Wallington based Wilson’s School, has introduced a range of Casio’s lamp-free projectors to its classrooms, providing “state of the art” interactive capabilities and enhanced lesson content for its 1,200-plus students.
The school, hailed as one of the country’s most successful, has installed 72 Casio lamp-free projectors in total, including the Core Series, Green Slim Series and Ultra Short Throw Series.
The school said it was of “paramount importance” that the projection technology deployed in its classrooms was complemented the high standards of teaching.
Casio’s projector range was described as a “natural choice” due to its consistently high levels of image brightness and clarity over the projector’s 20,000 hour lifetime.
Marek Polniaszek, IT manager at the school explains: “After being introduced to Casio’s projectors at BETT Show and being impressed with the high quality resolution and lamp-free technology, we bought some of their Green Slim Series to trial and were really pleased with the results. They’re the perfect replacements for our traditional lamp-based projectors and we don’t have to worry about additional costs for replacement bulbs with Casio or any maintenance issues. With a good range of throw lengths, there was no need to move mounting brackets.”
The low cost of ownership associated with lamp free projectors also played a key factor in the school’s decision making, with no parts to replace over the projectors’ five year warranty and energy consumption is kept to a minimum due to the Laser and LED hybrid light source. The on/off function also means there’s no need to allow the projector to cool down before turning the projector off at the switch, something that was causing problems with previous lamp based projectors as this was causing bulbs to blow.
“We have just over 1,200 students at the school and approximately 78 classrooms,” added Polniaszek. “There are a large number of projectors to consider. Teachers don’t want to waste time waiting for them to start and as lamp-free technology doesn’t involve any heating up of bulbs, they can get going with lesson content from just five seconds after turning the projector on. There’s also no dimming over time with the Laser and LED light source.”
Marek’s IT team adopts a practical and economical solution to installing projectors by modifying brackets in-house. Connected to interactive whiteboards, the school uses them to display a diversity of content including: slow motion content, thermal imaging and microscope feeds in science, which enhances the learning and development process for students.
Projection is used for self evaluation, for instance during cadet training instructors show the boys how they’re marching so that they can see what they’re doing wrong. In a similar way sports technique can be shown and analysed. This is not only a powerful technique in terms of development and understanding for the students, it’s an innovative way of using the technology to improve the quality of teaching.
The reception area is home to one of Casio’s Ultra Short Throw projectors and displays content directly onto the wall to inform parents and students about upcoming activities. The reliability factor is hugely important to Marek, as it means teaching time is not lost and that he and his team aren’t spending time repairing the technology:
“The fact that we can fit and forget the projectors is a huge plus. As is the lack of filters, as it means we don’t have to spend any time cleaning them.” All the units are encased in a dust-resistant structure which is ingenious. “We’re fairly busy at the school as it is, so the less time spent maintaining technology the better!”
Having worked at the school for 14 years, Marek stresses the quality of teaching is the number one priority and technology reliability that doesn’t cost the earth, essential. Casio ticks all of the boxes.
He says; “We’ll continue to replace our lamp-based projectors with Casio because they never let us down. At a school as busy as ours we can’t afford for things not to work and reliable technology at an affordable price point is exactly what Casio delivers.”
