The Creative Learning Team participated in the Career Technology Education shows in Georgia, Florida and Alabama last month.

Visitors saw how the VariQuest Poster Maker, Cutout Maker, and Awards Maker can be used to create revenue for their schools. The booth was set up as a school store with samples of items the students could sell to students, staff and even the community. Lenn Fraraccio and Alex Millender, a couple of our sales representatives, shared some of the ways these tools can be used.

One big school event is the awards banquet. Schools often have to have a list of students receiving awards weeks in advance to be able to order the awards. With the Awards Maker, the students could be in charge of fulfilling the plaque orders in house which saves both time and money.

High Schools have unique fundraising opportunities, thanks to seniors and sports teams. The Awards Maker can create car window decals for the “Class of 2009” High School and Middle School sports teams can sell posters with a photo of the team and the game schedule. Stickers that say “I support Girls’ Volleyball”, “Go Lancers!”, or a school letter are other ways to highlight school spirit.

Some high schools even have a Sports Marketing team in charge of creating signage to drum up attendance at sporting events. In addition to advertising for the actual game, they also create posters and stickers that serve as advertisements for local businesses who sponsor the school. For example, a local store may pay the sports marketing group to create advertising stickers to place on water bottles.

Schools can hold scrapbooking nights where students, parents and teachers have access to the Cutout Maker’s library of shapes to create scrapbook pages. It’s an easy and fun fundraising event for schools to hold.

Start the year off with everyone on the same page. Have the classroom rules printed and posted in the same spot in each classroom to create a sense of uniformity for the students – they’ll know where to look for guidance!

Help the new students find their way around the building by posting maps of the campus. Nobody wants to feel lost and rushed for time between classes! Scan and print it a copy on your Poster Maker!
Create bulletin boards that highlight afterschool and extracurricular activities the students can join like Chess Club, Tutoring, Yearbook, and Sports clubs.

A great elementary school opportunity for poster fundraisers is to sell birthday posters. Send the students home with a flyer informing the parents “Happy Birthday” posters are available to purchase for their child. The poster could be posted in the home-room, media center or cafeteria, Post the personalized poster the week of the student’s birthday and give it to them to take home at the end of the week. If you have an Awards Maker, you can quickly make a sticker for the student to wear the day of his or her birthday!

Click here for samples ideas

In this white paper, Panasonic will trace the evolution of wireless projector technology, which closely parallels the development and widespread adoption of IEEE WiFi standards. They will explain how successive generations of wireless projectors achieved gains in speed, functionality and ease of use, while becoming lighter and more compact.

Click here to read the whitepaper »

In this two-part video segment by Sound and Communications magazine, AVI-SPL’s Will Parry talks with Monti Carr of SKC Communication Products, Inc. about greening AV. Their discussion touches on the ways AV systems impact the LEED (http://www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CMSPageID=222) certification of green buildings, as well as the technology, design, and financial considerations that go into making highly energy efficient spaces.

DLP technology from Texas Instruments asked, and answered, the question of a lampless projector at this year’s Infocomm trade show. The new technology utilizes LED technology (version called PhlatLight Light Emitting Diode has been used in LCD TVs) in place of the DLP color wheel and mirror and light engine. Instead of a spinning red, blue, and green color wheel, there are RBG LEDs which plus rapidly to create the color.

The new product is the first of its kind with a regular sized chassis, but many new projectors using LED technology have been released for cell phones and so-called “pocket” projectors.

So what are the benefits? For starters, you could kiss the $200 - $500 cost of a replacement lamp goodbye along with any of the hassle of caring for it. That is good news for consumers who might have been hesitant to incur future costs after the purchase. It may also mean a dramatic increase in consumers choosing projectors as a primary display source, as the lamp life would be comparable to that of LCD and plasma TVs. Also, as we have seen with the pocket projectors, the lamp lack also allows for smaller footprints and even more portable opportunities. The fan will also not be required to cool that hot lamp, which means nearly silent operation and less energy consumption.

But wait, there’s more! With the new LED-based DLP technology, the color space possible for a projector is increased beyond that of traditional lamp’d projectors up to 50%. That’s a big benefit for the folks in the DLP camp, since color has been one area where they have been consistently challenged by 3LCD.

Are there any drawbacks to this new technology? Well for one, it’s new. So even though you won’t pay to replace the lamp, there will probably be a premium to pay initially. It’s not yet available to the general public yet, and won’t be for a while. And some reporting on the scene mention the color is not quite “lifelike” and has a bit of a red haze.

“But what about brightness?” you may ask. A good question, since previous LED projectors were in the 25 - 100 lumen range. The latest incarnation on the tradeshow floor is said to be very bright. TI claims a brightness from 500 - 1000 lumens, which was once considered a benchmark for home theater projectors. However, newer products are typically upwards of 1000 lumens. So, brightness is an issue that will probably need to improve.

But hey, nobody’s perfect on their first go. Texas Instruments says they will begin by focusing on Home Theater projection, since here is less brightness required and expects to have products released by manufacturer partners by the end of 2008. Watch us here for more updates on this potentially groundbreaking technology.

A Green Step Forward

By Linda Seid Frembes, Sound and Video Contractor

Building a new school building is a daunting task for any school district, especially when the plan is for a green building project. The Sidwell Friends Middle School in Washington, D.C., opened in 2007 as a testament to the possibilities of an environmentally friendly, healthy environment for school kids. The new middle school is the secondary school in the United States to have a LEED Platinum rating and the first LEED Platinum building in the District of Columbia.

To read the complete article, click here »

Do you know the carbon footprint produced by the day to day operations of your business? Would you like to know how to reduce your impact on the environment and save money at the same time? AVI-SPL and TANDBERG have partnered to provide a handy tool to help you do just that. A new Business Advantage Calculator tool will provide you with solutions that you can use to build a business case for reducing costs, cutting CO2 emissions, and improving productivity for your organization.

Today, videoconferencing technology (VTC) is more popular than ever. It is an efficient, money-saving and environmentally-friendly technology for distance communications. TANDBERG and AVI-SPL have teamed up to help you determine the right VTC solutions for your business. click here .

For a free customized analysis, click here.

This is revolutionary. InFocus is the first projector manufacturer to bring models to market that use mini-USB to transmit video. Their new IN1100 and IN3100 series projectors feature “DisplayLink”, the technology that enables near instantaneous video connection via USB as well as multi-display capability to show multiple presentations on multiple projectors from just a single USB connection and single computer. More than that, when connected to the projector via USB, your computer can act as a fully functional projector remote control too.

Advantages of using the InFocus projector USB connection:

• Near instant recognition of video source
• No fumbling for the function key to toggle the image between PC or laptop display and the projector
• Smaller input real estate on the projector, so future projectors can continue to shrink
• Makes projector presentation setup faster and easier
• Computer becomes a projector remote control
• One USB output can power multiple projectors and presentations

InFocus projectors with the new USB video connection:

• IN1100
• IN1102
• IN3102
• IN3104
• IN3106
• Click here to see all InFocus projectors »

Previously, InFocus skipped the VGA connection in favor of the much less popular M1 connection. This new USB solution is by far their best innovation in some time.

Today, corporate customers have more experience with AV technology than ever before. Reliability is extremely important. From high projection presentations to sophisticated videoconferencing systems, the corporate AV market increasingly depends on top-notch, cutting edge technology to deliver. AVI-SPL Sales Bid Estimator Patrick Britton, who has worked in the industry for 12 years, shares the latest tips and trends for corporate environments.

Q: What technology has been on the rise in terms of effectively equipping executive boardrooms, training rooms and auditoriums?

Over the past year, I have seen a dramatic increase in requests for videoconferencing solutions. The reasons behind this lie in the introduction of HD videoconferencing and tele-presence solutions, the improved quality of the more traditional line of these products, and a reduction in the costs for the components and required infrastructure (ISDN lines, network bandwidth).

At the same time, travel has gotten more expensive, increasing the cost of attending meetings out of town and overseas. Because of this, it’s much easier for a company to see the return on its investment through the use of videoconferencing technology. All of these combined factors certainly make the need for videoconferencing systems more appealing.

Q: Have you seen in increase in digital signage applications?

There has been a greater demand for these systems, as companies are looking for ways to share important information with their employees, partners and visitors. Digital signage is a technology that can quickly and easily impact a variety of settings. Sometimes these systems are as simples as a few displays in a lobby or cafeteria. In other cases, clients can effectively use them as a network of dozens of displays distributed across a campus, sharing information specific to a building or department.

Q: Do you have any application tips that you’d like to share with end-users?

I always try to work with my clients to make their systems as easy to use as possible. In my opinion, fear is the number one reason that AV systems are not fully utilized. People are afraid of technology. When you introduce that technology into a potentially stressful business environment where someone needs to present information to their peers or management, the potential for disaster is high. By customizing the technology and adequately addressing concerns, we can certainly make the transition into new technology as seamless as possible.

The top concern of nearly every customer is that the system function reliably and meets their needs. Ease-of-use has a direct relationship to reliability. We now have the ability to introduce a control system that can make the AV technology as easy to use as an ATM machine. The cost of the control system can be offset by the increased use of the technology. If a customer wants multiple rooms, I always recommend that they keep the interface (touch panel or pushbuttons) as similar as possible from room to room. Someone who uses Room A should feel familiarity when they walk into Room C. These small details will encourage people to maximize their use of the technology.

What, pray tell, is a “hybrid filter”? That is what we wanted to know. So, when Hitachi visited our offices last week we took their new hybrid projector filter apart (see image here) and asked them how it worked.

The new hybrid filter has two-stage air cleaning to prevent dust particles from damaging the electronic components and obscuring the optical components. The first filter, with a corrugated design, traps larger particles, and the second filter, with a tighter weave, blocks the much smaller micro-particles. It acts like a HEPA filter in a vacuum. By limiting dust build-up and ensuring the free flow of clean air, the hybrid filter reduces wear and tear on your projector.

All LCD projectors have filters. But, Hitachi is the only manufacturer to offer this unique, hybrid filter design now available on the Hitachi CP-X201, CP-X206, CP-X301, CP-X306, CP-X401 and CP-X450 projectors.

Advantages of the new hybrid filter projectors include:

• Customers never have to clean the filter.
• Change filter only when it is time to replace the lamp.
• Each lamp ships with the replacement filter, which easily snaps into place.

Less wear and tear and dramatically reduced maintenance requirements translate to longer projector life and lower total cost of ownership. Now there’s a two-part approach we like.

More images: close-up of filters, filter put back together.