Edu-leaders

In today’s world in which students are not just competing with their college peers, but with pupils across the globe, knowledge and understanding cannot be limited to classroom lectures alone. An Interactive White Board (IWB) is one modern tool that helps students connect and compete with their global counterparts. Take a typical class at Sharda University campus (Greater Noida) for instance. Here, the professor does not waste his, or his students’, time by drawing a nuclear power reactor on the blackboard and then move on to an exhaustive lecture on its various components and functions.

Instead, he clicks on an IWB to give a demonstration of what happens to uranium and plutonium inside the reactor and how cadmium rods reduce concentration of neutrons, to shut down or slow down the chain reaction. Another click on the board explains how coolants (such as carbon dioxide or water) carry heat from the reactor to the heat exchanger to produce steam, which in turn drives turbines to produce electricity.

Students then use a stylus to interact with their professor on the pros and cons of using other fuels such as deuterium beams for nuclear reaction analysis, or to access latest findings and discoveries related to the use of deuterium in nuclear processes. “The students’ response is far more enthusiastic than it would have been had it been just me standing and talking,” the professor admits.

Driven by continued technological developments, IWBs are taking the Indian classrooms by storm. But, what exactly are these IWBs that people talk of? They are blackboard-type devices, of varying sizes, that hook up to computers and projectors to create large, touch-sensitive displays on any screen or board. The device also helps a teacher or student to interact with images on screen, highlight or write notes, with the help of an electronic pen or pointer, to incorporate graphics, sounds or videos, the same way as a desktop computer can. Finally, an IWB allows all the extra input to be saved in a computer for future reference.

An IWB also helps reduce the distance in a global classroom as almost 30 to 40 IWBs spread across locations can be connected together with the help of Local Area Network (LAN) protocols and broadband, and a single teacher can teach and interact with students in all these dispersed classrooms.

The Indian Picture
According to Sergio Carniero, the director of marketing for the Europe based manufacturer, Clasus Internationally, the education sector accounts for more than 80 percent of the total IWB sales globally. The picture is not different in India.

More than 3,000 schools in India have IWBs in their classrooms, including Amby Valley School and Delhi Public School. Software content providers such as Educomp Solutions, Evergreen Education Foundation and Edurite Education (in the K-12 category) have been largely responsible for introducing IWBs and in helping the device make inroads into Indian classrooms. However, in the higher education segment where content depends more on an individual professor’s point of view and teaching style, IWBs have had a limited impact.

Additionally, higher education institutes are often more pre-occupied with competing on parameters such as faculty, foreign affiliations, research or placement ratios, rather than IWBs, to attract students.

There is, however, a perceptible shift, as an increasing number of higher education institutes are discovering the various uses for IWBs in their classrooms. Sharda University, for instance, prepares engineering and management lectures in advance and saves them on the institute server. “This process has led to classroom productivity and better understanding, when compared to the conventional mode of teaching,” says Vikram Jindal, the head of the Centre for Innovative Learning, at the university.

IWBs are also being used to address one of the bigger concerns of higher education in India today—faculty crunch—and to deliver programmes over distant locations. Institutes such as Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS) use IWBs to deliver lectures across its Goa and Pilani campuses. They are also being used with dedicated links to organise lectures for various companies in Bangalore through the BITS centre in Delhi.

Many IWB brands are available in India, including Smart, Promethean, Hi tachi , Clasus , Panasonic and Geneepower. Buying them, however, requires financial planning since, a single IWB could cost anywhere between Rs 60,000 and Rs 150,000 depending on the features and technology it offers. Again, with add-ons, (such as the projector, computer, software and accessories like pens), the cost could rise to a steep Rs 0.15 million for a standard IWB.

Of course, there are less expensive portable interactive devices being offered by US-based brands like Mimio and Luidia that make conventional marker whiteboards mimic and behave like IWBs. These can meet the needs of the priceconscious buyers and are slowly gnawing at the market share of established and expensive IWBs.

ICT Consultant Anand Chawla admits that while many institutions with budgetary constraints are demanding these products, they too, have their limitations as far as long-term use is concerned. His advice is that buyers should ascertain if the software being offered by the portable interactive device supports the content software and if the response time is normal. This means that the content appearing on board should follow the tip of the pen.

Mohammed Ghouse, the manager (analyst and media) of the Indore-based Scientech Technologies, which markets Luidia products in India, claims that the modern portable interactive devices do not have such limitations. “They are light and offer portability to users, which means after finishing a lecture, the teacher can carry it to another classroom,” he explains.

However, if the IWBs are to be used as a regular educational tool in classrooms, then institutions should plan for them.

“Though IWBs are more expensive than portable interactive devices, their utility is better. Over a period of time, IWBs justify their higher costs,” feels Chawla. Jindal suggests that instead of installing the white board in all classrooms, an institute could consider pairing a couple of them with several conventional marker whiteboards using proper connectivity, server, Internet and projection facilities to impart a complete and an interactive education.

Selecting Right
The first step towards the right purchase is by deciding the purpose of installing an IWB. There has to be a clarity on whether the focus is on quality education, or simply competing with other institutes. This will decide the nature, type and number of IWBs required. Only then should an the institute explore the brands and products available in the market.

While IWB features for most brands are similar, technologies vary; The commonest are electromagnetic boards, where a mesh of electromagnetic wires is embedded behind a solid board surface. These wires interact with a coil on the tip of the pen (stylus) to determine the co-ordinate of the stylus. Though these boards are bulky, they offer an option of writing on them with a pen or any other pointer—including a finger.

The pens are passive and alter electrical signals produced by the board, but do not contain batteries, or other power sources. Supporters of electromagnetic IWBs claim that the system is more accurate at emulating a mouse and offers a natural pen action that does not malfunction if a user leans on the board while writing. It also has an in-built ability to offer multiple input, using multiple pens.

The other technology uses a combination of infra-red and ultrasound wave receivers to track the location of the stylus (equipped with a transmitter), or a standard dry-erase marker in a transmitter-equipped sleeve. A separate receiver unit, attached to the edge of the whiteboard, determines the distance and direction of the transmitter pen. Since an electromagnetic circuit is not present behind the screen, these IWBs are light in weight and are easy to repair.

Some variants come with Bluetooth tablets (that allows a teacher to move around the classroom, while writing on a Bluetooth tablet. The writing appears on the board), while others are desktop boards (which means that a teacher can command the IWB from his desktop).

With rapid technological advancements, additional options like Wi-Fi connectivity, Net-meeting features, exporting data to other formats, and compatibility with operating systems such as Linux are being offered.

The software accompanying most modern IWBs is equipped to support additional hardware and allows the device to function as a printer, scanner and as a digital camera. This means that while delivering a lecture, a teacher can scan or print any document with a click on the board. With the help of an additional document camera, the teacher can click a photograph of an object or textbook page and bring it instantly on the board.

Points to Check
Before zeroing in on a specific tool, institutes should seek live demonstration from IWB brand vendors. Checklist should include established presence of the brand, software compatibility with programs that the institute intends to use, dealer’s authorisation to sell in India, training facilities provided by the company, durability of the board, service facilities and, of course, the price.

A brand's established international presence ensures that their products have proved themselves in a global market. And that it brings with it the latest innovative uses. The board’s compatibility, as well as the delear’s authorisation to sell here needs to be checked. The latter becomes important as many companies directly import and sell products. “Most IWB companies do not provide after-sales support for products that have not been bought from authorised dealers in India,” warns Vipin Makkar, the business development manager for HCL Infosystems (an exclusive channel partner for Hitachi and Polyvision boards in India).

Training is also important since an IWB brings in new technology. Brands like Hitachi organise two to three training sessions, of which one is delivered by an established international trainer. “Trainers usually hail from countries where IWBs have been installed successfully,” explains Rajesh Kumar Singh, the senior manager of Hitachi India TP Ltd.

Durability is also critical, because electromagnetic boards have circuits behind screen membranes. Any damage to the screen leads to permanent non-functioning. However, there are some that work even if there is a hole on the screen as the boards are tougher. Still, availability of a service network and a clause to provide servicing should be insisted upon. Ordering in volume brings down per unit cost. Some products do not have advertised prices and vendors quote a price. “Negotiations can bring down prices by 30 to 40 percent,” says an official (who refused to be identified) from an institute that has installed IWBs on its campus.

ICT consultant Anand Chawla avers that IWBs represent a technological revolution similar to a computer and that it will not be long before all institutions have it in classrooms. UK-based Futuresource Consulting predicts that global installed base for IWBs would triple in the next five years to more than seven million pieces, with every fifth classroom having an IWB by 2013. Due to an eagerness to invest in this technology, markets like China and India are expected to witness growth rates of almost 150 percent.

Experts are of the view that IWBs are an interface and it is the content which makes the real difference in a class room. One should not forget that the absence of proper content for teaching— through these IWBs—and lack of training (as far as both teachers and students were concerned) led to a wastage of 50 million pounds, when blackboards were replaced by IWBs in half of the classrooms in England in 2007.

Sanjay Gupta, the head of the Centre for Research in Cognitive System (CRCS) at the NIIT University, aptly sums up by saying: “While technology and computer-assisted education is here to stay, teachers will have to go beyond the frills and create meaningful applications with the help of visualisation tools to achieve the goal of giving quality education through IWBs.”