Smart whiteboards, H2O and communities of practice

Earlier this week, a Canadian company called Smart Technologies revealed its latest interactive whiteboards. They are already very popular in educational circles.

But this technology is not just for schools and universities, it is useful in meeting rooms and learning environments within other organisations. They work just as if they are a touch-screen computer but, in some respects, better. They can be free-standing or mounted, use existing projection equipment or contain their own, and they can be coupled to laptop computers or special consoles. They also range in size up to 94" diagonal.

Coloured pens (bits of plastic really) and an eraser sit in holders. Remove a pen and you change the colour. You could use wooden dowels if you wanted. Or you could write on the screen with your finger.

What you do is up to you: draw, write, show a movie, visit a webste, run a program. It really is just like a computer, except it's a shared experience. You can annotate what's going on on the screen and save the annotations to your computer or to a USB drive.

There's more, of course. But, coincidentally, I stumbled across H2O Playlists at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School. Were you to watch the explanatory "Go with the flow" video, you'd think educators would be the main beneficiaries. In fact, anyone with an open, collaborative, sharing kind of attitude to their work would benefit.

The Playlists are lists of links to useful resources. Molly Krause has published her list relating to the philosophy of H2O. You can link, share, print and send the lists. The aim is collaboration within communities of practice.

It seems that Berkman's H2O and Smart's interactive whiteboards were just made for each other.

And possibly for you?