By IANS
Thiruvananthapuram : Canada’s Smart Technologies, leaders in making educational tools, is eyeing India as a potential market for its interactive whiteboards, multimedia furniture and related products, a top company official said.
“The market potential is huge in India and it is practically untapped. From now on, India would be in our scheme of things and we would vigorously promote our products,” Jimmy Kokaji, international marketing specialist of the company, told IANS here.
Kokaji is visiting the country to appoint new dealers and provide existing dealers necessary support.
An interactive whiteboard is a touch-sensitive screen that works in conjunction with a computer and a projector. Its collaborative tools like smart pen tray and white boarding software are powerful yet easy to use, the company says.
Priced between Rs70,000 and Rs.150,000, the new version of the whiteboard and its accessories come in three screen sizes, with pens and eraser, USB cable for plug and play, wall-mounting brackets and additional software for Mac or PC.
“Ours is a product which would at one stroke replace a computer laboratory which would have around 40 personal computers. It has been proved in around 100 countries that our products are an effective way to interact with digital content and multimedia in a multi-person learning environment. This could be used from primary schools and upwards in all educational institutions,” said Kokaji.
The company decided to concentrate in India after they successfully sold a whopping 168,000 interactive whiteboards in Mexico last year.
“We control 50 percent of the world market and in the UK, 80 percent of all schools have this, so is the case in the US and Australia.”
The company has also made a start in Kerala.
Sunu Varghese, biology teacher at the Rajagiri Public School in Kochi, said that the advantage of the interactive whiteboard was that it helped to get the children involved with their lessons, making the classroom interactive and enjoyable.
“With the interactive whiteboard, we have the facility to go back to the previous lessons, which was not the case with blackboards. Summarising the entire chapter to the children is now possible with it,” said Varghese.
“We have also noticed a great deal of improvement in grades as visual images help children memorise and understand lessons faster.”