SMART’s new Perfect Partnership

ICT has become an integral part of the 21^st Century classroom. Young people today are often described as “digital natives.” They live in a particularly interactive world and like to get an immediate response to what they do. As a consequence, the way in which children learn is changing. The old “chalk and talk” days have been replaced with a more collaborative style of teaching and learning.

With this new partnership between SMART Technologies and the Fizzbook Spin you can be confident that you are providing your digital natives with a state of the art collaborative tool, designed specifically for education.

The Fizzbook Spin is a convertible tablet PC with a 10.1” LCD monitor that has been developed specifically to support the needs of the modern learning environment.  It offers all the elements to enable schools to move towards a more personalised learning curriculum.  Based on the Intel^® Classmate PC design architecture, the Fizzbook Spin combines aesthetics with ruggedness. The hand-held device has been built to withstand the classroom environment – it is drop resistant and has a water-resistant keyboard and touchpad.  Compact and light-weight, it has a rubberised surface for easy grip and is perfect for child-size hands. It can convert instantly from a clamshell design to a tablet PC allowing students to easily move between activities and learning spaces.

Unlike other devices the Fizzbook Spin is a total classroom solution. Not only does it provide full PC functionality with word processing, spreadsheet and art packages as standard, it also comes preloaded with SMART Classroom Suite software to turn the traditional classroom into a collaborative, interactive and high efficient learning environment.

Comprising of four software applications, SMART Classroom Suite integrates seamlessly with the SMART Board™ interactive whiteboard and has been specifically designed to use in a computer enabled classroom. This powerful piece of software enables teachers to take control of the Fizzbooks in their classroom with one click of a button. SMART Classroom Suite supports the key stages of teaching and learning – from lesson creation and delivery to student assessment - and encourages collaboration, innovation and knowledge sharing.

This collaboration marks the first time SMART education software solutions will be available, preinstalled on another company’s hardware reference design. The agreement is the latest development in a relationship between SMART and Intel that has spanned 17 years.

Intel’s comments on the partnership:

“We are thrilled to work with SMART in introducing a more creative and rewarding environment in which students can learn,” said Lila Ibrahim, general manager of Intel’s Emerging Markets Platform Group, responsible for the Intel-powered classmate PC design and industry-enabling efforts. “Working with a company like SMART enables our OEM customers, teachers and students to have an enhanced learning experience as part of the Intel^® Learning Series.”

SMART’s comments on the partnership:

“The development of the SMART Classroom Suite is our most significant software initiative to date and is the first to combine the needs of teachers and students in one software package,” says Nancy Knowlton, SMART’s CEO. “Intel’s decision to include SMART Classroom Suite as part of its software offering on the convertible classmate PC means educators and students around the world can easily access all the tools they need to achieve the best possible learning experience in today’s computer-enabled classrooms.”

For more information about this perfect partnership visit www.fizzbook.com