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Education being the cornerstone of any country gets top priority and has become a big business for many equipment manufacturers. The world as of now has evolved into the practice of using ICT to aid the learning process. A case of such a practice is the use of Interactive whiteboards in many schools as a replacement for traditional whiteboards and flipcharts. This adaption brings the need to standardize and regularize this aspect of education.The use of Interactive whiteboards has improved the performance of students and has also proven to be of great assistance to the teachers Elementary and Middle Schools have reaped benefits through the use of visual aid programs, the option to save a lesson, the ease of getting immediate response from students and the assistance for distance learning programs The research done by SMART Technologies Inc. in 2009 shows that education sector in US consists of 63.5% of interactive whiteboards users. This has not only facilitated educators in acquiring a deeper understanding of educational needs but also has developed new parameters for these interactive whiteboard manufacturers. The manufacturers of whiteboards, who compete on prices, quality, dimensions and design, are the biggest players and often control the provided features and parameters. There is a need for the designers of the class rooms and whiteboard providers to collaborate and fine tune the teaching process so that the features and parameters are aligned with the teaching requirements.
To better understand the concept of these whiteboards we can simply take the example of a vendor that provides such a solution. For instance, Panasonic provides “Panaboards” of different sizes and varieties that cater to the need of every learning environment. In one of the schools in Los Angeles, the Panasonic whiteboard provided the option that assisted 3 users at a time. A teacher at an elementary school viewed the use of Interactive Whiteboards as a necessity for modern education, “The school is using a PanasonicUB-T880 in one class and Panasonic UB-T880W in the conference room, the results and responses of the students differ significantly, only on the reason that the UB-T880W provides an extra large screen.”
It is very clear from the above statements that the students are well aware of the technology and have made it a part of their lives. It’s not the time to step back, rather it is an opportunity to set a few guidelines that could help the effective use of whiteboards. The Education sector is still on the second step in adoption of this revolutionary product is regularizing the use of the product in educational institutes. This will allow the teachers to set professional and educational benchmarks for educators across the country and define roles for each player in the current educational setup.
The Author Sam Niel has been in the teaching profession for the 5 years and has been a great advocate of using ICT to the benefit of teachers and students. His work has been of great influence at local level.
Many thanks to Sam.
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