PPDS partners with i3 Technologies to bring advanced features and cloud content sharing capabilities to interactive Philips displays for education

Part of PPDS’ commitment to supporting the education market by bringing highly innovative, dedicated technologies to classrooms for enhanced teaching and learning, the company is excited to announce a new and exciting partnership with leading education software solutions specialist, i3 Technologies.

Perfectly aligned in their combined ambitions to bring advanced education to all, this important strategic partnership will see PPDS’ interactive touch screen displays, including the Philips T-Line (designed exclusively for education), come with access to ‘i3LEARNHUB’ – i3 Technologies’ flagship cloud-based digital creation and learning platform, designed to enable teachers to bring digital content to students, stimulate collaboration and prepare them with 21st century learning skills.

Complementing the Philips T-Line’s existing industry-advancing features and capabilities, the addition of i3LEARNHUB provides teachers and students with instant access to an extensive range of new educative and collaborative tools, designed to help teachers create fresh, inspiring and feature-rich tailored content to present during lessons, turning classrooms into highly collaborative workspaces and facilitating hybrid learning.

Adapted continuously to meet specific needs, i3LEARNHUB is highly intuitive, meaning no user training is required, with all content able to be created and even taught (for remote or distance learning) quicky and effortlessly, using any connected device, including PC, tablet or mobile phone.

And, together with the wireless sharing functionality of the Philips T-Line, the whole class – both on-site and working remotely – is able to connect and work on the main display from their own devices.

Creating a community

i3LEARNHUB not only provides a rich library of tools and images, it also boasts a thriving and growing community of over 50,000 educational professionals, in which teachers around the world come together to share ideas and best practices.

Accessible via the i3MARKETPLACE, teachers (and content publishers) can help to inspire their colleagues, by making their own pre-created, tried and tested lesson plans, freely and openly available to the entire community for use and tailoring.* With thousands of content plans already available, and the asset library growing daily, the i3MARKETPLACE has the potential to save significant time and resource, while ensuring the best achievable experience for students.

Commenting on the partnership, Chris Colpaert, General Manager at PPDS, said: “As we continue, at PPDS, to act on our commitment and desire to drive positive change in education with interactive technology, we’re absolutely delighted to have signed this important, key strategic partnership with i3 technologies.”

“We recognise the value and the capabilities that can be achieved by combining our displays with trusted, leading software, benefiting our partners and, importantly, the end customer experience. This is all made even easier with our Android SoC, offering a more familiar, open platform, allowing customers to use the solutions they prefer and not be dictated to by the hardware.”

i3LEARNINGHUB at a glance:

• Exciting educational content for all ages: i3LEARNHUB offers exciting content creation resources ranging from a collaborative, digital whiteboard to a vast library of rich, digital content—which includes augmented reality (AR) and 3D content.

• Introduce fun and create engaging activities: Easily create tons of activities with your own text and images and share them with your students with the click of a button. Find new ways to teach ‘dull’ material in an engaging way, remote or on location.

• Cloud storage: Save time and repurpose your meticulously curated private content repository (Dropbox, OneDrive, Google Drive) with i3LEARNHUB in one go. Your assets are available every time you open the i3LEARNHUB gallery. Manage the content individually or in bulk, from your desktop explorer, no need to create or import weird file and folder formats.

• Capture anything and bring it to the classroom with i3LENS: Turn your mobile device into a document camera and seamlessly embed field trip pictures in lesson activities. Name images and tag them with keywords, so they are easy to find later on. Images captured with i3LENS are automatically uploaded to your i3LEARNHUB personal gallery and ready for use in lesson activities.

• Augmented reality tools: i3LEARNHUB is the only software in the world that recognises physical tools such as the protraction triangle, compass and ruler, combining traditional and digital learning tools. This makes it easier for students to understand concepts around shape, size and geometrical positioning.

• Activate students with minimal preparation time: i3LEARNHUB is a cloud-based platform that is easily accessible on any device. You can rest assured that you can access your lessons, whether on a different hardware product, in a different classroom or at home.

• Physical with digital: I3LEARNHUB is the only software in the world that recognises physical tools.

Gert Van Erum, CEO of i3 Technologies, commented: “We’re very proud to partner with PPDS during a time when the company is showing true levels of leadership in helping to bring positive changes to the quality of teaching and learning for current and future generations. PPDS’ ethos and their innovative Philips products perfectly complement our solution.”

He added: “Education is constantly evolving to better prepare students for their future. Young people need new skills to succeed in this rapidly changing world and teachers need new competencies to effectively teach those skills to their students. PPDS is a global leader and Philips products are recognised all over the world for quality. This partnership provides a truly global platform to reach and bring together a wider community that allows people to share knowledge and what works best for them. We’re all in this together, each striving for the same goal.”

Colpaert concluded: “With Philips T-Line, we demonstrated our ability to enhance the way teachers and students collaborate, whether that’s through standing in front of the product itself, from their own seat using their personal device, or even from home. i3 Technologies perfectly complements this best-in-class solution, adding even more great learning tools and opening up an invaluable platform in which the teaching community can share best practice. That’s a potentially invaluable resource, saving significant time and bringing high quality teaching and learning experiences to potentially millions and millions of children. The best just got better.”

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