Electronic classroom solution launched in the Middle East

UAE, Saudi devote billions to promote education

December 23, 2001

Jacob Thomas

Dubai: In keeping with the IT education initiative launched by General Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and UAE Defense Minister, DTK Computer FZE, a leading international manufacturer of personal computers, notebooks and server products, recently conducted a two-day training seminar to introduce their channel partners to the first in their new line of innovative e-solutions: e-class.

Already available in some Pacific Rim territories and recently launched to the Middle East market during GITEX Dubai 2001, e-class has been developed by DTK as a complete hardware and software solution for any learning environment. With superior functionalities, it will enhance the standard of education and improve teaching and learning effectiveness in the region.

"Education in the Middle East has been given added emphasis over the last few decades, as is evident from the UAE education budget for 2000, which reached AED 5.26 billion (US$1.34 billion). The Government of Saudi Arabia has also demonstrated substantial commitment to the educational sector, allocating US$14.21 billion (SR 53.3 billion) for education and manpower training for the year 2001.

Much of this emphasis has been directed towards IT education," said Nimer Al Attal, Managing Director of DTK Computer FZE. "DTK is aware of the ever growing need for innovative products and solutions for the education sector, which is constantly dealing with young and enquiring minds. We have developed a highly effective interactive multimedia electronic classroom solution to enable an enhanced teaching and learning environment, ideal for schools, colleges, universities and any other educational or training institutions," he added.
e-class consists of a teacher's DTK desktop PC and student computing stations, all linked to a DTK Server, via a Local Area Network (LAN) with provision to link to the Internet. It allows for an enhanced teaching and learning environment where teachers can broadcast lessons to students using a variety of educational and standard software titles while students interact with the teacher through their e-box.

It is powered by an advanced teaching, learning and assessment application developed by DTK, generically called MILS (Multimedia Interactive Learning Software). The instructor can access every monitor, mouse, keyboard and multimedia resource available to the class. This access allows the instructor to easily view any single student screen or group automatically, scan all students' screens and decipher problems and project multimedia programs and/or files, including VCD, Internet and multimedia lessons to students.

The e-class product is a comprehensive solution, based on cutting edge technology, and provides optimized performance. It is cost-effective and requires minimum maintenance. Remote boot capabilities allow low-cost student computing stations, called e-box, to be simultaneously booted from a server. This saves on time and simplifies software installation and distribution, as well as preventing potential corruption and virus infection of the e-boxes, resulting in lower maintenance costs. In addition, the solution allows schools to further expand and enhance their electronic classroom configuration by upgrading processors, adding on more electronic classrooms or connecting to other school networks.

The various needs of schools, universities and educational institutions are met by the e-class solution through easy set-up and configuration, lower total cost of ownership, high performance and stability. (keralamonitor.com)