Promethean Ltd

Infobox Company
company_name = Promethean Ltd.
company_
type = Privately Held Company
foundation = 1999
location = flagicon|United Kingdom Promethean House, Lower Philips Road, Blackburn, Lancashire
locations = Offices & Facilities in UK, USA, France, Germany, Hong Kong & China
area_served = Worldwide
industry = Education Technology
products = Activboard, Activslate, Activpanel, Activtablet, Activote, ActivExpression, Activwand, Activstudio, Activprimary, Promethean Planet
services = Technical Support, Professional Development, Training, Implementation Management,
Homepage = [http://www.prometheanworld.com/ www.prometheanworld.com]

Promethean Ltd is a UK based company that produces interactive educational technology for the global market. Currently the company operates in over 70 countries.

About Promethean

Promethean Ltd was established in the late 1990s to market the Activboard Interactive Whiteboard [ [http://encyclopedia.farlex.com/ACTIV+Board ACTIV Board - Hutchinson encyclopedia article about ACTIV Board ] ] .

Promethean specialises in large format interactive surface technologies, software, digital projectors, Audience Response Systems, Content & Online Community Tools. Promethean also designed and developed its own proprietary radio technology in order to allow communication between the key components of its classroom system.

In addition to hardware and software, Promethean provides professional development and training services to educators and works with publishers to develop curriculum materials for the system which is collectively marketed as the Activclassroom.

Promethean is involved in user interface research and development. A number of prototype, simultaneous, multi touch whiteboard techniques have been developed by Promethean Ltd. Many of these ideas were first exhibited at the NECC 2007 trade show in Atlanta as upgrades to their Activboard Interactive Whiteboard.

Company locations

Promethean have their Head Office in Blackburn (UK) and regional offices in Atlanta (USA), France, Germany and Hong Kong. Promethean's main manufacturing unit is based in China and the company has major product distribution facilities in Europe and the USA.

Promethean Products Timeline

1997: PandA Software

PandA (an acronym for ‘Presentations and Annotations’) which was first released in March 1997. PandA was based loosely on the multimedia presentation application Creator.

2001: Activstudio 1.0

The first version of Activstudio was released in the UK in February 2001. This version replaced and expanded upon the features of PandA.

2001: Activote Integrated Learner Response System

Promethean integrated its Response Devices (Activote) with the Interactive Whiteboard and associated software in order to allow the teacher carry out both preprepared and ad-hoc formative assessment during the lesson itself in order to help the teacher immediately direct remedial instruction.

2004: Activprimary

The derivative application Activprimary, (similar in functionality but offering an interface aimed towards the younger learner) was released for the primary education sector in January 2004.

2006: Activboard +2 Adjustable Height Interactive Whiteboard System

A fully adjustable, integrated Interactive Whiteboard system that could be mounted on a wall. The +2 system does not require a ceiling mounted projector and instead mounts a specially designed short-throw projector on an integrated boom arm. As well as greatly reducing the disruption, time and cost of installation, the system can move up and down allowing users of all ages and sizes to reach all areas of the board. The system also greatly reduces distracting shadows. Because of the wall mounted system, install time has been increased.

2007: Activstudio and Activprimary 3

This software upgrade introduced many new features including the ability for a user to author activities using over 300 "actions" and to connect with the wider online Promethean user community to share resources and lesson ideas.

2007: Promethean Planet

Promethean Planet is a free online user community for teachers to share lesson ideas, resources and set up projects with each other. Currently over 160,000 teachers are signed up.

2007: ActivExpression Student Contribution Devices

In 2007, Promethean launched ActivExpression, that allows students to provide open ended responses and content in response to questions and tasks set by the teacher. A combination of 'hot keys' and a cell phone type keypad allow students to "text" their ideas to the Activboard. The teacher can then "seed" these contributions to the Activ Expression Interactive Whiteboard software, where the words and ideas can be linked, reorganised or ranked in order to create new content. Confidence and Agreement, self-evaluation scales are designed to enable teachers to have learners apply higher order thinking skills in their lessons and stimulate discussion about the processes of learning.

Awards & Recognition

Promethean's range of products and services has won multiple national and international awards:

*The Queen's Awards for Enterprise: Innovation 2003 [ Queens Award, http://www.queensawards.org.uk/business/business.html ]

*Activprimary won the Worlddidac award for Software Innovation in 2004 and again in 2006 WorldDidac, http://www.worlddidac.org/ ]

*Activprimary 2 won Best Education Technology Solution for Productivity/Creativity at The Software & Information Industry Association’s (SIIA) 23rd Annual CODIE awards in 2006 [SIIA / CODIE, 2006, http://www.siia.net/]

*Activprimary 3.6 won the Worlddidac award for Software Innovation for the third time in 2008

*Promethean Planet, Promethean's Web 2.0 user community won the WorldDidac award in 2008

*Promethean Learning and Activstudio 3 were both finalists for Best Professional Development Solution and Best Education Technology Solution for Productivity/Creativity at The Software & Information Industry Association’s (SIIA) 23rd Annual CODIE awards in 2008 [SIIA / CODIE, 2008, http://www.siia.net/]

External links

* [http://www.prometheanworld.com Promethean's Website]
* [http://www.prometheanplanet.com Promethean User Community Portal]

References