The first Ukraine-produced computer tablet for school-age children, the Senkatel ZnayPad, appeared on the market on July 16 with a price tag of Hr 1,999, or Hr 2,399 with a Bluetooth keyboard.
The creator
of Senkatel ZnayPad, the Kyiv-based Electronic Educational Systems IT company, claims
the new tablet focuses on high school students’ educational needs. Its appearance
is timed to match a 2007-2015 Education Ministry program aimed at boosting
e-learning in the classroom, though the initiative and financing of the project
is private.
The tablet
features numerous school programs and apps, as well as an e-books library, access
to a school timetable, dictionaries and a reading list with more than 300 books
from the official program. The creators believe students will also use the
tablet to access Wikipedia, video-lectures and online maps and manuals.
Even though
ZnayPad is designed with high school students’ educational needs in mind, it
doesn’t block social networks, YouTube or other sites. The gadget’s creators
hope school administrators become interested in the ZnayPad, which will be
tested at several Kyiv institutions through the end of 2013. After that, its
creators hope that a government approval and certification could translate into
public contracts.
“It’s up to
the school administration to decide whether they need to buy additional
software, to disable internet access or advertisement on students’ tablets. Special
software can be installed on teacher’s computers (that will regulate the
content students can access),” Oleg Davydov, a product manager at Electronic
Educational Systems, told the Kyiv Post.
An app
called Classroom Management will allow teachers to control classroom activity,
which will be especially useful during the tests, Davydov added.
The ZnayPad
comes with a set of common apps for Google Drive, Dropbox and Kingsoft Office. It
also may be useful while preparing for Independent External Evaluation (Ukraine’s
general graduation exam) – and already has a built-in app to help students
practice.
The strong
side of the tablet is its light weight of 622 grams (by comparison, the latest
iPad is 652-662 grams), but its suitability for school children has yet to be
confirmed.
Vasyl
Teremko, who heads Academia Publishing House which specializes in school
textbooks, is not so upbeat about the ZnayPad.
“The main problem
is that they do these things (releasing the tablet) without really thinking
whether it’s suitable for our market and for our children. I think parents
should be careful about this device. It’s important to understand how it
influences a children’s health,” Teremko said. “No public discussions were
held, experts didn’t make their conclusions. Before starting such projects we
need to understand whether the market needs such tablet and how useful it may
be for school-age children,” he added.
Another
problem is that most of Ukrainian textbooks publishers are not ready to produce
electronic content for the tablets. Davydov said that now the company is
negotiating with publishing houses to solve the problem.
“We hope
some of the publishers will offer free trial versions of textbooks for the
tablet, and full versions will be available to buy at www.classbook.com.ua,” Davydov said. As for now, only a few have released electronic
versions.
“There is a
lack of quality electronic books, for school-aged children especially.
(Academia publishing house) also looks forward to producing electronic
content,” Teremko said.
Tech specs of Senkatel ZnayPad
Display: 9.7″ IPS Multi-Touch. CPU Cortex A9,
DualCore, 1.5 GHz.
OS: Android 4.0.
Storage: RAM 1 Gb, flash 8 Gb.
Wireless and cellular: Wі-Fі 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.0,
2хUSB, mHDMI, microSD.
Input: micro-USB cable, OTG USB.
Size and weigh: 242×189×12 mm, (622 g).
Available at: www.rozetka.com.ua, www.sokol.ua
Kyiv Post staff writer Olena Goncharova can be reached at [email protected].
