One of the biggest developments in ICT in recent years has been the launch of a new category of portable computer, the netbook. Netbooks are smaller and cheaper than laptops, yet offer a good range of features that include built-in wireless connectivity and applications such as word-processing.
At Bett, MSI will be showing its Wind U100 netbook, which has a 10-inch screen and a 160GB hard drive, while Dell will be showing the Latitude 2100, a netbook specially designed for education, with a rugged construction, 10.1-inch screen and a choice of five colours.
RM is showing its latest netbook, the RM miniBook. Designed for primary school pupils, it has a rugged clamshell design, carrying handle and built-in 5GHz (gigahertz) wireless card. Using RM's Community Connect 4 Anywhere management solution also enables pupils to connect their netbooks to the school network at any time.
Pupils at St Andrew's primary school in Dundee have been using RM netbooks to collaborate with students at Kilgreggen primary school in Argyll and Bute on a class project based around the book, Dark Isle, by DA Nelson.
St Andrew's class teacher Jack Laing says: "The netbooks had a fantastic motivating effect. We had one netbook per pupil and they were able to use the netbook's webcam and Glow [an education intranet service] for video-conferencing." GC
