editorial
Interactive Whiteboards: Creating a Stir in the Education Sector
Advisory Board Prof. Asha Kanwar, Vice President, Commonwealth of Learning Dr. Jyrki Pulkkinen, CEO, Global eSchools & Communities Initiative (GeSCI) Shri Subhash C Khuntia, Joint Secretary, Department School Education and Literacy, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India Prof. V N Rajasekharan Pillai, Vice Chancellor, Indira GandhiI National Open University (IGNOU) President: Dr. M P Narayanan Editor-in-Chief: Dr. Ravi Gupta Editorial Team: Dr. Prachi Shirur, Dr. Rajeshree Dutta Kumar, Divya Chawla, Sheena Joseph, Pratap Vikram Singh, Dhirendra Pratap Singh Sales & Marketing Team: Debabrata Ray, Arpan Dasgupta, Bharat Kumar Jaiswal, Fahimul Haque (Mobile: +91-8860651632), Rakesh Ranjan (sales@elets.in) Subscription & Circulation: Gunjan Singh Mobile: +91-9718289123 (subscription@elets.in) Graphic Design Team: Bishwajeet Kumar Singh, Om Prakash Thakur, Shyam Kishore Web Development Team: Zia Salahuddin, Amit Pal, Anil Kumar IT Team: Mukesh Sharma Events: Vicky Kalra Editorial & Marketing Correspondence
All over the world, Interactive Whiteboards (IWBs) have played a major role in spreading the use of technology in education. Over time, IWBs have not only made teaching and learning more engaging and productive but also adapted to the changing trends in the educational context. In view of the transforming reforms in the school education sector, IWBs have transformed their functioning to suit classroom requirements. With the education market size in India estimated to be $ 50 billion by 2015 according to reports by ASSOCHAM, the potential growth of technology in this sector is tremendous, although it can also be highlighted that integration of ICTs in education is still at a nascent stage in India. The proliferation of schools and educational institutes today provide a large and untapped market for the IWB sector. Challenges in the use of IWBs such as teachers training and provision of regular supply of electricity have to be addressed by provision of efficient tools and training solutions. Financial barriers of educational institutes can be overcome through low-cost and adaptable solutions. For a student, IWBs pose more of an excitement rather than a challenge, coming from their intrinsic nature to learn and adapt to newer technologies. Solution providers have bombarded the market with IWB packages, complete with teacher training kits and accessories, with no dearth of choices in the sector. We hope to see an education market in India replete with examples of appropriate integration of technology to fulfill the teaching and learning aspirations of millions of students and teachers alike. The teaching community will only be too open to change as long as their initial apprehensions towards technology are addressed through proper and relevant training and orientation. The possibilities are immense and the future will see greater innovations to suit the education technology requirements. The Interactive Whiteboard special issue seeks to highlight the role of IWBs in the Indian market and also puts the spotlight on voices from the education stakeholders. Also, as a continuation of our efforts in profiling leading edupreneurs, we bring an exclusive interview coverage with Kishore, Managing Director, Everonn, the company that is now one of the leading players in the education sector. Watch out for more of such inspiring interviews in our upcoming issues.
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Dr. Ravi Gupta Editor-in-Chief Ravi.Gupta@digitallearning.in
digitalLEARNING / april 2011
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