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The Interactive Whiteboard – know as the UB-T780 Elite Panaboard was launched at Cromer Primary School, on Sydney’s Northern Beaches.

Cromer began trialling Panasonic Interactive Whiteboards in 2007, and it was in conjunction with Cromer that Panasonic developed the whiteboard, after only 12 months from concept to classroom. 

According to Panasonic, the partnership has “enabled Cromer to provide students with engaging and interactive lessons using digital technology, while also offering Panasonic feedback about performance and suggesting helpful improvements”.

The company noted that through this trial “Panasonic gained a greater understanding of how to create the best solution to meet the needs of the Australian classroom.  Taking into consideration product usage, features, software and training and support for the end user, the feedback allowed Panasonic to develop the next generation UB-T780 Elite Panaboard”.  

Since using the whiteboard, according to teachers at Cromer, there has been some significant teaching improvements, with students becoming increasingly more engaged in their lessons. The technology has also changed the way students view their teachers.  They are now seen as facilitators who provide students with the confidence and knowledge to find out information on their own, which helps children develop a love of learning and the skills to think independently.  The school not only uses the whiteboards for lessons with students, but also for staff training and parent teacher meetings.

Cromer Principal Greg Jones said, ” The Panaboard has opened a world of opportunities for teachers with so much information being available in real time.  Teachers can not only confidently answer any questions they might face on a day to day basis but can also show the students how they can source the information themselves.  Lessons are now more tactile, visual and exciting; it is the future of education”

The UB-T780 Elite Panaboard is built tough to withstand vigorous everyday use in the classroom and the 77-inch screen easily holds the students’ attention. 

Using an wireless pen offers smooth operation while a variety of software tools make it easy to create teaching and reference materials to increase classroom enjoyment, with teachers being able to access files such as Microsoft Word, Excel or Powerpoint and project them directly onto the board, and when the board is connected to the Internet, teachers have access to global resources, via a browser. The technology can also be networked across a number of schools and classrooms simultaneously.

On top of that, the whiteboard is also connected to printers allowing the day’ lesson to be printed immediately and has the potential to also be streamed to PDA’s and smartphones if required.

And importantly, it can also work on a variety of Operating Systems and is also open to other hardware- an attribute that Panasonic says they built in from the start.

According to Steve Rust, MD of Panasonic, this entire project had a “feel good factor” about it. “Its part of Panasonic’s philosophy to improve the way people live”, he says, adding that, “our motto of ‘ideas for life’, goes hand in hand with projects such as this one”.

Rust, a former science teacher himself, said that the potential for sales for the Panaboard is “huge…with the possibility of 200,000 interactive whiteboard sales opportunities in primary schools across the country alone”.

Furthermore, he says that even though they haven’t crunched all the numbers yet for the complete size of the interactive whiteboard market and what it will mean for sales for Panasonic, Rust agrees that there are “a lot of uses for this type of technology, even in industries like tourism” and other markets where there is a need for information to be interactive.

Insofar as the education professionals are concerned, this is simply the technology they have been waiting for.
Deonne Smith, Regional Director of Education for Northern Sydney said, “the way teachers and students interact has now been changed thanks to the Panaboard- the learning experience has is now a lot better for both students and teachers”.

Cromer Primary says it plans to further extend their use of the Panaboard and in the future they hope to use the remote networking capability for “live links with other schools throughout Australia”.