Thursday 23 June 2016

The Best Interactive LED Screens

What is the best interactive LED screen for your school?


Over the past 10-15 years most schools have bought into interactive technologies for their classrooms which usually consists of an interactive whiteboard, projector, audio system and software to help annotate and present lessons. Decisions on which product to buy used to be fairly simple as the vast majority of schools either purchase SMARTBOARDS or PROMETHEAN ACTIVBOARDS albeit for a small number of schools that opted for cheaper or lesser known solutions from the likes of Hitachi, MIMIO, e-beam and CleverBoards.

Key Benefits of Interactive LED Screens:
As always, technology moves on and for the past 2-3 years this change has seen schools rapidly swapping out their old interactive whiteboards for new interactive LED screen technologies and there are a number of reasons for this:
  • LED screens are brighter and clearer to see - keeping pupils engaged with the lesson.
  • Additional features on some interactive LED screens such as built in devices with access to thousands of education apps means that lessons can be delivered in different ways again helping to engage pupils with lessons (whatever their VAKT learning style).
  • Additional software and resources are provided free of charge with most interactive screens that help teachers to incorporate their existing pupil devices (iPads, laptops, Android & Windows tablets) into lessons by delivering content directly to them via the interactive screen and retrieving worksheets or answers back that can then be saved for pupil assessment purposes.
  • There are no ongoing maintenance costs for LED screens, whereas projectors required servicing, filter changes and costly replacement lamps. 
Prices have dramatically reduced on interactive LED screen technology over the past 12 months as manufacturers battle it out to offer the best technology at the most reasonable cost - making the swap to the new technology affordable for most schools.

Which Interactive LED Screen?
So, your school has decided to replace your old systems with interactive LED screens, but now which ones do you choose?

Unlike in the past 10-15 years where you had two clear manufacturers to choose from, there are now dozens of manufacturers all claiming to offer the best technology, best software and best all round value for your school.... manufacturers have been popping up left, right and centre with products to offer and whilst Promethean and Smart also have interactive LED screens, there are now also screens from Clevertouch, BenQ, Genee, VividTouch, Philips, Iiyama, Samsung, CTouch, Prowise and many more. They all have different features, different built in devices and different software,
but which screen is best for your school?

NS Optimum have partnered with almost all interactive LED screen manufacturers throughout the past few years as the market has been emerging, developing and changing so that we can offer impartial advice:
  • which screen will be best for your school? NS Optimum can help you choose.
  • which software will best suit your teachers and their teaching style?
  • will the school benefit from any of the additional features or software or is this an unnecessary cost?
  • which installation options will suit each individual classroom and the pupils in that class?
A pedagogical consideration for most of these decisions is paramount as there is little point in installing new technology if it's not going to enhance learning. NS Optimum review each schools requirements on a case by case basis to offer impartial advice and quotations to suit the decisions made.

NS Optimum in partnership with Tablet Academy, also offer ongoing CPD for the new technology as an option so that schools really get to know the new technology, how it can be best used to deliver more engaging lessons and to really help bring IT to life in the classrooms by integrating the schools previous investments in IT technologies such as iPads, tablets and laptops in with the new technology such as the interactive LED screen, coding robots such as Dot & Dash and Lego WeDo.


Please contact NS Optimum on 01926 745608 or email info@nsoptimum.co.uk to take advantage of our impartial advice and free school surveys.








Tuesday 19 April 2016

Clevertouch LED Offer - Save £300.00, Trade-in & FREE Training


We have a fantastic Clevertouch interactive LED Screen offer for you which will save your school a total of £300.00 + VAT from our already discounted education bundle price.
  • Full Installation Service
  • FREE Training
  • FREE Disposal of Your Existing AV Hardware
  • £100 Trade-In For Old Projectors*
  • Includes Wall Mounts, Cables & Accessories
Just £2,149.00 Fully Installed



**CLEVEROUCH SPECIAL OFFER - Finishes 31st May 2016 and Includes**
*Trade-in applicable with the purchase of 2 or more Clevertouch V Series LED screens



Contact NS Optimum today on 01926 745608 or email sales@nsoptimum.co.uk for an official quotation.


Thursday 14 April 2016

Safeguarding IT in UK Schools


Safeguarding your pupils has always been a priority for schools but more recently there is a focus on safeguarding measures to incorporate the schools fast evolving IT / ICT systems covering both external internet usage and internal network use.


How information is accessed:
school devices / BYOD / static or mobile devices

What content is accessible:
block everything? or allow access but track activity so that appropriate action can be taken (disciplinary or educational).

Prevent Duty compliant broadband:
Schools Broadband with built-in Prevent-Duty compliant filtering & reporting.

Monitor & report user activity:
not just online but off-line across the network. Cyberbullying, self-harm & radicalisation isn’t just an internet problem so web filtering may NOT pick up on it - that is where internal network monitoring and reporting (products such as Impero and Policy Central) come in to play to offer reports and instant alerts to your safeguarding officer on unusual activity.

Physical safeguarding mechanisms:
door access security, intercom entry, visitor management & CCTV IP Surveillance.



To discuss your schools IT safeguarding concerns, call NS optimum on 01926 745608 or email info@nsoptimum.co.uk


Monday 29 February 2016

NS Optimum Competition - WINNER Castle School Cambridge

NS Optimum & Promethean UK partnered for this years BETT education technology show and part of our promotion was a competition for anyone that visited the NS Optimum stand and filled out a competition entry form.
The prize (worth approx. £3,000) included:
On 5th February we drew a random competition entry and announced the winner - click here to view the draw - and the winner was:
CASTLE SCHOOL CAMBRIDGE

NS Optimum CRB/DBS cleared installation teams carried out the installation on Friday 26th February and were welcomed by a very happy set of staff. The installation went smoothly and the school staff were overjoyed having won the competition and now having this amazing piece of technology to teach with. They sent their thanks to NS Optimum and Promethean UK for the competition.


Congratulations to Castle School for winning the competition - Many thanks to Promethean UK for partnering with us at BETT and for supplying the competitions Promethean ActivPanel interactive LED screen & many thanks to EVERYONE that entered the NS Optimum competition, we had more entries than ever expected and a very successful BETT show.

We look forward to seeing you at next years BETT show. In the meantime you can contact NS Optimum on 01926 880300 or by emailing sales@nsoptimum.co.uk to discuss your schools IT requirements.

Take Care