Touchjet pico projectors

Unpacking the projector:

I had the privilege to test and have students work with the Touchjet Pico projectors (touchjet.com). The Touchjet Pond retails for $599 and has a plethora of features to offer.

The Touchjet Pond is small at 1.3 x 4.3 x 3.8 and weighs 0.6 lbs. It has 80 Lumens, a native resolution of 854x480 and has an aspect ratio of 16:9. The lamp life is rated at 20,000 hours.
It comes with a remote and stylus and with the built-in software, turns any surface into an interactive touchscreen.

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The built-in software is Android based. What I love best about the software is the huge amount of tools available through the Google Store. I've only begun to sample a few, such as Quizlet and Google Classroom, to see how well it would work for classroom use.

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Setting up the projector:

Setting up is a breeze. Initial setup requires you to calibrate the surface. The calibration is based on 5 points and using only these 5 points the calibration appears to work flawlessly.
After calibration comes setting up the wifi. In my situation, I didn't have a network that was available so I set up Internet sharing through my iMac and we were ready to go.

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Using the apps:

One of the easiest apps to use is the 'whiteboard' app. Students in small groups can now use the whiteboards to begin discussion and as a springboard to the next assignment. Today, students used the whiteboards to discuss a grammar concept then moved to a collaborative Google Doc in which they applied the concepts they discussed in their small groups.
Students noted that not everyone could write with the stylus successfully. According to the instructions you have to make sure that you do not block the tip of the stylus with the projector.

​Next week: the projectors in action!

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