BETT Show, Olympia 2009

Personal Projector are at BETT, the education show, Olympia this week and will be hooking up with teachers and trainers from across the UK to discuss uses and applications of hand held projectors in the classroom. If anyone at the show this week, would like to chat about pocket projectors and their applications please dont hesitate to call us on either 07954 21 375 or 0845 121 8800 and we would be happy to talk about the various options on the market.

To date, there have been some interesting uses of the mini pocket projector in education as demonstrated by Clare Kelly an Acting Head Teacher and  Teacher of the Year 2005 (Northern Region ). Clare says, “we are beginning to harness this type of portable projection technology in the classroom. For example, within our primary school we are finding it useful for promoting quality speaking and listening opportunities in order to support the objectives of the renewed framework for literacy.”

Clare also believes that the technology has a number of benefits for both pupils and teachers, “Children are really taking an interest in the content because its coming from an exciting new device that they can actually control themselves. With it being so portable it can be used in teaching areas without traditional projection facilities such as shared learning areas. One such example is with teaching assistants delivering the daily phonics session.

3m Micro projector

One of the things I really like about the projectors is their portability; they can easily be transported around school and used in a variety of teaching spaces. There is no need to ensure there is a power socket available or a projection screen. Staff project onto wall space, easels and even onto a large sheet of paper.  The projectors are ideal for working with small groups of children with Teaching Assistants or group members who can control the content delivery.

The ability to play video clips has been a  particularly  exciting application for the product. Staff have downloaded content from Espresso and Teacher Tube onto the Aiptek Pocket Cinema for use with small groups.  We recently used it when teaching French where videos of native speakers reading French story books were played to encourage a genuine French accent. The advantage of the pocket projector is that it focuses pupil learning and in MFL lessons pupils are more likely to experiment and practice speaking a foreign language if they are in a small group situation. It also helps they they also think that it’s a totally cool technology!

From a budgeting perspective,  mini projectors are affordable, totally portable and help us fulfil many objectives such as improved mobile learning, enhanced knowledge sharing, improved health and safety (as there are fewer wires), greener use of technology and will even help lower our long term costs (bulbs don’t need to be replaced).

From a teachers point of view, small hand held projectors are ideal as they are completely silent as they have no fan and can be turned on and off almost instantly without the need to boot up and down.

We used Personal Projector as they were the only firm who we felt clearly understood our training and education needs and also helped the school choose the right pico projector as there are some very distinct differences between the types available.”(see compare pico projectors).