India's First Cloud-based Tablet For Students Unveiled

After partnering with Datawind to launch the world's cheapest Tablet Aakash, the government has gone ahead and unveiled India's first Cloud-based Tablet called the 'e-tutor Tablet'. Like Aakash, this Tablet is also for students albeit this time it is for school students from class 1st to 12th. The Tablet was unveiled by Sam Pitroda, advisor to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and has been developed in a joint venture (JV) by two Kerala based IT firms. The JV is between e-tutor and Oztern Technology and both companies are based at the state's IT hub Technopark.

The learning content has been developed by e-tutor while the technology has been provided by Oztern Technology. The Tablets will be sourced by the companies and they are still in the process of finalizing vendors for the same. The Tablet will be priced at Rs 7,500 (inclusive of content) and it will be made available in the Indian market from April. The included content will be of only one standard and additional content will have to be bought for other standards.

"The teacher can easily explain concepts using the digital whiteboard that is set up in the Tablet PC. Also, using e-tutor learning Tablet the students can access what was taught in the classroom and can also access the collaborative learning platform for discussions on relevant topics taught in the classroom," said Rajith Balan, founder and managing director of e-tutor, according to the Times of India.

He also believes that the new Tablet will be the first complete solution for education on Tablets. Initially, lessons will be already available on the Tablets and new content updates will also be made via the Cloud.

Saiju V Stella, CEO of Oztern Technology believes that Cloud computing technology can change the way technology is used in the educational sector because there is no need to build dedicated servers at the institutions since both the teaching and learning is Cloud based. "The advantage is that since the content is on the Cloud, it can be accessed anyplace, anytime. If a student takes the Tablet home, he can also access the content (via the internet) there, hence solving the problem of note taking," said Stella.

Vaishakh Harikumar, VP products & delivery at Oztern Technology said, "The Tablets will be connected to projectors through a cable, but we are also looking at Wi-Fi projectors so that teachers can move around with the Tablet while teaching. They can use a whiteboard (which is similar to 'Paint' in Windows) on the Tablet to write notes that can be saved so that students can access them later and alternatively, they can also pause content (like videos) and write over it with the help of a transparent whiteboard."

The company has also mentioned that since the technology is not Tablet dependant, it can be used on different Tablets in the future.