classrooms beyond repair. “
Jeremy let me know that although he never really had any issues with the older displays, he was not particularly married to them either. On Jeremy’s behalf, we did some research on cost-effective options that would be comparable to their original units, and were able to bring a significant improvement into the mix for evaluation.
“I began pricing a replacement and the ViewSonic Touch Displays offered 20 points of touch at a cost that was very competitive to our other touch displays (which are only 10 points of touch).“
ScholarBuys helped to connect Jeremy with manufacturer resources that specialize in Interactive Touch Displays in order to ensure that the ViewSonic product we were investigating would in fact cover their needs and provide functionality that fit their future-facing goals/initiatives, as well as provide students with hands-on (pun intended) experiences they can take with them to their careers after graduation.
“We are beginning a five year plan to upgrade all classroom technology across campus and the Viewsonic Touch Displays will help prepare our education majors for the technology they will find in classrooms.”
ScholarBuys was also able to help North Greenville University realize savings by discussing what existing hardware they had in inventory that could be paired with these displays. Specifically, we wanted to ensure that the extra small form-factor PCs they had would be compatible with the displays.
The Technology
ViewSonic makes a wide array of displays, kiosks, billboards and media players. Truly a centerpiece for collaboration, their flat panel interactive displays are ideal for everything from white-boarding in a meeting or classroom to an interactive campus map. They offer a wide range of sizes (55” to 86”) and you can either mount them on a wall or get a mobile stand. You can expect vivid picture clarity and resolution with up to 4K video being supported, and you can very easily increase the computing power and application use cases by leveraging a slot-in PC.
The units themselves also come with ViewBoard software installed, so that right out of the box you can begin increasing collaboration, productivity and efficiency. This enables the ability to write, highlight, and transform on-screen material with features such as spotlight and magnifier (along with many other tools).
“The displays have been very successful and our faculty who have used them are very happy to have them in the classrooms. The built in Android OS is very intuitive and, paired with a mounted PC running Windows 10, our faculty are able to use a full range of software to meet their needs.”
The Need
For this project, we wanted to find a few 70” interactive flat panel displays for the School of Music. It needed to have a sensitive touch screen, and needed to be able to support a web-based music notation software. We also needed to ensure that It could support HP 400 Mini PCs, as well as standard VESA brackets for mounting.
The Outcome
As conversations progressed, we ended up finding a unit that fit both their needs and budget. North Greenville decided to move forward with 3 of the ViewSonic CDE7061T 70” LED ViewBoards with touchscreen and full 1080p HD. These also allow for a small form factor slot-in PC to be leveraged so that NGU can make use of some spare HP Mini devices to increase the compute power and run a variety of Windows applications on the devices. Although classes are just getting back into full swing, NGU has received great feedback from end-users and are excited to implement more units in the future.
“Since these displays are new installations and faculty have only just returned for the Fall Semester, most of our faculty have not had a chance to interact with the new Touch Displays. The feedback I have received from those who have has been very positive and I am already fielding requests to have them installed in other areas.”
Whether you are looking for help with a similar project or have questions about other device needs on your campus, ScholarBuys is a trusted partner that you can rely on to not only find a budget-friendly option, but the right fit for your particular need. Our experienced sales teams will help you navigate the options in the marketplace that we have found to be well-suited to Education enterprises, and ensure that you have confidence in implementing new or updated technology on your campus.
“ScholarBuys has been a strategic and tactical partner for us for many years and we see many future opportunities to expand this great and profitable relationship.”
