Interesting reading on how digital tools have been emergent
in the education system, and are being fast adopted by traditional suppliers of
school materials like textbooks by firms like Pearson and Scholastic Corp. The
following article describes how digital tools, including video, audio and VR,
are revolutionizing the way lessons are run in the classroom.
Scholastic Corp, for instance, has a supply side
relationship with more than 90% of schools in the U.S. To maintain their
competitive position of what is a largely captive audience, they have rolled
out what they call their Scholastic 2020 Plan, which will include revamping
their technology stack to including new media and to optimize their sales
efforts.
By digitizing the learning mediums, this also provides new
means of tracking individual student studying time and results. For instance,
reading time can be tracked on a student’s tablet, as well as their engagement
with other media supporting the intended learning outcome, which in turn can
inform future teaching approaches. It is easy to see how such tracking of
pedological efficacy might impact policy for such an important public function.
From the content provider perspective – to continue with our
Scholastic Corp example, one can envision a future where they might move to a
subscription model for their captive customer base of nationally distributed
schools. They can then push through a patch for an “edition update” or expanded
curriculum. With digital distribution, one can also see how they might target
content administrators (teachers and policy setters) for cross-sell
opportunities. If I’m a bio teacher and am on the bio page and have subscribed
my class to Scholastic’s bio material, perhaps I see a display add on the
course planning page that shows an add-on AP pack, or perhaps a remedial pack,
for the especially astute and needful members of the class, respectively.
Taken together, such digitization of content and new media
within the school curriculum could offer greater ability to tailor content and
pace on each individual student’s timeline. We can truly arrive at the long
overdue long tail in education that recognizes differences in development and
what might awaken each student,
including heretofore unaddressed niche learning areas. Sure, a core curriculum
could still be insisted upon as a baseline, though students will be better able
to follow their natural leanings, and change them as they grow.
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