Intentional EducationDECKS

Cabinet›Set up a table

Set up a table

A ComTop table is a big touchscreen lying flat, with people standing or sitting around all four sides. There is nothing to install and nobody signs in.

  1. Lay the screen flat

    Put the touchscreen face up, level, at a height everyone at the table can reach across. Decks are built for hands coming in from every side, so leave room on all four edges.

  2. On Windows, turn the gestures off

    A Deck needs every touch to reach the table instead of Windows. These are on from the factory, and a Deck cannot turn them off for you, so it is worth five minutes once on the machine.

    In Settings, Bluetooth & devices, Touch: turn off three and four finger touch gestures, turn off two finger press and hold, and turn off touch screen edge gestures.

    Then in the old Control Panel, Pen and Touch, on the Touch tab: pick Press and hold, then Settings, and uncheck Enable press and hold for right-clicking.

  3. Open a Deck

    Every Deck is one page. Open it in the browser and it runs. Each page carries its own fonts, sounds and pictures, so once a Deck has loaded it keeps playing even if the internet drops.

  4. Go full screen

    Most Decks put brackets in the corners. Touch one and the Deck fills the table. The three dots open that Deck's own menu, where you pick the mode, the sound and who is playing.

  5. Hand it to the table

    Nothing else is set up. A learning table asks for a first name or initials so a kid can find their own work again, and that stays on the machine in front of you.

What stays on the table

Kids never have accounts. Names, recordings and progress sit on that one machine and go nowhere else. No Deck sends anything to a server.

There is one sign-in, and it is for the grown-up who bought the Decks, on the account page. It leaves a single cookie in that browser, marked so no script on the page can read it, and it holds nothing but the sign-in itself. It is never asked for at the table, and no kid ever meets it. Signing out removes it.

If the internet drops

A Deck that is already open keeps playing. Everything it needs is in the page, so a wobbly connection in the middle of a game is not something the table notices.