Hello, in this Blog Post, we’re going to look at what is the best Interactive Flat Panel for the Classroom? I’m going to start by stating that we believe it’s the TouchIT Rapide from TouchIT Technologies. In this blog post, I’m going to explain exactly why we think that is so.
TouchIT Rapide is the seventh generation Interactive Flat Panel from TouchIT Technologies and the big standout feature is the Android 8 operating system. For the first time you can actually replace that computer in the classroom with the Interactive Flat Panel so that means you don’t need to connect your computer at all. You can do all of your daily tasks directly on the Interactive LED. Surfing the web, running Apps, annotating, everything is done directly on the LED itself. There is simply no need for a computer.
What size options are available?
The TouchIT Rapide comes in four sizes. It comes in a 65”, a 75” which is by far the most popular for the classroom, an 86” and a huge 100 inch. They all have exactly the same feature set so simply select the size that is best for you. Let’s start by looking at some of the hardware.
TouchIT Rapide Hardware
We’ve already mentioned the Android 8 operating system means that you can actually replace that need for a computer in the classroom which is fantastic. We also have front-facing speakers which we describe as having room-filling audio so you don’t need to have any additional soundbar or any additional amplified speakers as the TouchIT Rapide LED is more than capable of delivering sound into the classroom.
In terms of touch points, we can have up to 40 simultaneous touch points on the LED that’s 40 point touch which makes use of the multi touch nature of the screen and you can make use of any interactive software that has multi-touch capabilities. For those of you that do you want to connect a computer you can do so with two cables. A HDMI cable gives you the image and the sound and the USB cable gives you the touch. There are no drivers to install it’s totally plug-and-play.
We also have a built-in OPS slot (OPS means Open Pluggable System, a standard from Intel of small form factor computers) which allows you to slide into the side of the LED the OPS PC. With no additional power cables and no additional cables at all, you can make use of that OPS PC which slots nicely into the back of the unit.
All of this hardware is backed up with TouchIT’s three year onsite warranty so if there is a problem we’ll send out the parts and we’ll send out a technician to fit them at your leisure and at your location. So, it’s total peace of mind that you’re going to be looked after and this is again one of the reasons that we believe that this is the best Interactive Flat Panel for the classroom.
Finding your Way Around the TouchIT Rapide.
Any product that’s going to be used in the classroom needs to be quick and easy to learn and finding your way around the TouchIT Rapide is a pretty straight forward process.
We’ve got some swipe menus that we can access from either side of the LED and it gives us access to some of the widgets. We can change the volume and the brightness of the LED and swiping up from the bottom of the screen gives us another menu with the home button, back button and access to the annotation tools are found here too.
We have a settings menu that again gives us options to home. If you are using a connected computer whether it be an OPS or if you’ve connected with your cables to the front inputs, switching over to that computer is just a tap on the signal preview the external computer will display.
You can swipe up press the home button and you’re straight back into the the Android operating system and they actually run very nicely side by side. Okay, so you’ve got your TouchIT Rapide installed in the classroom (it comes with the wall mount too by the way) so then what what are you going to do?
The Apps
One of the most important things for any Interactive Flat Panel that’s going to be used in the classroom is having access to content and with the TouchIT Rapide it comes with the TouchIT App Store pre-installed. The Touch App Store is full of apps and all of the apps are totally free to download and install so you don’t pay for any additional content.
The Apps are organized into subject specific categories and if there’s an app that’s not in the store that you really want to use on your TouchIT Rapide LED us know you can actually request the app directly from the app store itself. TouchIT will test it if it works if it’s free it will go in that store within 24 hours.
So access to content and free content is really important for any interactive flat-panel in the classroom when you’ve installed all those applications from the app store on the LED they can be found in the App section.
TouchIT Air
We want to bring to your attention one of our apps available for the TouchIT Rapide LED which is called TouchIT Air. What TouchIT Air will allow us to do is that it will allow us to mirror the screen from an iPad, from an iPhone or a Mac without the need for any additional hardware. All you’ve got to do is open up my the App, then on the screen mirroring option on the deivce, click on TouchIT Air then voila, the screen appears on the TouchIT Rapide.
Contribute Cloud Software
We’re not going to talk too much about the Contribute Cloud software in the blog post, but Contribute Cloud does come as standard with all of our interactive flat panels. Contribute Cloud allows us to create lessons, it allows us to share content out to students on Chromebooks, it allows us to cast, multicast and it has built in gamification and all of this is in one piece of software that comes absolutely free with the TouchIT Rapide LED. So, it’s yet another reason why we believe that this is simply the best interactive flat panel for the classroom.
So there we have it simply the best interactive flat panel for the classroom it’s combination of the hardware and the software together as the package which is why webelieve this TouchIT Rapide deserves this title.
