Touchscreen monitor frames are replacing projectors at MCC 

MANCHESTER, NH – Manchester Community College will spend a third of a million dollars replacing failing classroom projectors campus-wide with electronic frames that can turn a flat screen monitor into a touch screen.

Each monitor frame will run about $3,500, with more than 90 expected to be installed around the MCC campus over time. School officials say the cost will be offset by abandoning the repairs and replacement of the  existing projectors, and they believe this replacement will cut costs in the long term.

These monitor frames turn any TV into a touchscreen monitor by using infrared sensors  to track where a user’s finger touches the screen. These touch screen monitor frames are not new to MCC – computer science Associate Professor Peter Lamonica has had them installed for more than three years.

“The ones that IT is deploying replace projectors that are hard to see, especially on a bright day,” LaMonica said.

LaMonica, who chairs the computer science department, said another advantage of these monitors is the lack of learning curve for using them. Also, the school can easily install one or more touchscreen monitors in a classroom, which is expected to allow for more flexibility when teaching. In addition, since the frames being installed are mounted around an existing flatscreen, Lamonica claims, they are drastically less likely to have hardware issues than the projectors did.

A quick survey on campus of students by the Inkubator reporting team suggested the average student believes the new technology is interesting but is not enthralled by the idea and wants to see it put into action before forming an opinion. MCC Art Professor Joseph Acone echoed similar sentiments, stressing that he needed to use it first to really figure out how it would impact his teaching.

Draigan Pratt and Jared Bekkering are students at Manchester Community College.

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