AV IN EDUCATION
Another lesson from the Classroom As conference rooms continue to be upgraded, interactive collaboration boards are becoming more enticing for businesses. With entrants to the workforce now expecting this kind of technology, what can we learn from the education space?
The concept of collaborating with your peers may be something that we’re officially introduced to in the office, but the reality is our school days condition us to be able to learn about a topic and work on projects with others. Who’d have thought that after years of studying, being able to work on a presentation about Henry VIII would be one of the more important preparations for the real world? Looks like that University education really paid off! That might be a slight of a generalisation, but the parallels are there. A presenter at the front of the room, delivering a message you need to remember before the summer holidays roll around, and all you can think about is home time. The difference comes in the way these presentations are made. As with the blackboards in the classrooms,
the whiteboards and flip charts in the boardrooms are being replaced by multi- function interactive whiteboards designed to improve collaborations. “The interactive display’s first implementation was undoubtedly in the classroom,” said Charlie Levitton, Business Manager at SMART Technologies. “With that in mind, they were made to provide an engaging experience for the user, easy-to- use for both teacher and pupil alike and able to accommodate lessons and presentations across a number of topics. “The success of the whiteboard in the classroom in teaching, engagement and collaboration naturally raised questions about whether the positive attributes of this technology were restricted only to educational circumstances, the answer? A resounding no.” That appears to show education institutions as guinea pigs, readying the technology for the more profitable corporate market. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that the education market is smaller than the opportunity boardrooms present, even before the pre-pandemic. Despite this, Wayne Lampard, Regional Manager UKI & Sub-Saharan Africa at i3 Technologies said that the large-scale rollout of interactive white boards has happened in schools first because they embraced the technology. “The big difference has been that schools in the UK have always been quite early adopters of technology,” said Lampard. “In terms of technology in the security space, operating over IP, and flexible work, corporates can be quicker, but in terms of collaboration, they were a little bit slower to start the uptake. “In my experience the acceleration we’ve seen recently has been down to two factors. The first is the pandemic, and the second is younger people coming into the workforce.”
Charlie Levitton Business Manager
smarttech.com
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