AHMEDABAD, April 18, 2012: Vidyanagar Primary School students in Ahmedabad became the fourth pilot of Hewlett Packard in India to harness the IT leader's Lab-in-Box cloud-enabled solution for the rapid deployment of computing resources for education.
The previous three pilots are running at the Government Sarvodaya Senior Secondary School in New Delhi, the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) campus in New Delhi and by the Indian army at the Western Command, Chandigarh.
Each HP Lab-in-Box comprises a shipping container that has15 HP Multiseat Thinclients, a multifunctional printer, wireless connectivity, electricity, furniture, fans and air conditioning. HP’s multiseat computing solution means multiple users can be connected to one PC, which maximises space while reducing cost and complexity.the HP Lab-in-Box is designed as a rapidly deployable cloud enabled infrastructure solution to spread both the reach and quality of education in India.
HP is also hosting a cloud based educational application that searches and displays relevant videos from the internet, based on the textbook being read by the student. The application has an adaptive online self-learning tool called MindSpark from Educational Initiatives, an HP partner, who is providing personalized assessment tools to the student to track their individual learning progress. The results of a related pilot now completed in Bangalore showed significant improvements in competence after using this application and similar outcomes are expected in Gujarat.
Says Jaijit Bhattacharya, Director, Government Affairs, HP India: “Today, there is a shortfall of trained teachers in several schools in the country and limited access to IT also makes it extremely difficult to offer a more personalized teaching approach. The HP Lab-in-Box addresses these limitations by giving students access to a richer learning experience and the best teaching resources across the country.”
Pramukhray Patel, Principal, Vidyanagar Primary School adds:“As more students and teachers familiarize themselves with the HP Lab-in-Box, we’re sure it will help raise education competencies in our school".