Once upon a time, the only resources teachers had for visually presenting class material were the ubiquitous chalkboard and its trusty sidekick, the overhead projector. I mean, who doesn’t remember Ms. Nelson standing in a cloud of chalk dust as she frantically tried to clear some board space so she could finish the math lesson before recess—only to have little Tommy in the back of the room complain that he hadn’t yet written down the parts she had just erased.
Today, thanks to The HON Company, however, this all-too-familiar scenario is a scene of the past. In its Education Showroom at NeoCon 2008, HON introduced its innovative SmartLink™ Wall Rail System, a multi-functional, multi-layered system that maximizes the utilization of wall and floor space and serves as a flexible teaching tool.
Essentially the Wall Rail System works like this: the multi-layered rail holds three layers of presentation boards. Attached to the first is a fixed, full-width, 12-foot markerboard, while the middle and outer layers accommodate double-sided, reversible boards that slide to facilitate several learning activities simultaneously. The sliding presentation boards come in both markerboard/markerboard and markerboard/tackboard configurations, and the porcelain-on-steel construction eliminates stains from dry-erase markers. The rails can also accommodate worksurfaces to create computer stations or study/work carrels.
Sound ingenious? NeoCon visitors to the HON Education Showroom sure thought so. What it boils down to, they suggested, is that classrooms today need to support an interactive atmosphere, as well as a variety of teaching and learning styles. HON’s Wall Rail System does that and more.
But now it’s time to get back to class—recess is over and little Tommy needs to turn around the sliding presentation boards in his classroom’s Wall Rail System so he can catch up on the notes he missed.
