Malaysia introduces chalk-free teaching board pilot projects

Malaysia has carried out pilot projects to introduce interactive teaching boards in some schools, which enable teachers to say goodbye to black boards and dusty chalk, a local newspaper reported Monday.

The boards are in essence huge touch-sensitive computer screens mounted on the wall and linked to a computer and projector, reported the New Straits Times (NST), an English daily.

Aiming to help create a better teaching environment, the interactive white boards feature a kaleidoscope of colors, touch- screen pens and page-after-page of online information.

Launched by the Education Ministry, the pilot project took off quietly a year ago in nine schools and the response to the new gadgets has been overwhelming.

Ch'ng Teng Hong, a teacher at the Sultan Alam Shah Islamic College, said the board makes lessons so much easier for presentations and dozens of informative pages could be available in the blink of an eye.

In September last year, the ministry allowed a company to test out various interactive white boards in three primary schools and six secondary schools, most of them already highly IT-savvy, laptop-stocked and equipped with human resources to manage these equipment.

The boards, which include brands such as Smart Board, Star Board and Mimio, cost between 3,000 ringgit (810.81 U.S. dollars) and 8,000 ringgit (2162.16 U.S. dollars), said the report, adding more companies will be allowed to test their products so that the ministry could obtain the best equipment at the best price.

Interactive white boards can be found in more than 150,000 classrooms in the United States, adopted by schools such as those in New York and San Diego. The technology is also growing internationally, added the NST report.

Source: Xinhua