Discussions

Hello all, 

We have a small group piloting the Newline interactive flat panels in our lower school this year. We opted not to get the Windows license so our teachers are running their day using the Android side. Mostly, they open Chrome to pull up Classlink and their Google slides. I feel like I have Newline support on speed dial as we all learn the panel together. I would love to chat with someone who is also using the Newline panel because we have seen some quirks. As we go into budgeting season and need to make some informed decisions about panel vs TV purchases, it would be nice to talk to other Newline users. 

Thank you!

Hi Jennifer,

We demoed several panels including Newline.  We still have one on campus and I would be happy to share feedback and troubleshoot with you.  Ultimately, we went with BenQ because they offered account management, allowing our teachers to login to a session with their own bookmarks and and cached credentials on the android side, which is valuable with Google Classroom and Google Drive in the chromium browser.   We've started with 16 BenQ panels and are working through the learning curve as we decide if we'll proceed with IFPs or go with non-interactive TVs.

Hello all, 

We have a small group piloting the Newline interactive flat panels in our lower school this year. We opted not to get the Windows license so our teachers are running their day using the Android side. Mostly, they open Chrome to pull up Classlink and their Google slides. I feel like I have Newline support on speed dial as we all learn the panel together. I would love to chat with someone who is also using the Newline panel because we have seen some quirks. As we go into budgeting season and need to make some informed decisions about panel vs TV purchases, it would be nice to talk to other Newline users. 

Thank you!

We are also experiencing growing pains with a change in IFP from Cleartouch to Newline in the pilot group. One of the main reasons we went with Newline was the ease of integration with Google but reality versus demo board is not quite the same. My teachers run their day with Google Slides and it just acts weird (we are NOT using the app, that was worse) in the Chrome browser, not Chromium. It still feels like modified Chrome though but this is where my lack of knowledge in IT comes into play. We also really liked the touchback feature with our Macbooks and the Newline panel, but it is wonky too with the recommendation to hardwire to the board which is a hard no for us. When my pilot teachers have issues, I use our demo panel to troubleshoot. I love that we still have it even though it wasn't included in our pilot.  LOL

Hi Jennifer,

We demoed several panels including Newline.  We still have one on campus and I would be happy to share feedback and troubleshoot with you.  Ultimately, we went with BenQ because they offered account management, allowing our teachers to login to a session with their own bookmarks and and cached credentials on the android side, which is valuable with Google Classroom and Google Drive in the chromium browser.   We've started with 16 BenQ panels and are working through the learning curve as we decide if we'll proceed with IFPs or go with non-interactive TVs.

Hello all, 

We have a small group piloting the Newline interactive flat panels in our lower school this year. We opted not to get the Windows license so our teachers are running their day using the Android side. Mostly, they open Chrome to pull up Classlink and their Google slides. I feel like I have Newline support on speed dial as we all learn the panel together. I would love to chat with someone who is also using the Newline panel because we have seen some quirks. As we go into budgeting season and need to make some informed decisions about panel vs TV purchases, it would be nice to talk to other Newline users. 

Thank you!

Hello all, 

We have a small group piloting the Newline interactive flat panels in our lower school this year. We opted not to get the Windows license so our teachers are running their day using the Android side. Mostly, they open Chrome to pull up Classlink and their Google slides. I feel like I have Newline support on speed dial as we all learn the panel together. I would love to chat with someone who is also using the Newline panel because we have seen some quirks. As we go into budgeting season and need to make some informed decisions about panel vs TV purchases, it would be nice to talk to other Newline users. 

Thank you!

We've previously had BenQ panels connected to desktop Windows PCs.

We wanted more flexibility with classroom layout and teaching styles, so when we went to refresh our panels this past Summer, we were looking for something that could operate as more of a stand-alone device (not tethered  to a PC).

We demoed BenQ, Smart, and Promethean panels in-house.

I can get more into details of our thoughts if you'd like, but ultimately I think it all largely depends on your wants and needs.

I do have one big takeaway that I'll share, now that we're a few months into the new year:

Chromium is NOT the same as Chrome.  As obvious as that is, we greatly underestimated the impact of the differences.

I'm not sure any of the IFPDs run full Android OS with Google Play services.  They all run a version of Android - and then usually try to fill the gaps with non-Google software and workarounds.  

It's a bit like getting a cheap, off-brand Android tablet from Amazon - except in a 70" version.  Tablets are fine for what they are - but again, the performance and software may be very limiting.

The end results for us was 2-fold: The lack of fully integrated Chrome/Google support and the device just seeming to be a bit underpowered to replace to desktop PC meant we're now looking at buying and attaching higher-end Chromeboxes to each panel.

To do it over again, we'd just plan on going the Chromebox route and likely focus less (and pay less) on the software features of the panel itself.

Hello all, 

We have a small group piloting the Newline interactive flat panels in our lower school this year. We opted not to get the Windows license so our teachers are running their day using the Android side. Mostly, they open Chrome to pull up Classlink and their Google slides. I feel like I have Newline support on speed dial as we all learn the panel together. I would love to chat with someone who is also using the Newline panel because we have seen some quirks. As we go into budgeting season and need to make some informed decisions about panel vs TV purchases, it would be nice to talk to other Newline users. 

Thank you!

We've previously had BenQ panels connected to desktop Windows PCs.

We wanted more flexibility with classroom layout and teaching styles, so when we went to refresh our panels this past Summer, we were looking for something that could operate as more of a stand-alone device (not tethered  to a PC).

We demoed BenQ, Smart, and Promethean panels in-house.

I can get more into details of our thoughts if you'd like, but ultimately I think it all largely depends on your wants and needs.

I do have one big takeaway that I'll share, now that we're a few months into the new year:

Chromium is NOT the same as Chrome.  As obvious as that is, we greatly underestimated the impact of the differences.

I'm not sure any of the IFPDs run full Android OS with Google Play services.  They all run a version of Android - and then usually try to fill the gaps with non-Google software and workarounds.  

It's a bit like getting a cheap, off-brand Android tablet from Amazon - except in a 70" version.  Tablets are fine for what they are - but again, the performance and software may be very limiting.

The end results for us was 2-fold: The lack of fully integrated Chrome/Google support and the device just seeming to be a bit underpowered to replace to desktop PC meant we're now looking at buying and attaching higher-end Chromeboxes to each panel.

To do it over again, we'd just plan on going the Chromebox route and likely focus less (and pay less) on the software features of the panel itself.

Hello all, 

We have a small group piloting the Newline interactive flat panels in our lower school this year. We opted not to get the Windows license so our teachers are running their day using the Android side. Mostly, they open Chrome to pull up Classlink and their Google slides. I feel like I have Newline support on speed dial as we all learn the panel together. I would love to chat with someone who is also using the Newline panel because we have seen some quirks. As we go into budgeting season and need to make some informed decisions about panel vs TV purchases, it would be nice to talk to other Newline users. 

Thank you!

Hi Justin, 

Would you mind explaining what the Chromebox is used for? I am not familiar with that. 

We were sold on the Google integration with Newline and the fact that the demo board ran everything really well for us on the Android side. Newline says they are releasing a new Andriod version next year so I wonder what that will bring to the board. Chromium is not Chrome, we definitely learned that and changed the browser to Chrome, but it still isn't Chrome like it is on the Macbook, and with my teachers using Google Slides, the app is not as good as the web version either. 

We are definitely experiencing growing pains with the Newlines, but that is to be expected when trying something new. Thank you for your earlier response, I look forward to hearing more about the Chromebox. 

We've previously had BenQ panels connected to desktop Windows PCs.

We wanted more flexibility with classroom layout and teaching styles, so when we went to refresh our panels this past Summer, we were looking for something that could operate as more of a stand-alone device (not tethered  to a PC).

We demoed BenQ, Smart, and Promethean panels in-house.

I can get more into details of our thoughts if you'd like, but ultimately I think it all largely depends on your wants and needs.

I do have one big takeaway that I'll share, now that we're a few months into the new year:

Chromium is NOT the same as Chrome.  As obvious as that is, we greatly underestimated the impact of the differences.

I'm not sure any of the IFPDs run full Android OS with Google Play services.  They all run a version of Android - and then usually try to fill the gaps with non-Google software and workarounds.  

It's a bit like getting a cheap, off-brand Android tablet from Amazon - except in a 70" version.  Tablets are fine for what they are - but again, the performance and software may be very limiting.

The end results for us was 2-fold: The lack of fully integrated Chrome/Google support and the device just seeming to be a bit underpowered to replace to desktop PC meant we're now looking at buying and attaching higher-end Chromeboxes to each panel.

To do it over again, we'd just plan on going the Chromebox route and likely focus less (and pay less) on the software features of the panel itself.

Hello all, 

We have a small group piloting the Newline interactive flat panels in our lower school this year. We opted not to get the Windows license so our teachers are running their day using the Android side. Mostly, they open Chrome to pull up Classlink and their Google slides. I feel like I have Newline support on speed dial as we all learn the panel together. I would love to chat with someone who is also using the Newline panel because we have seen some quirks. As we go into budgeting season and need to make some informed decisions about panel vs TV purchases, it would be nice to talk to other Newline users. 

Thank you!

Hello all, 

We have a small group piloting the Newline interactive flat panels in our lower school this year. We opted not to get the Windows license so our teachers are running their day using the Android side. Mostly, they open Chrome to pull up Classlink and their Google slides. I feel like I have Newline support on speed dial as we all learn the panel together. I would love to chat with someone who is also using the Newline panel because we have seen some quirks. As we go into budgeting season and need to make some informed decisions about panel vs TV purchases, it would be nice to talk to other Newline users. 

Thank you!