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The Secret Shopper in the October 2006 issue of EL Gazette (EL = English Language) investigated the interactive whiteboard market in the UK. Not only does this informative article cover many issues concerning interactive whiteboards, but one of the companies contacted was Tekgia. Following is the article in full.
That new white magic
Whiteboards - latest toy or essential technology - are on many principals? shopping lists. Our secret shopper investigates
Technology in the English language classroom has come a long way since the days of blackboards and dog-eared textbooks.
There are so many technologies on offer from voice recognition software to online learning environments such as the Macmillan English Campus, all vying to be the new must-have teaching aid. However, there is one particular technology that has penetrated certain sectors of the market in such a way that it is almost as much a part of the English language classroom today as blackboards once were: the interactive whiteboard.
As Mervyn Spencer at Just Projectors explained, interactive whiteboards 'connect to your desktop or laptop and need a projector to display the image that you see simultaneously on the laptop screen. They allow the teacher to write on the interactive whiteboard, save it to the PC and print it. Some whiteboards have hand writing recognition that converts your scribble into typed text or symbols.'
York St John College, which recently won Promethean whiteboard software thanks to a competition win at the recent Iatefl conference in Harrogate, are enthusiastic about the technology. 'In my opinion, [a whiteboard is] the key to limitless resources, given that it gives instant access not only to the internet but also to all the pictures, sounds, videos and documents you have saved on your computer or are part of the software included with the board,' said Rosie Allen at York St John. 'Never again do you have to think, "Can I draw that?", "Do I have a picture of that?" or "Can I make that noise?" You simply need to know where to find things.'
Allen says although students enjoy using the technology, some teachers are more wary at first. She said, 'I have heard some teachers complain about the drone of the projector in the background, which sometimes makes speaking lessons more difficult. However, I do think that management of the technology is the issue here, not the technology itself. I have found that, once the teacher has embraced the new concept, the only hurdle is finding the time to familiarise themselves with all that they can do with this resource. In a world where there are not enough hours in the day to prepare and teach your normal lessons, it is extremely difficult to put aside precious time to get to grips with something new, even if you know that it will ultimately be hugely beneficial to your teaching.
Finding an interactive whiteboard provider is easy, there are many different companies out there offering this kind of technology. Just typing the name into Google brings up a plethora of choices.
In order to see what kind of help and advice is available for a principal looking to bring this technology into the classroom, I fired off emails to different whiteboard providers. My opening email said that I had just taken over a school in London where the equipment was old-fashioned. I told them I had ?5,000 to spend on revamping the learning facilities and went on to ask a number of questions on the use of interactive whiteboards.
Some companies were more helpful than others. Rapid Technologies' Colin Toohey clearly took a lot of time responding to my original email. All my questions were answered in depth and he also offered to bring a portable unit in to give me a demonstration. Mervyn Spencer at Just Projectors was equally helpful.
I never heard back from Independent Products. Later, director Jack McGuigan explained that they responded but got the email address slightly wrong. He apologised for the mix-up and assured me, 'Our company has always been based on honesty and trustworthiness. We always try to do what we say we can do... We are customers ourselves in the grand scheme of things.'
IT suppliers Tekgia were extremely helpful; I received a very friendly email that covered all my questions.
I was rumbled by Promethean. After failing to receive a reply I asked them why I had not heard back from their sales team and was told that they had tried the phone number that I had supplied to no avail (it was fake). After failing to reach me on the phone they searched for my school on the internet and became suspicious. One-nil to Promethean.
Once you have the technology, you're going to need the software. Founded in 2003, Cambridge-Hitachi is a new company, the result of a joint venture between Cambridge University Press and Hitachi Software Engineering. The company produces a range of software developed with the changing needs of today's teachers in mind - when asked by the Gazette about their software, Judith Wells offered to visit me. With no school to give her a tour of, I did not take her up on this! Pearson also provide software for their best-selling Cutting Edge series.
There are many companies out there and on the whole they are helpful, friendly and informative. Many offered to give a demonstration - very useful for technophobes. However, interactive whiteboards are not indispensable. As Rosie Allen said, 'In teaching military English and business English, where students are used to handling technology on a day-to-day basis, this technology is an absolute godsend but I can imagine it being less successful in other areas. I am absolutely against teachers being forced to use it just because it's there or being marked down by visiting inspectors because they chose not to use the available technology.'
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