The more I see technology moving ahead, the more I envy new generations for having the internet and mobile and other cool stuff at earlier stages of their lives, during GITEX 2009 I came across three exhibitors presenting a cool tool for eduction which is an interactive classroom.
Instead of the classic chalkboard we used to see in our schools, not things are digitized and interactive, this board is connected to student’s laptops and whatever the teacher does on it, it’s reflected on student’s computer, imagine the great effect this would have on education, they can watch videos on the board, have the material on their computers without having to write, imagine how can they exchange files and knowledge at a very easy pace.
In the first picture a demonstration by Ketab Tech, and below you can see ISGUS and Promethean presenting their products to the audience.
This is great! I took some classes just for fun the last couple of semesters, and the instructor’s computers were hooked up to a projection system. Worked well, but the students had to repeat everything they were seeing on the big screen themselves – which was fine since they were programming classes. That’s a whole lot better than what classes were like when I first learned programming! Back then nobody even had a computer at all in the classes… the computers were in the computer lab and the labs were a separate course!
This stuff in your post, though… I’m really envious. I just wonder how much the school administrations will try to put a cap on these capabilities. I was a bit surprised that students were required to use school computers (and not their own) during my recent classes. It’s kind of annoying having to copy all your own work to a flash drive at the end of class! Or worse, email it to yourself!
Hmmmm…. I wonder what Steve Jobs would have to say about the fact this is all PC technology running Windows!? heh. All the schools around here use PCs and Windows too. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Steve!
although I’m not a fan of microsoft and windows, but ii think it is the ideal platform for such initiatives.