I don’t know if you watch the BBC’s “Dragon’s Den” program, where small businesses get investment for original business ideas, but one of the companies featured during the Summer was Magic Whiteboards. They are funky “stick anywhere” sheets of portable white board paper. They’re having a competition at the moment on novel uses of the boards and we’re entering how we use them with our schools for lower income families in China and India.
In Japan white boards are magnetic, you simply pop up a picture card with a magnet and voila. In the UK that’s old-tech as all classrooms have interactive digital whiteboards. Of course for our schools in India where budgets are a major concern neither of these are an option. But we need a way to put the Genki English picture cards where the kids can see them. We did try a clothes line and pegs, but it didn’t work very well!
So enter the Magic Whiteboards. It’s just like a sheet of plastic that you put on the wall, but it clings with static, no glue or blu tac needed! The great thing is that you can not only stick paper onto them but laminated picture cards actually stick as well. They aren’t perfect and take a little skill to hold up smoothly, but they do actually work, which is amazing. Here’s a video and picture. They might be useful in your classroom as well.
And hopefully we’ll win the competition! We’re letting the new school in China put the entry in so they’ll get the 1000 pounds prize money, which will make a huge difference – hopefully they’ll spend it on improving the toilets in the school!
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4:07 pm on December 9th, 2008
Looks very interesting. Can you move it from class to class easily?? It does use up some valuable time using blue tac on the backs of flashcards, as interactive white boards are not in schools in Austria yet!
I have just checked out the website and they are not too expensive either. Could be very useful if they are really easy and quick to move.
4:39 pm on December 9th, 2008
They are pretty quick to move, you just peel them off. Apparently they have a maximum number of times you can do this, but it should be quite a few. The only tricky bit with regards laminated cards is that the wall surface has to be really smooth
6:20 pm on December 9th, 2008
That sounds like a really fantastic idea. I don’t have any kind of a board available to me but do have lots of window space which I’ve never like to blutack stuff onto as it can leave a bit of a mark. The website says you can use them 20 (or 10 for grids) times but you do seem to get quite a bit on a roll. This may very well be just what I am looking for. Thanks Richard.
12:15 pm on December 21st, 2008
First of all, I’m sorry for my late-reaction to some of your posted articles. “There’s a saying better late than never”. I’m quite interested to get some “magical white board” it says.. it’s just a sheet of plastic that you put on the wall. Wow…
Q. Speaking of walls.., What kind of wall are we referring for a cement ?,wood? glass?
Are there any stuff like this available in Japan? I wonder if anyone out there please share me your magical whiteboard experienced (based in Japan).