Transforming Student Interaction and Engagement With Touchscreen TechnologyBenQ RP653 Interactive Flat Panels Introduce New

Rigor to Castleberry ISD Classrooms

SummaryThe Castleberry Independent School District (ISD) in Fort Worth, Texas, strives to provide the finest education to all its students. Comprised of seven campuses that include three elementary schools, a middle school, a high school, an alternative school and a learning center, Castleberry ISD drives an education process that aims to prepare its students to be lifelong learners in a diverse, changing world and competitive workplace. As part of this mission, the school district incorporates advanced technology that enables collaboration and interactivity in the classroom as well as within its administration offices and meeting rooms. The school district’s IT department regularly evaluates all its technology to ensure that it is meeting the highest standards set forth in school’s technology vision. Most recently, this included replacing the failing whiteboards and projectors in the ISD’s three elementary schools.

“Our whiteboards were only eight years old, but prematurely starting to show their age. In addition, it had become increasingly difficult to find a projector that would project seamlessly on the whiteboard and maintain consistent calibration. These two devices had become an unreliable solution for advancing collaborative learning in the classroom and for creating an interactive and engaged environment for meetings and planning sessions at the administrative level,” said Renee Smith-Faultner, assistant superintendent for technology services at Castleberry ISD.

Although, the components were well maintained and kept up to date by the technology staff, many of the functions consistently didn’t work, such as touch capabilities. When the school district chose the latest projector to pair with the whiteboard, this feature stood out most. However, the touch capabilities were limited and often didn’t work. The workaround was to utilize the solidary digital pen that came with each projector. With only one pen to use among all the students in the class, it was a constant battle of who could use it and required the teachers to vigilantly keep track of it.

“We were working with two solutions with a lot of moving parts. When something broke — and it did often — it wasn’t just a simple fix,” said Jacob Bowser, IT operations manager for Castleberry ISD. “We always had to figure out, is it something with the projector? Is it a setting on the whiteboard? We often had to take down both to solve it, and customer service was not very helpful and slow. When training our teachers around new technology, they do an incredible job of incorporating it into their classrooms. It becomes an integral part of their lessons, so it’s essential everything is always up and running. When something broke down and needed a new part or the projector needed a new lamp, we’re talking anywhere from three to six weeks to get it in and get it installed. That has a significant impact on enabling success for our students and staff.”

Addressing the SituationAfter exhausting their efforts to keep both the interactive projector and the whiteboard in working or-der, the technology team looked at other solutions. They turned their attention to interactive flat panels. BenQ’s line of Interactive Flat Panels (IFPs) met their pricing requirements and offered plenty of inter-active features without having to maintain two solutions from two different vendors. They selected the RP653 65-inch IFP and initially installed them in eight pilot classrooms for two weeks. After two weeks, the technology team brought together the teachers to get feedback on their experience and to find out if the touchscreen was the right solution to deploy across all their elementary schools.

“We asked them, ‘Would you go with the BenQ IFP or do you want a new whiteboard and interactive projector?” said Smith-Faultner. “There was overwhelming support for the IFP. Every teacher had such a positive experience. It exceeded their expectations for reliability and interactivity.”

Fred Martel, owner and CEO of Cube Cabling, began installing the 128 units in the classrooms in Sep-tember and completed the installations at the end of the year. The BenQ IFP is connected to a com-puter within the teacher’s podium in the classroom. In administrative areas, such as conference rooms and the superintendent’s office, the IFP is connected to a computer mounted behind the display or to a laptop. The thin panel depth let the screen to fit perfectly within the existing custom mill work in the classrooms, allowing it to be mounted far enough back to accommodate the sliding dry erase board that is integrated into the mill work to slide over the panel. In addition, it offered inputs to easily con-nect to and support the school’s VGA infrastructure until the school upgrades to HDMI in the future.

SummaryOut of the gate, the new BenQ RF653 IFPs offered Castleberry an intuitive, easy-to-operate experience for every user. It was a welcomed and smooth transition from the whiteboards and interactive projector. Without a doubt, the stand-out feature for the school is the IFP’s 20-point multi-touch interface, allowing multiple students to work side by side at the expansive 65-inch screen and simultaneously touch the screen with virtually no delay in response. This is a vast improvement over the whiteboard solution, providing reliable, precise touch and making lessons more interactive. The teachers are also tapping into the additional benefits of the IFP’s built-in suite of applications. For example, the timer application gives teachers an onscreen clock that’s visible to students, helping improve classroom management and efficiency at the student level.

“I would say that the major benefit to teachers is getting back time,” said Jessica Batchko, the district’s instructional coach. “When a projector bulb went out, because the bulbs were so expensive, it took time to get that purchase approved as part of our budget and subsequently ordered. Then there was the issue of quality. If the bulb happened to be dim, teachers had to turn off all their lights or close the blinds. Even then, students had to gather close to the whiteboard to see everything. Finally, the calibration was constantly being knocked off from a door shutting, room maintenance — anything. Recalibration become a constant task for teachers and took away from classroom time.”

The RP653’s full HD screen, 350 cd/m2 screen brightness, and 1,400:1 contrast ratio has delivered a crisp, clear and bright image that students can see from the back of the classroom. The touchscreen is also enhanced with BenQ’s exclusive Eye-Care features, including anti-glare glass to minimize light reflections and improve readability, as well as Low Blue Light and ZeroFlicker™ backlight technologies to help reduce eye fatigue during long hours of content viewing and instruction. The screen’s tempered glass bacteria-resistant coating has been an extra perk in the classroom by helping to reduce the spread of germs.

Teachers have been able to leverage the screen’s new capabilities to refresh and boost the classroom environment and learning. For example, teachers have posted student’s work as a screensaver. Or they have leveraged the ability to quickly and efficiently access each student’s Google Drive to pull up their work on screen and work with them on hard-to-grasp concepts, bringing excitement and engagement to the lesson. Utilizing DisplayNote, a free bundled desktop and mobile application, educators have been able to create more collaborative lessons by streaming any content directly from their computers or via the cloud to other touchscreens and various devices. Teachers across the district are also using Google Hangouts and their computer’s webcam to create interactive lesson planning sessions with other teachers. This allowed them to brainstorm together and collaborate new ideas to add rigor to their lessons. Ideal for the classroom, BenQ’s QTouch software enables students to use a different colored pen to annotate and interact with content onscreen with all the room they need.

“Before students were crowded and they couldn’t work together at the whiteboard because there was one pen to use among them,” said Batchko. “Now teachers don’t have to worry kids are going to fight over the pen. For teachers, the remote control has unchained them from being at the board and smoothly transition from lesson to lesson.”

The yardstick by which the school is measuring the success of the new panels is the students’ success. The technology team currently does 25 walkthroughs a week to evaluate the new screens against the Substitution Augmentation Modification Redefinition (SAMR) model, a model designed to help educators infuse technology into teaching and learning. At each level of the model, they measure the level of impact the screen has had on student engagement and rigor. The team also examines classroom screen use against Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy, which attempts to account for the new behaviors and actions emerging as technology advances and becomes more ubiquitous.

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• Large 65” diagonal display is the perfect size for the classroom.

• HD resolution displays easy-to-read text and graphics.

• Tempered anti-glare surface with a bacteria resistant coating enables everyone to clearly see the screen from anywhere in the room.

• Low blue light technology reduces eye fatigue.

RP653