Elearning! Magazine: Building Smarter Companies via Learning & Workplace Technologies.
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cry from satchels weighted down with textbooks. Consequently, governments are increasingly investing in classroom technology in order to support learning, as one-to-one learning programs develop and schools move away from traditional teaching methods. Worldwide spend on IT hardware in education reached $9.5 billion in 2011, an 11 percent increase on 2010 despite the global economic slowdown — and by 2015 this figure is expected to double. Global PC shipments into education exceeded 11 million units in 2011, with a significant amount of activity taking place in Central and South America. With strong expectations of multiple government tenders during 2012 and beyond, and as tablets grow in significance, Futuresource forecasts indicate large sales volumes across many territories with global shipments reaching close to 12 million units in 2013, rising to more than 40 million units by 2016. Tough the installed base will still represent less than 8 percent global penetration, a number of countries will be close to saturation point. Te majority of short-term growth will originate from nationwide projects in the Asia-Pac region, particularly Tailand and Korea. U.S. LEADS THE WAY Te U.S. is also expected to witness major growth in tablet sales — and at 13 percent student penetration, it currently leads the adoption of IT in education above many other developed countries including the U.K. (5%), France (3%) and Germany (0.3%), rising from around 200,000 in 2011 up to 2 million in 2015. Adoption is expected to be driven by the availability of content and Apple's announcement of iBooks 2, the e-textbook platform, as this provides content producers with an easier route to market. Publishing houses including Pearson, McGraw-Hill and Scholastic are also experimenting with digital content. By 2015, nearly one in four children in K-12 education across the U.S. will be using a school or district-funded mobile computing device in the classroom, equating to annual sales volumes of more than four million units. "Worldwide spend on IT hardware in education will double by 2015 to $19 billion." –Futuresource Consulting EMEA experienced strong growth from 2007 through 2010, but limited planned rollouts failed to emerge in 2011 as a result of a difficult trading environment for the duration of the economic slowdown. Interactive whiteboards (IWBs) have long been the main classroom display, with few affordable competing alternatives available to challenge their position. More recently, the landscape has begun to shiſt rapidly with IWB solutions coming under increasing pressure from new display products and suppliers. Tis pressure is further compounded by governments and educators increasingly searching for open-source soſtware platforms. Key IWB vendors have tended to avoid this model, valuing the ability to lock in end-users to proprietary platforms to ensure strict license controls. FLAT-PANEL CLASSROOMS Major computer electronics manufacturers are extending their reach into the classroom display category, where IWBs have traditionally dominated. At present, the major flat-panel providers are offering the market a more expensive hardware solution with fixed-price, less compelling hardware, soſtware and content platforms. Te rigidity of such service offerings is opening up a lucrative market opportunity for "smart" displays where app development, allowing the deployment of cross-device interaction, could provide a clear added-value proposition to the end- user. While the potential role for smart TV in education is relatively obvious in the classroom, there is also a potential usage model at home. Hand-held gaming devices have shown that "edutainment"- style content has a role in education and Government Elearning! July / August 2012 25