The market expectations for interactive displays for educational institutions in the coming years are good. But to reap the full benefits of these, teacher training is critical.
Richard Santa S.
The economic turbulence that occurred around the world during 2011 caused both private companies and government entities to freeze or reduce investments in technology. This landscape also affected interactive whiteboards for the education sector.
For this year things promise to be much better in this sector, because the interest of educational institutions to acquire the latest technologies to improve the learning process of students was reactivated.
For Gregory Vincent, director of international sales at Qomo HiteVision, the expectation for 2012 is that interactive whiteboards will continue to be installed in educational institutions. New advances in technology are beginning to reduce their costs, which will result in a further strengthening of the market.
"There is a desire to acquire these types of products because they are believed to be effective tools for teaching children. It includes projectors and touch interactive displays that will also be sold as an alternative to an interactive whiteboard," he said.
Luis Fernando Hinojosa, general director of Planeadores Visión México, also foresees a positive year in this sector. "The segment continues to grow and I see that this year it will grow more. Every day, throughout Latin America and the world, classrooms have more technology, of course many other things are needed but interactive whiteboards are transforming the lives of teachers and students."
Latest news
The trends in interactive whiteboards incorporate the Multi-Touch system with Windows 7, which supports hand management and eliminates the need to install a special driver, because now the whiteboards are plug-n-play. They are also bringing internet resources directly into the classroom to use on whiteboards.
According to Gregory Vincent. "Multi-user interactive whiteboards allow more than one person to work on them and encourage collaboration among students. It is also more common to use ultra-short throw projectors that remove shadow and improve audience view. New developments are more focused on providing software and educational content."
The latest trends are based on how you collaborate with classmates and the teacher may be interacting with young people who are at the front from a wireless tablet. The rest of the class can also participate with different devices that help everyone inside the room to get involved.
Luis Fernando Hinojosa said that the new whiteboards allow integration with interactive response systems, classroom management software, even the same smartphones that students own can be used in class.
He added that "another example is interactive projectors, which work like a cannon that projects the image to a wall and students use their fingers, without the need for any spatial tool to manipulate the image that is projected. Of course, they still do not have all the benefits of interactive whiteboard software, which are the fundamental part of these tools."
Improved classroom experience
Experts agree that one of the main benefits of whiteboards is that they generate a direct impact on students within their classrooms.
"Students are more attentive, they remember more information because visual presentation helps our memories and they want to be in the classroom because it's more fun to learn. Teachers have the ability to prepare digital material, they can use their time in the classroom more effectively and they will see participation increase," said Gregory Vincent.
In addition, whiteboards can help improve visual and auditory communication of what is exposed in an instantaneous way, leaving digital evidence of what is seen in class, so the value of shared information increases;
Luis Fernando Hinojosa pointed out that they have an idea that the use of interactive smart boards are complicated to use, but in reality they are very simple, both for the teacher and the student.
"Let's not forget that school administrators also benefit from interactive whiteboards, because they can plan, manage and see how they are used in each class," he added.
Training, the challenge
For the experience with interactive whiteboards in educational institutions to be successful, adequate training of teachers in their use must be available. This is one of the main challenges to develop the system.
"Generally the whiteboard annotation software is very sophisticated and there are many features that the teacher needs to get used to to its most complete capabilities. One teacher could easily handle it but another would need more training and time with the use of the whiteboard," says QOMO International Sales Director HiteVision.
She adds that this learning curve scares many teachers because they wouldn't want to be embarrassed in front of the class. "That's why training and daily use of the interactive whiteboard is very important to have good success with this technology in the classroom."
In the same sense, the general director of Vision Planners said, "over the years I have realized that if a user does not know the technology and it is not intuitive, he simply does not use it for fear of making mistakes or looking bad before the students, of course, this is not exclusive to interactive whiteboards."
Faced with the technical conditions required by slates to be installed, they do not present major difficulties. The orientation of the existing classroom must be taken into account because there are traditional whiteboards installed and the new interactive whiteboards that need to be installed directly on top of the old ones.
Another aspect is the location of the master's desk so that it is not affected by the cables that should be located around and an important point is that the projectors need to be mounted correctly to fill the projection area.
They are consolidated in Latin America
The implementation of interactive whiteboards in Latin America is on the right track, although, in general, the projects depend more on the decision of each educational institution than on a government policy of adopting ICTs for the benefit of education.
"Today Latin America is implementing more or less school-by-school developments, which require the deep relationship between it and the integrators. The countries of Mexico, Brazil and Colombia are having good success with the implementation of interactive whiteboards," said Gregory Vincent.
Luis Fernando Hinojosa highlighted the case of Mexico, which has incorporated technologies for more than 15 years supported by the government through several megaprojects of technology implementation.
