Helsinki schools aim to rid themselves of their old-fashioned blackboards and overhead projectors. These items will be replaced with computer-integrated interactive SMART Board whiteboards.
The aim is to provide all of the capital’s around 200 comprehensive and upper secondary schools with one to four classrooms equipped with the new technology by the year 2011.
The classrooms will have document cameras and interactive touch-screen whiteboards, which can also double as computer displays.
A computer’s cursor or pointer can be controlled on the whiteboard with a finger, and notes and markings from the board can be saved on the computer.
“The use of interactive technologies motivates pupils”, believes Liisa Lind, head of the Media Centre at the City of Helsinki Education Department. Teachers will receive training with regard to the different uses of the whiteboards. The acquisition has been prepared already for a few years.
At this stage some classrooms will still remain equipped with traditional blackboards or with whiteboards without the interactive component, but in the long run these, too, are likely to be replaced with new equipment.
The teaching aid renewal project comes with a price tag of around EUR 7.5 million. Some additional costs will accrue from the installation and cabling of the equipment.
The whiteboard project was first reported by the Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE on its Internet site.
