For a while now, Becta have been trying to establish a common file format for Interactive Whiteboard content. Having spoken to both Promethean and Smart at the BETT show however, they didn’t seem to think it was a brilliant idea given that a common file format will always be the lowest common denominator across all platforms, and hence the functionality offered would be greatly reduced.

That said, Becta have now managed to sign up all of the major whiteboard manufacturers, and even have European support for the standard. Having looked through the technical specification, it does look rather limited. What it should be useful for though is making it easier to create downloadable versions of our flash content, as this is able to be embedded as a media object using the new standard, so allowing users of all IWB’s to access our activities.

All we need to do now is wait for the manufacturers to start supporting the standard, and away we go!