The Shift in Education - Print to Digital

Don’t we all know that over the last decade or so, the way in which education is being delivered has undergone huge changes with the shift to digital learning. One major driver has definitely been the significant increase in tablets and smartphones in the hands of the majority of the population and access to the internet with good bandwidth at an extremely affordable cost. Additionally, there is an abundant availability of Open Education Resources (OERs) that are freely available giving many more people access to learning, even through distance education.

I recall the large number of textbooks and notebooks I required during my early learning days. Today, it has become so easy to carry just one tablet and access all of these at the click of a button. Learning has never been so much fun, with the huge variety of digital apps and resources available to the learner. Print books never allowed one to understand and explore topics in the way digital books do. With digital resources, no more is the student dependent on spending hours with tutors or waiting to catch up with learning that he may have missed in the class. No more printed books to be replaced and queries get answered anytime, anywhere. Homework can get submitted online, making the whole process of learning seamless and extremely convenient.

Though the shift from print to digital is a gradual one, the pace is picking up more and more with the advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Augmented Reality (AR), and Virtual Reality (VR). Publishers the world over are focusing more on the digital transition as that is the only way forward. Digital is capturing the space occupied by print for so long. Classrooms are becoming more interactive with Interactive White Boards (IWB) and simulated learning environments. The teacher is now truly a mentor and guide with a wide variety of digital tools at his/her disposal. Study and research on the internet are now the norm with more and more schools going the digital route. It is easy to remember and understand stuff that one sees visually which maps to real-world environment and practice using a virtual environment. The saying goes: I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand. Hurrah for the digital revolution.

Let’s walk through what else makes the digital books so much better than its print counterpart. Auto-bookmarking/bookmarking a page, highlighting important points to remember, note taking, submitting queries to a teacher, all enrich the learning experience.

The shift from print to digital promises many more benefits:

·     Cost-benefit – Digital books are available to schools at a much lower price

·     Can be purchased 24*7 and delivered almost instantaneously

·     Physical space for storing and accessing a large volume of books is never a problem

·     Digital books can be easily ported

·     Books can be downloaded and read in an offline mode on the go

·     Searching for contents within an eBook is intuitive

·     Allows direct navigation to pages using table of contents

·     Ability to directly jump to a page that user wants to navigate to

·     Availability of interactive audios, videos, and animations that make understanding a concept extremely easy

·     Games and simulations using simulated / virtual labs reaffirm what the student learns and understands

·     Embedded assessments allow for self-review of the learning

·     Ability to resize fonts for easy reading

·     Allows accessibility of content and technology for differently abled people

·     Parents/teachers can track analytics such as time spent on the book/pages/listening to audios/watching videos

So, where’s the catch and why is the pace of the digital revolution not as fast as expected. The buy-in from publishers has been slow because of high costs to digitization and accessibility to good platforms that allow for distribution and management of learning resources.

Yet the shift to digital is a must, in a world that is just becoming more and more technology oriented. What Publishers require is to focus on their core business which is great content development, while collaborating with a digital partner for managing the nitty-gritty of hosting and distribution of their products.

Magic’s cloud-hosted platform, MagicBox does just that. The platform allows for seamless content distribution across multiple devices and supports the features listed above at an affordable cost.

Looking forward to that digital partner to get more out of your content? Just visit https://www.getmagicbox.com/ or contact me at [email protected]