November 2005 — Industry Perspective

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Display Technology ‘Tradeoffs’

by Todd Moffett

Educators face an array of options when shopping for the latest displays.
To choose wisely, first carefully assess the needs of your schools.

EDUCATORS SEEKING to take full advantage of the latest display technologies to enhance the learning experience are faced with a dizzying array of choices. But since display technologies are changing so rapidly, there’s often more than meets the eye, and many educators don’t understand the differences between the technologies or the benefits that each has to offer.

First, every individual school or school district will want to do its own needs assessment based on three main criteria: budget, curriculum, and room environment.

  • Budget. Maximizing your budget means spending wisely— balancing both your financial constraints and your technology needs. It is important to consider the cost of ownership over the four - to six-year period before you upgrade again.
  • Curriculum. The content that will be presented in a specific classroom is very important. Many times, that alone will help narrow the product category. Some materials are better delivered in a one-on-one environment on a small display placed in a cubical within a learning center, while other content can be delivered successfully on a large display with no restrictions. Content considerations also make selecting the proper resolution important. For example, it may seem strange, but a higher resolution is not always better for looking at data since today’s Web sites basically have an 800 x 600 resolution. Of course, higher resolution is better for high definition video content and for very small handheld devices like mobile phones and PDAs, which require a higher resolution to see the smaller detail. You’ve probably seen a PowerPoint presentation that was impossible to read because the fonts were too small for the projector to display properly. Imagine a projector displaying a 144- inch diagonal image, yet you cannot see it from the back of the room. The bottom line is that displays are really only as good as your source material.
  • Room Environment. Check to see how many windows you have in the room. A well-lit room is perfect for learning, so reducing the amount of light merely to accommodate display technology can have a negative effect on student performance. Other considerations include student capacity, room size, and viewing angle.

Display Technology Options
Next, based on your needs assessment, consider the display technology choices currently available. These include plain old picture tubes, front projectors, LCD screens, and plasma displays—all of which make the grade, depending on your specific application.

CRT. CRT stands for “cathode ray tube,” the standard picture tube that has been used since TV was invented more than 65 years ago. Today’s CRTs provide good picture performance at a value price.