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April 5, 2010

HCL Infosystems India's premier hardware, services and ICT system Integration company, announced the return of Beanstalk, one of the most popular desktop range to cater to the growing demand for cutting-edge technology on the home computing front. With power-packed features and advanced technologies, the all new HCL Beanstalk range will offer the ultimate convenience of productivity, connectivity and an incredible new entertainment experience. HCL Beanstalk was India's first Home Multimedia PC launched by HCL Infosystems in 1995 with a view to address the fast emerging home computing market. Speaking on the occasion, George Paul, Executive Vice President, HCL Infosystems Ltd said, 'HCL Infosystems has a strong heritage in computing business and always pioneered the latest technology for the Indian consumers. We have successfully maintained a strong foothold in the desktop category and have believed in high performance, providing a better experience to our customers. We are leveraging our robust 'eco system' of partners to deliver the performance and set the trend for a smarter computing lifestyle.' He added, 'The return of HCL Beanstalk PCs is a significant step towards expanding our leadership positioning in the high end desktop space. HCL Beanstalk will transform the mainstream consumer experience by bringing a whole rich world of multimedia, entertainment, education and lifestyle aiding features.'

Commenting on the launch Rishi Srivastava, Group Director OEM, Microsoft India said, 'We have enjoyed a very long partnership with HCL, including the first Home PC introduced in India or even the first Media Center PC in India. Today, we are delighted to further cement our long term association, with the return of HCL Beanstalk PCs that will help us collaboratively deliver a premium computing experience to PC users in India. With Windows 7, Microsoft has built an operating system that makes new things possible. It is the PC simplified, and customers will experience a faster, smarter and more secure operating system that just works the way they want.' HCL Infosystems has launched three models of Beanstalk PCs for the Indian market i.e. Beanstalk Classic, Beanstalk Ultima and Beanstalk Xtreme. The Beanstalk range has been equipped with newly designed interface of Microsoft Windows 7 and has Intel Core i3, i5 & i7 processors to completely revolutionize the digital entertainment in India. Beanstalk Classic comes with a sound system from one of the world's best name in sound, the Bose

First elearning syllabus for schools by Kenyan Ministry

Policy Matters

digitalLEARNING Network

April 5, 2010

First e-learning curriculum for schools was launched recently by Kenya. The key focus of the curriculum is on learning institutions to embrace new innovations in IT. The launch took place as part of the first ever regional e-learning conference which officially kicked off in Kenya, recently. The three-day conference organized by the country's Ministry of Education, Microsoft, Kenya ICT Trust Fund, the UN Education, Science and Culture Organization (UNESCO) and ICWE Africa has attracted over 1,500 participants from Eastern and Central Africa. Education ministers from the region were also in attendance.

The occasion was graced by presence of Kenyan Education Minister Sam Ongeri. It was mentioned that the conference was held at a time when the country has accelerated its efforts to achieve education for all and Vision 2030. The conference marked a critical milestone in embracing ICT in education and its integration in the education sectors of the nations represented. Held at the Kenya Institute of Education (KIE), the conference was viewed as an effort to bring together ICT players from the region. These players were assumed to act as a catalyst to shape global economy and reach desired goals. The conference themed as Transforming Education Through E-learning, was to discuss use of ICT in learning.

Harnessing India&rsquo:s Potential through Skill Development

Magazine

digitalLEARNING Network

April 1, 2010

The present paper talks about Government of India’s perspective on vocational training, skill development and employment. The paper confines to skill development, leaving aside education. Government of India realised that unless we modernise all our existing institutions, upgrade and revise the course curricula and make them industry driven, things will not move.

There are two flagship schemes under DGE&T:
Apprenticeship Training Scheme –ATS, which is also trying to link training with the actual industrial environment. Under the Craftsmen Training Scheme (CTS), there are 7605 ITIs and ITCs (Govt.-2076 & Pvt.- 5529) with a seating capacity of 10.62 lakh . ITIs are owned and run by the government and ITCs are owned and run by private sector, they could be corporates, NGOs or individuals and other different kinds of entities. There are 112 trades. Many other economies, particularly developed economies have a much larger number of trades. Australia has around 340 and Germany has 350. Training duration is 6 months to 3
years. Entry qualifi cation is VIIIth to XIIth tandard and age from 14 to 40 years. There is no age limit for women. Under the Apprenticeship Training Scheme (ATS), we have 24,815
establishments which impart apprenticeship training. There are 188 trades and they altogether cover 2.79 lakhs seats while Germany as I mentioned, trains about 6.5 lacs apprentices per year. Duration of the Courses is 6 months to 4 years and entry qualifi cation
is 8-12th Standard & ITI pass-outs but in ase somebody has passed ITI then that period is reduced from his apprenticeship training. Minimum age is 14 years and there is no upper age limit.
UP GRADATION OF EXISTING ITIS Up gradation of ITIs into centres of excellence actually started quite accidentally. Government had neglected skill development sector for quite some
time. ITIs were set up way back in 1950s and 60s with an objective that they would train people to meet the requirement of the industry. And Pandit Nehru was so passionate about it. A decision was taken in 1968 by National Development Council hat these institutions, being closer to the people, may be transferred to the state governments. They were transferred on
April 1, 1969 lock stock and barrel to the state governments and probably that’s when the problems started. They were plan items in the central government as soon as they were transferred to the SHARDA PRASADSo the Government took following decisions:
(i) Modernize & upgrade all the exist ng Government ITIs.
(!i) Set up large number of skill development institutions in Govt., Private and Public
Private Partnerships with some kind of accreditation standards so that they deliver required quality
(iii) Run all ITIs/ ITCs in 2-3 shifts, which is quite easy
(iv) Introduce short term modular courses (so that we can train larger numbers in shorter time) in addition to long duration courses. We had been running longterm courses- six months, one year, two year and some even three year courses in the training institutions. Industry requires faster turnout and therefore short term courses are necessary(v) Take up training of trainers in big way. This is a huge problem, not only in India but in rest of the world also. The whole world is facing the problem of trainers. Therefore this is one issue which has been fl agged. So the broad strategy is that we train trainers in very large numbers who can meet the requirement of different sectors of economy.
(vi) Achieve greater involvement of industry in skill development. Unfortunately, for historical reasons in India skill development efforts were started by government, while in some of the best economies e.g. in Germany it is all driven by the industry. Last year their total expenditure on skill development was of the order of 35 billion Euros in a country of 82 million population and it trains about 650,000 apprentices every year, Out of the expenditure of 35 billion Euros, industry contributed about 28 billion last year which is 80% and the government both federal and the landers equivalent to state governments here contributed only 20%. In India 100% expenditure is made by the governments both the
centre and states.
(vii) Use of Information & communication technology tools for greater outreach to remote areas. And we have already started this. We had the traditional concept of teacher taught ratio I: 20 or 1:30. Why it can’t be 1:1000, 1:10,000 or 1: Million. We just have to set up a studio, a receiving station and arrange lectures.

Any number of persons can receive lessons like this. digital LEARNING APRIL 2010 23 state governments, they became non
plan items. In 2004, after the new government was, formed, Finance Minister Chidambram
was holding a pre budget meeting with the captains of Industry. One of the important issues raised by them, besides other things like taxations etc., was that government was running a huge system but the quality of people produced was not up to the mark and they were not
relevant to their current requirements of skills. Chidamdram announced in the fi rst budget he presented that we ould upgrade 500 ITIs into centres of excellence by investing domestic
resources and would also take world Bank assistance. That’s how this scheme started. We took up the fi rst 100 ITIs in 2005-06 at a cost of about INR 160crores and took World Bank credit of US $280 million to upgrade 400 ITIs. The idea was not to upgrade just one time but there was some kind of paradigm shift.Another feature of the policy was that it took in to account the fact that in another 10 or 20 years the machinery would become irrelevant as the technology is changing fast and the one time big investment would then go waste. So we thought that industry must be put in the centre of the whole skill development effort like what the rest of the world was doing. Up gradation of remaining 1396 ITIs (at that time we had 1896 ITIs)
was taken up in PPP mode, in addition o 500 already taken up and Finance Minister announced in 2007 budget a commitment of about INR 3550 crores. IMCs were converted into societies which comprised fi ve members from the industry, fi ve from the government
and the Principal would become the Member Secretary. They were given full academic, administrative and fi nancial autonomy so that they became the new management and took all decisions at the local level and didn’t have to refer anything to the state government or the
Directorate. Infrastructure development has already been taken up in 500 Govt. ITIs, 100 Domestic funded and 400 World Bank assisted. In addition, Centres of Excellence (COE) for producing multi skilled workforce of world standard at acost of INR 1741 crore (Domestic – INR 160 crore and WB INR 1581 crore) are also being created. Total number of ITIs
covered under PPP is 600.
SKILL DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVE
This was also announced in 2007. The private sector infrastructure was taken into account and tried to use that infrastructure to train people according to requirement of the industry. The initiative is demand driven with short term training ourses based on Modular Employable Skills (MES). A person can do any module; he can do second module, third module, fourth and so on as per his choice and eed of the industry.

The cost of trainingis borne by Govt. of India. A Scheme has been approved to train 1 million peopleat a cost of INR 550 crores in 5 years. Thereafter infrastructure so created will be used to train one million every year. 3.54 Lakh people have already been trained/tested since inception against a target of 1.90 Lakh. 970 course curricula have been developed against a target of 200.4538 Vocational Training Providers (VTPs)have been registered and 22 Independentassessing bodies empanelled who assessthe competencies of trainees so that thequality of training is not compromised. NCVT certifi cate is given to successful candidates. India is the fi rst country
which has done this innovation.
NATIONAL SKILL DEVELOPMENT POLICY
The National Skill Development Policy has been formulated and was approved by the Union Cabinet on February 23, 2009. In last 60 years we didn’t have any policy and it is a laudable work which has been done. With Prime Minister himself guiding the whole process wehave been mandated to skill 500 million persons by 2022. The policy aims at enhancing individual employability and strengthening competitiveness of the country. It addresses the issues such as National Qualifi cation Framework, expansion of outreach, equity & access,quality and relevance, skill development for the unorganised sector, benchmarking of skill defi cit, setting up of Sector Skill Councils, etc. It is a mammoth task but by the time India completes 75 years of independence we should have adequately skilled manpower in the country if wewant to reap the demographic dividend.
NATIONAL SKILL DEVELOPMENT MISSION
Prime minister announced National Skill Development Mission on August 15, 2007 which has been put in place. Following institutions have been created under this Mission: Prime Minister’s National Council on Skill Development: This is headed by the Prime Minister himself and he conducts its meetings. There are about 8 cabinet ministers, 6 persons from private sector. Nandan Nilekani, Rajendra Pawar of NIIT, Professor C.K. Prahlad and many
emin

Opportunities and Impact

Magazine

digitalLEARNING Network

April 1, 2010

Pankaj Kayathwal
Business Vertical Manager, LG Electronics India

There is a paradigm shift in using the tools for purpose of education today. Educational Institutes are trying to develop a system of more and more scientific gadgets to create much effective teaching-learning process. This also cut down the cost in the process. Because good faculty cause a high expenditure and replacing manpower with effective technology results in good quality of teaching with lesser cost. There is an obvious major boom to see in the education sector in India in terms of using technology in comparison to the global scenario. As the world is moving towards technology driven education system, India is also not far behind and capturing the pace very fast. There is also a good competition growing in between the private and government/state run institutes in India in terms of the quality of education, using technology and resulting a huge potential of quality development of mankind.

Mohammed Ghouse
Manager, (Analyst & Media), Scientech Technologies Pvt. Ltd.

IWB's are the most important tools of learning. They have changed the way we teach & train because education has become Edutainment providing a greater learning experience to both, the Teacher and the student. We provide Interactive Classroom Solutions consisting of Clasus, Legamaster and Luidia's Interactive White Boards or eBeam Interactive Devices, Quizdom Voting Pads, Document Camera, Wireless Tablet, Projector etc. In comparison to international market, Indian market is slow paced but a potential market. There are still a million classrooms left to be made Interactive. The penetration of equipments is much higher in private schools than Government schools. Government should promote them more widely through a policy. Otherwise the growth will be slower. We are sure India will be emerge as the fastest emerging market for quality education in the next few years.

Harish A. K.
Senior Business Manager, Visual Instruments, Epson India Pvt. Ltd.

Considering the world wide market scenario the only segment where there is consistent growth is Education across the globe. The teaching methods are drastically changing from the conventional black board to computer based teaching with interactive content. Interactive classroom teaching (ICT) is the current trend in education with graphical representation where students gain much more practical knowledge in reality world. In this the teacher is using the computer, IWB & projector for the teaching. This kind of teaching is motivating students to be involved in every aspect and teachers are in receipt of good results from maximum students. The growth in India is almost 15% – 20% every year on the education segment and lot of funds being allocated to education from the government very year. Epson has range from 35K to 70K for the standard class room projector.

Jaemes Shanley
Director of Sales-Asia Pacific-Latin America-New Mexico, mimio

There is probably no other nation like India, which has seen the transformative impact of a well educated and technologically literate workforce on the national economy. India already has some of the worlds most highly innovative providers of ICT to education bringing comprehensive interactive classroom solutions which integrate equipment, content, training and support to schools. The rapid growth in adoption of ICT and IWB's in the private schools sector will migrate to the public or government schools sector in the coming years and when it does, will be of unprecedented scale. At this moment, mimio provides a range of portable and highly affordable solutions for creating Interactive Whiteboards in classrooms. The cost of these systems can start at prices as low as Rs 32,000.

Suresh Kumar Garg
CEO, Dispro Visuals

India is no doubt an emerging market in the segment of IWB and audio-visual equipments in the education sector. But lot needs to be taken care of, though. There is a dearth of proper knowledge of the usage of the equipments. Continuous feedback required from teachers as well as parents. There need to be awareness about the products and the usage of it. The premium and good schools always include these equipments in their infrastructure. But there is still a dearth of general consciousness in the subject. Dispro Visual Technologies Ltd., with over a dozen firsts to his credit.,having 30 years of practical experience in projection displays. Dispro Visual has an exclusive range of Interactive products like Dispro E-Board, Intensaa H18 Interact, High Quality Rear Projection Systems, Dispro Touch LCD TV, Inwall Interact, Holo Magic Screen, 3D Plasma and LCD, Interleaved 3D LCD Panel and Dispro 3DTV 100 System.

Colin Messenger
Senior Consultant, Futuresource Consulting Ltd. UK

In the Indian education sector, the estimated installed base of IWBs is 9,000 and projectors 112,000. These numbers are forecast to increase to 111,000 and 276,000 by 2011.The Indian Government already realises that there is a real need for quality education in order to match international standards and allow them to compete and not get left behind. With 4.9 million classrooms the Indian market clearly provides a significant market opportunity for suppliers of ICT equipment. However, the market is extremely fragmented with a vast disparity in the education system throughout the country. Driven by continued technological developments, our projections show that one in six classrooms will have an Interactive Whiteboard by 2012. In the 66 countries covered within the Futuresource report, there are over 31 million classrooms, a huge market potential for companies operating within this sector.

Peter Ormerod
Vice President,
Promethean Ltd.

Interactive Whiteboards are becoming an increasingly common classroom resource and already schools and colleges are seeing the benefits that this technology has in transforming teaching and learning across the curriculum. Teachers are using the technology to develop their range of pedagogical strategies and are beginning to exploit the technology to act as a catalyst in enhancing teaching and learning. IWBs are taking education to the next level, by actively engaging the students and make them understand the things rather than just remembering the facts. The impact is tremendous as there is a saying that rather than explaining in thousand words, show a picture. Promethean was the first to launch integrated voting products, the first with integrated board and short throw projector and the first interactive whiteboards with multi-input capability, Promethean leads from the front.

Ranjit Yadav
Director Mobile & IT,
Samsung Electronics

IWBs demonstrate clear effectiveness in improving student participation, concentration and learning efficiency. Globally IWBs are showing a healthy acceptance in schools. In the US, the IWB Market is set to grow from 375K units in 2009 to about 637K units in 2010. At Samsung, we have focused on creating IWBs that are not only sleek in design but also have a brilliant technical edge. Our innovative Touch screen 650 E IWB has a wide viewing angle and supports multimedia display ranging from photo, flash and video. We feel that the IWB has a good potential in India with the focus in education gearing towards drawing greater interactiveness and participation from students. The market in India for IWBs is just about getting created. As the classroom environment progresses towards an engrossing interactive session with av aids, IWBs would serve the purpose of integrating digital content and enrich the learning experience.

Corporate News:April 2010

Magazine

digitalLEARNING Network

April 1, 2010

LPI, Potugese agency collaborate for promotion of Skills training and certification

A collaboration recently took place between the Linux Professional Institute Potrugal (LPI), the world's premier Linux certification organization, and UMIC, the Knowledge Society Agency of Portugal's Ministry of Science, Technology and Education. This collaboration is to promote training and certification of professional skills in the use of Linux, open source technologies and free software in higher education institutions in Portugal. Jim Lacey, president and CEO of the Linux Professional Institute mentioned that LPI's major objective is that its affiliate in the region would be providing TTT that is 'train-the-trainer' programmes in order to certify instructors within participating academic institutions under this initiative. The Portuguese Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education through UMIC has also been working with Portugal's universities and polytechnics over the past five years to develop more than 60 professional training courses in ICT for more than 2,200 students.

Corporate education to be the focus of U21 Global

U21 Global, the online university promoted by a consortium of international universities, is one of the Manipal Group investee, is soon to get a facelift. To get into agreements with around 10 other institutions, U21 Global, mostly private universities in India. Its focus also lately, has been shifting to corporate education despite originally setting up an online university offering masters degree programmes. Established in 2001 as a joint venture of 17 member of international university consortium Universitas 21 and Thomson Learning, it was to offer online business degree programmes to students. Manipal Education Group, however, in 2007 acquired a 50 % stake in U21 Global by purchasing the holding of Cengage Learning and gradually upped it to 75 %. The Rest of the partners in U21 Global include institutions like the Universities of Melbourne,Nottingham, Birmingham and Virginia.

Corporate coach for getting maximum output from employees

Starting soon, Allegany College of Maryland through its popular continuing education course, will teach corporate coaching, practical skills that managers can use for work place results. Corporate coaching is to deal with the practical application of coaching and mentoring employees so that they deliver results, grow their capabilities and improve communication. Jeannette Rudy Fitzwater, a registered corporate coach, uses an interactive curriculum that allows for the discussion of real workplace issues and solutions. The aim of the course is to guide employees to think and do for themselves to deliver the needed results, motivating employees to take on responsibility and perform effectively, and growing employee capabilities that lead to future growth and success.

PepsiCo pledges not to sell sugary beverages in schools worldwide

On March 16, 2010, Pepsi Consumer advocacy groups announced that the company will stop selling full-sugar soft drinks to primary and secondary schools around the world by 2012, very happily. Kelly Brownell, Director of Yale's Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, lauded companies action. The Center for Science in the Public Interest also applauded the move, which stems from a campaign led by CSPI called the 'Global Dump Soft Drinks Campaign.' Coca-Cola and the International Council of Beverage Assns. were also at negotiations that led to the PepsiCo announcement, these took place in Geneva, convened by the World Heart Federation. Earlier this month, the American Beverage Assn. released a report on school beverages, in which it reported an 88% decrease in total calories in beverages shipped to schools and a 95% decrease in shipments of full-calorie beverages.

School textbooks with e-Module from Encyclopedia Britannica

TIndian schools will be hit with Encyclopedia Britannica textbooks, along with an online study module from April 2010. These textbooks will cover matter in four subjects – computer science, mathematics, environmental studies and general knowledge, told President, Encyclopedia Britannica, Jorge Cauz. This information has been revealed after the knowledge giant made inroads into the school textbook business in India with a collection of 30 books, 10 knowledge CDs and nine teacher's manual. The Britannica books cover the National Council for Education, Research and Training (NCERT) syllabus from classes one to eight. The internet modules under Britannica Online School Edition (BOSE) have been created for three levels including elementary (primary), high school and senior high school, covering classes one to twelve.

India News : April 2010

Magazine

digitalLEARNING Network

April 1, 2010

Purandeswari says NCHE will be the apex

Recently, at the 20th annual convocation of Kuvempu University, Union Minister of State for Human Resource Development D. Purandeswari mentioned that the regulatory bodies of higher education such as the University Grants Commission (UGC) and the All-India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) will not be done away with, after the constitution of the National Council for Higher Education (NCHE). These institutions will be subservient to the latter.

The Bill for NCHE formation might be placed before Parliament in May or June. Purandeswari suggested another important recommendation of the National Knowledge Commission that universities should have a limited number of colleges affiliated to them, ranging from 70 to 100, so that they could coordinate with them in a better way to ensure quality education.

INR 50 crore for registration of New foreign universities

According to the Foreign Educational Institutions (regulation of entry and operation) Bill, the foreign universities will be checked from repartriating profits from Indian campus though education, by making it mandatory for the universities to publish a prospectus for settling in India. The new education providers settling down in India are required to deposit an amount of INR 50 crore with the body that will register them, which is the University Grants Commission (UGC).

Various levels of registrations are to be done by the foreign universities at various levels, but the bill promises time bound registration to them.

Approach to Anganwari workers, in an attempt to rope in kids to school

To increasse the number of students in government schools and to reverse the trend of decreasing number of students, the Punjab School Education Department (PSEB), for the first time, a proactive stratgey has been adopted by the latter. The department has made a decision of sending its teachers, including over 28,000 anganwari workers to convince parents of children, including those not part of anganwaris, to admit them in government primary schools.

Jharkhand school girls to get free bicycles

Class 8 girl students in Jharkhand are to receive free bicycles, to check the dropout rates in government schools, mentioned state Human Resource Development (HRD) minister Hemlal Murmu on March 15, 2010, night while replying in the assembly on his department's budget for 2010-11. Earlier, free cycles were provided to girls of tribal and Dalit families.

The objective of this action is to support girls to study up to the secondary level. According to a state government report, the majority of girls in the state leave school after studying upto Class 5 or 6. The literacy rate in the state is 54 % against national average of 65 %. The women's literacy rate is below 40 %. Additionally, it was announced that 48,410 primary school teachers had been appointed for schools.

Foreign universities can now apply to open campuses in India

On 15th March 2010, the proposal to allow foriegn universities to set up campuses in India was passed by India's cabinet. This is to reduce the flow of Indian students abroad. Tens of thousands of students head to universities in the United States, Britain and Australia among others for quality education each year. Political parties have in the past opposed the entry of foreign universities, saying the poor will not be able to afford the fees. A figure of 13.8 million will be reached most likely, as far as the demand for graduates goes over the next five years, analysts have estimated. But with only 13.2 million students graduating over the same period, India will face a shortfall of 600,000 graduates. India is to turn into a sought destination for top foreign universities, with India's large English-speaking population and growing middle class.

Yale welcomes Rakesh Mohan, with lack of offers from Indian Universities

The former Reserve Bank of India deputy governor Rakesh Mohan, who was previously appointed as the faculty with the prestigious Yale University, recently told that he was not offered a teaching job by any Indian university, as a professor. This was in response of a query regarding him not chosing any Indian university for teaching. Mohan added he would like to see India as the intellectual centre of the world in the coming years. He hoped that India would work towards re-structuring its higher education system, to level up with the huge amount of work taking place across Asian counrties. He is currently the non-executive vice-chairman of the Indian Institute of Human Settlements, and global advisor to the McKinsey Global Institute, McKinsey and Company. The economist will formally serve the faculty from July 1.

&lsquo:The Power of Genee…&rsquo:

Magazine

digitalLEARNING Network

April 1, 2010

Genee World is headquartered in Wolver-Hampton, West Midlands, England and has a presence in seven countries worldwide; Genee World, currently in India is known as Genee Solutions India, earlier located at Gurgaon(Haryana) but now shifted at Delhi.

Are all boards the same? You definitely will not think so after using the Genee PowerBoard!

The first thing to notice is the construction. It has a solid, durable surface meaning that there are no vulnerable membrane surfaces to damage at great expense. Normally, this would mean 'electronic' pens to activate the whiteboard interface, but not with the Genee PowerBoard. The clever thing is the surrounding curtain of infra-red beams that detect any movement within the board area. This could simply be your finger or the extendable 'wand' that not only adds a flourish to your presentation but also means that you can be further away from the direct line of the projector beam.

The second thing to notice are the 'softkey' icons on either side of the board. The Genee Power Board's soft keys can be configured to hyperlink to a range of presentation tools, files or resources along with floating toolbar which can be moved and positioned to sit anywhere on the screen and can display either horizontally or vertically.

The next clever thing is that the software can be set for different levels which determines the number and complexity of the tools available on the tool bar. This might be linked to individual users because of their preferences or developing capabilities, or to different presentation activities and their particular requirements. These can, of course, be conveniently saved for future use.

The floating toolbar has all the usual features such as being able to set pen widths and colours, transparency settings etc. along with some special applications that enhance the use of the Genee PowerBoard:-

The intelligent pen, for instance, allows the user to draw a regular shape freehand and then convert it automatically into a formal shape. As soon as the shape is completed it is automatically recognised and converted into a regular shape.

The laser pen allows the user to draw a line to highlight or indicate text or an object on the whiteboard. The line drawn will flash until a different tool is selected from the toolbar which prompts the line to then disappear.

However, the most stunning and useful feature is the 'Rover'. The rover facility allows the user to scroll the page in any direction as if panning over a large sheet of paper. Use either the rover tool from the toolbar or make at least two points of contact on the board to be able to move the slide around.

Unfortunately, there are many examples where interactive white boards (IWB's) are just being used as 'expensive flip charts' with electronic ink. Their effective use depends on high quality training and a good supply of appropriate resources. Genee Solutions not only carry out professional installations but also provide comprehensive training, technical support and a vast range of curriculum content such as the highly rated 'Maths on Board', and even include a set of 12000 images and animations.

Genee Solutions also provide the complete answer for the 21st Century classroom where 'interoperability' is the key. Seamlessly integrating Genee Visualisers, ClassComm Response Systems and GeneeSlate mobile presenters has had a proven impact on students' learning and progress in both Primary and Secondary education through their total engagement and involvement in lessons. Teachers and students are instantly provided with feedback, and assessment is an integral part of the process giving teachers more time to teach.

The GeneePowerBoard comes in a range of sizes, up to a class beating 105″, with a full 5year guarantee.