Texas School District

Contract Overview

Clevertouch won the 3-year contract with its multi award-winning IMPACT touchscreen along with its accompanying software, LYNX Whiteboard and Clevershare. The initial rollout within the Texas School District includes the installation of 615 front of classroom interactive touch screen displays, encompassing 40 campuses serving 25,000 students and 2,500 faculty members. The initial first phase investment of $1 million for 615 IMPACT Clevertouch touchscreens will be closely followed up by a second order for a further 1,200 IMPACT touchscreens in 2021 with an overall total of 3,000 IMPACT touchscreens to be installed by early 2022.

The Challenge

Previously a SMART and SMART Notebook District faced the challenge of replacing aging interactive whiteboards and projectors with innovative, collaborative and easy to use technology. Why? To improve the learning environment for today’s students by using best-in-class technology.

The Texas School District had a complex set of criteria for its required solution. Besides wanting the best hardware and features, the district was looking for a software suite that:

• enabled faculty and staff the opportunity to use existing resources,
• complied with the IT department’s regulations,
• worked seamlessly with the current network system,
• ensured teaching continued during the technology refresh, and
• improved the overall student learning environment.

In addition, with the implementation of any new product, there are challenges and a learning curve. Yet, the teachers — even those who aren’t the most tech savvy — found the Clevertouch solution features easy to navigate and robust in comparison to the SMART boards they were accustomed to. There was also the issue of cost when it came to revamping their existing technology. Because the SMART products required numerous replacement parts, such as bulbs for projectors, motherboards, and even fuses, it became too costly to do so districtwide.

The Vetting Process

A project of this magnitude required a strict evaluation process. In addition to meeting the needs of the selection criteria, the district was looking for a partner with a strong education focus that could offer future-proofing technology with longevity.

Phase One consisted of the demonstration of all hardware and software feature capabilities. This was compared with competing solutions and those that did not meet criteria were swiftly eliminated.

Phase Two was the assessment period of the remaining solutions. These solutions were tested over 6-8 weeks to make sure each of the selection criteria was definitely met. In addition, the testing window helped to ensure compatibility between the current and new infrastructure for each campus.

The Clevertouch IMPACT touchscreens surpassed the competition, easily satisfying each of the requirements outlined. The superior connectivity, easy to use LUX interface, and built-in education app store, Cleverstore, also provided far more than just whiteboarding.

In addition, auxiliary features helped to strengthen the Clevertouch solution, such as USB-C inputs which enable singlecable connection from the Chromebook to the screen, and Clevermessage builtin signage for broadcasting news, alert messages, and notifications:

• district or local news
• special events like evacuations, intruders, or pandemic information
• external content to keep staff, students, and visitors updated

District staff feel that they have yet to scratch the surface of what can be done with the Clevertouch IMPACT touchscreens.

The Outcome

Clevertouch was the clear solution. Increasing student engagement through innovative and easy-to-use collaborative technology and software was an essential part of their decision-making process. The district’s chosen partner had to lead with solid deployment and installation plans with full support and training. Clevertouch and the IMPACT touchscreen appeared to meet all of their requirements, making them their obvious collaborative technology partner.

The district is motivated to add more teacher and student interaction with the IMPACT touchscreen. In addition, the Clevershare feature will allow teachers to be more mobile during lessons truly boosting engagement and participation. An especially helpful tool is the builtin hotspot feature. Because all of their IMPACT touchscreens are hard-wired to their network, the hotspot feature allows teachers to connect directly to the touchscreen. This especially comes in handy during emergency situations. At one of their one-to-one campuses, there were major wifi issues, but teachers were able to connect all students to the Clevertouch hotspot until the wifi issue was resolved.

The Rollout

Following the unanimous decision to go with Clevertouch the Clevertouch US team supported the distribution, implementation, and training across campuses.

The Clevertouch IMPACT touchscreens were supplied directly to campuses and for immediate use before classroom installations. The result was a fluid experience without disruption to teaching and students. As a Google for Education District, the Clevertouch LYNX Whiteboard software opens native files for seamless active learning.

Overall, the rollout has been a success and Clevertouch continues to support the district as it incorporates technology to improve their student learning environments.

We are excited to learn more about what educators will do with their Clevertouch IMPACT screens.