There is a wide variety of technologies and applications in the launches of interactive whiteboards in the Latin American market, which demonstrate the interest of companies in this segment of the industry.
By Richard Santa
The era of green boards in which teachers had to write with chalk that produced a dust that caused an allergic reaction in many, are already only in the memory of those who passed through a school more than 10 or 15 years ago.
Now the technology was taken over educational institutions with special screens for each type of institution. This is shown by the products presented at fairs such as BETT and Infocom, among others.
Hernán Godoy Flores, commercial manager SAV audiovisual support, a company based in the capital of Chile, explained that "the market aims to design specific solutions according to the type of educational institution we are serving. For example, for the higher education sector, we seek to further improve the accuracy of interactive downs to implement them in medicinal applications, industrial development, design and architecture."
He added that all brands today are looking to launch one or more models that allow the work of 2 or more downs at a time on the surface. He gave as an example the case of eBeam, which will soon launch the eBeam Infowall, the first interactive whiteboard of 250" diagonals, and the eBeam Engage, aimed mainly at the education sector of basic and secondary education.
LED screens, said audio, video and lighting consultant Adrian Morel, have evolved a lot in the outdoor area, in indoor spaces and that specifically for educational institutions the most requested product is the LCD video wall, often also called mounted LCD or MLCD.
Elite Screens Inc introduced VersaWhite. Jaime Abrego, product manager of the company, explained that this is a material that fulfills the dual purpose: projection of images with blackboard capabilities.
The material is available in three new products: White Board Screen Universal, Insta-DE and Insta-DEM. Each is unique and serves its purpose.
Panasonic also presented a range of products, among which were the applications that enhance the use of 3D technology, as well as wireless audio systems, voting systems and applications run on the UB-T880 interactive whiteboard, the newest of the brand.
Hitachi also contributed to the development of interactive whiteboards. Its latest release was the FX-TRIO-77S, an interactive pen-driven whiteboard that can also work with your finger. Its hard surface makes it practically unbreakable and of use by several users.
And what are its benefits?
Experts agree that the main benefits that interactive screens bring to educational institutions are to be able to develop a collaborative work between students and teachers, as well as to give visually attractive access to the contents of the web and the different applications or programs with which all students are counted, actively rather than passively.
Hernán Godoy Flores indicated that another great benefit is to record the classes as multimedia videos to be able to evaluate the process, offer digital tools to build their own content and transform the classroom into an interactive, collaborative, didactic learning environment, accessible to all students and have a communication in the same technological language.
"The eBeam has a tool in the software that offers a teacher to share his class in real time through the internet with students who are at home and who could not attend classes, as well as the possibility of recording each class, which can then be uploaded to the institution's website and thus be visited by students as many times as they wish."
Lorenzo Toro Henao, General Manager of the Colombian company Estructuras Inteligentes, said that digital boards have the ability to record the information written by the teacher on a hard drive and in the next class resume the topic with the examples and pending exercises.
"Here we work with the photographic memory of the student that leaves concerns and unknowns. Later the teacher can clear those concerns without losing detail of what has been seen above."
For Jaime Abrego, the benefit that these new products bring to institutions is the savings in cost, when buying in a product, a blackboard and a projection screen.
"Conventional whiteboards are not made for projection because they feature a bright layer that dazzles and creates distortions in the image, causing a distracting effect by the projector's brightness. These products are ideal for interactive and short projection projectors."
In Latin America, Mexico, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile and Colombia are the most developed countries in that area, especially Mexico because of its proximity to the United States.
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Market behaviour
The market responded very well and although many did not believe that this solution was possible. Several clients complained because they had to project on regular blackboards. The result was the poor quality of the image obtained, but the new screens highlight the colors and the balance of contrasts.
The MLCD market is new and its performance was timid during 2010. The year started slowly but promises to consolidate with this type of new service, that of video conferencing. The incorporation of related software is essential.
There are countries in which there was no good market development during 2010. This is the case of Chile, which after the earthquake experienced last year, many projects that were going to swell the number of installed units, were paused and canceled, for reasons as valid as the prioritization of budgets.
However, during the second half of the year, a number of projects were reactivated, which makes the first half of 2011 look very prosperous.
On the other hand, an important aspect for the market of these solutions is the added value. Therefore, the certified channel or VARs must maintain constant training in terms of new technologies and tools, advantages over competing solutions and have a periodic agenda of "demonstrations" in the field of the solution the number of projects to be evaluated.
