Monday, December 22, 2008

Blogging Roundup on Promethean Activsoftware, Inspire Edition, V4, Activarena, etc, etc, etc...

I've been trying to track the skinny on a few of Promethean's "in-development" apps, noting a great deal of confusion about software for understandable reasons I'll itemize.


  1. Around the time of NECC 2007, Promethean announced that it was "PREVIEWING" something called Activarena. It's on their British website: http://www.mypromethean.com/uk/server/show/ConWebDoc.3841 or via press release at http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2007/6/emw535155.htm.
  2. I have been to 3 tradeshows where they were showing off some features: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m98fWEYA0EU
  3. Then they came out with a darling little device called ACTIVEXPRESSION - by far the mother of all student response devices and a complete redefinition of what many call a "clicker". http://theroyaltreatment.wordpress.com/2008/02/10/prometheans-activexpression-adds-text/
  4. But there was a problem... Promethean launched Expression too early, so those who use it have to constantly toggle back and forth from Activstudio (Promethean's flagship curriculum software) and the Expression stand-alone software. This doesnt go over very well b/c the whole idea with these IWBs and their software is full integration under one platform.
  5. This all culminates into worrisome waiting.
  6. Which brings us to the present: Promethean is (hopefully) rolling out ONE software platform this year which promises to incorporate Activstudio, Activprimary, Activexpression, Activarena in one. It also has been designed "for use with any Interactive Whiteboard" which means they are about to blow crusty old SMART out of the water and you are going to see a lot of people buying Mimio and using Promethean software.
  7. The catch: it is not free and it is not out yet. Europeans can get it at the BETT conference. Americans can get it at the FETC conference. After those two tradeshows, it is available for web download but like I say, I dont know what it costs.



I think that multiple-input is going to blow up - HUGE in ICT. Promethean announced it, now they need to show it. Anybody have any informacion I am leaving out?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

WORD is that Promethean plans to give the public a 45 day full-featured download of the software starting on January 14th. After 45 days, you can keep it by paying (still no pricing info yet) or it turns into "Activsoftware 4 Personal Edition" which is basically the same as Studio with a few features removed, a few added. My guess is they will charge around $100 - $150 for it.