The Hindu Business Line : A board to banish boredom...

Pass the digital wand over the traditional black board and what do you get? The interactive white board (IWB) to transform the teaching/learning scene.

As the name suggests, this board enables students to get interactive with hands-on resources. Priced between Rs 70,000 and Rs 1,50,000, versions of the whiteboard and its accessories come in three screen sizes, with ergonomic pens and eraser, USB cable for plug and play, wall-mounting brackets and additional software for Mac or PC.

Nancy Knowlton, President and Co-CEO, of the Canada-based Smart Technologies, one of the players in the market, talks to eWorld on the board's role in the classroom. Excerpts:

What is IWB technology? How does it benefit the student?

Putting fun into learning. Nancy Knowlton

The interactive whiteboard is a touch-sensitive projection screen that enables you to control a computer directly by touching the board rather than using a keyboard or mouse (although either can still be used).

The basic set-up requires three pieces of equipment: A computer, data projector and the interactive board. The computer is connected to the projector and whiteboard. The projector displays the computer image on the board. Simply by touching the interactive whiteboard, users can access and control any computer application or multimedia platform, including the Internet, CD-ROMs and DVDs.

The whiteboard serves as a central display area similar to a traditional chalkboard. However, its differentiation is its ability to deliver lessons interactively using a variety of media. Teachers and pupils can write over applications in digital ink then edit, save, print or post their notes to a Web site for future reference.

Media use includes colour visuals, presentations, video clips and the Internet. These boards enable children and teachers to manipulate text and objects, and make calculations on screen.

Students love to come up to the interactive board and write their answers to teachers' questions, access relevant Web sites by touching the screen, and present their work.

How can this technology be used in the Indian scenario?

In the Indian scene, high dropout rates from both primary and secondary schools are combined with low enrolment rates at the higher levels. Unless something is done to reduce drop-out rates, by the year 2016, there will be around 500 million people in the country with less than five years of schooling, and another 300 million that will not have completed high school.

Extending the primary school system to over 500,000 villages in India has brought education to the masses. However, these schools need to deliver quality education for such an investment to pay off. And qualitative improvements can be accomplished by introducing new digital learning technologies such as the interactive board.

A dynamic learning environment is created in a whole-class setting, with the teacher at the front of the class.

Research indicates that interactive whiteboards improve student engagement, motivation and attendance as well as review and retention. The research is both qualitative and quantitative (i.e. children increased their reading level by 80 words per minute and increased their math scores by 16 per cent). This research has been undertaken over a number of years and in many classrooms in several different countries.

According to recent research commissioned by Smart on truancy in the UK, the main reason students stay away from school is lack of student engagement.

Almost two-thirds (64 per cent) of students surveyed cite the interactive whiteboard as their favourite teaching method. The board proved to be a more popular choice than working in small teams (56 per cent), working in groups on computers (41 per cent), the teacher reading out loud (11 per cent) or the teacher using a blackboard (8 per cent).

What is the addressable market in India?

Potentially, every classroom in India is the addressable market focus. It would be hard to draw a line and say that one class could have the technology and another class could not, particularly if it is understood that having such technology in the classroom can dramatically improve performance. For many children around the world, including the western world, education is the opportunity that can raise children above the station into which they are born. They have both personal opportunity and the opportunity to contribute to their societies because of the doors that education opens.

Is Canada the only place where this is being currently tested or has this technology made any impact on the Chinese markets or other comparable markets to India?

Interactive whiteboards are being used in classrooms around the world, including Australia, Hong Kong, Spain, South Africa and Italy. Mexico is a good example to cite as it faces educational and infrastructure challenges similar to India.

These products have moved well beyond the test stage, with districts moving toward 100 per cent adoption in many locations across the US, for example.

In the UK, approximately 34 per cent of all classrooms have an interactive white board.Research on the impact of these boards has been undertaken in many parts of the world, including the UK, the US, Australia, Spain and Hong Kong.

The IITs or institutes such as the JNU might be able to use this technology. But when it comes to the grassroots level schools, how cost-effective would this technology be?

Before we even consider product costs, I think we need to look at the cost of running a nation 10 years from now with 500 million people with less than five years of schooling, and another 300 million that will not have completed high school. If India is to continue its rapid advancement, it requires state-of-the art educational infrastructure and systems to fulfil the escalating demand for knowledge workers. We offer a special price for education customers.

Touch of drama

According to a recent British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (Becta) publication entitled "Teaching interactively using interactive whiteboards in the primary phase", an interactive white board is a powerful stimulus in the classroom because: Everyone can write on it and changes can be saved - this gives shared ownership. It has high visual impact, creating a theatrical effect in the classroom.

It facilitates better class control/management. It makes a wide range of resources instantly available (i.e. Internet resources, CD-ROMs, and other content), it supports discussions (on topic) and learning from other pupils and helps teachers save time because materials created can be saved and reused.

These boards are also used in office environments to capture meeting notes and to work on collaborative projects.

Is training the teacher to use the technology a complex task? No, according to Radha Rao of the Lotus Valley International School.

The board requires teaching staff to be computer-savvy and most teachers are computer-literate, she says. Her school has been using the interactive white board for the past couple of years and has found it useful, she says.

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