…our analysts on what it means in real life.
Posts tagged ‘Education’
In August 2010, the attorney-general’s office in Connecticut, US began investigating pricing of digital content by Amazon and Apple – expressing concern over pricing agreements with publishers and its possible implications on consumers. The attorney-general’s office went on to find identical prices for titles distributed by Amazon, Apple, Borders and Barnes & Noble. So, what’s the deal with e-book pricing?
How do publishers price their digital content?
On Monday, the 19th of November 2007, Amazon released its first generation Kindle – an event that shaped the digital market. Since then, large corporations such as Sony, Barnes and Noble, Google, and more recently Apple, have been giving the digital content market significant attention – adding credibility and more so, validating the digital market as a strong revenue source. It is this potential that is transforming the publishing industry today.
In the last few years, the publishing industry witnessed tremendous change – a change that centred around revenue and cost challenges. For publishers, the digital market presented a holistic solution – one that opened a channel of revenue with non-linear growth, while ensuring minimal costs of production & sales. Publishers worldwide are either producing digital content or are considering it as a service area.
Continue reading ‘Survey: The Current State of Digital Content’ »
The comparisons between Apple iPad and this $35 ‘still unnamed’ mobile device are so unfair. The online buzz about this new product is almost deafening. Ever since the Indian government announced the launch of the ‘$35 m -device’ (lets call it that, since it does not have a name yet, and this anyway seems to be the most exciting ‘fact’ about it), discussions abound on its viability, price, wasted funds, its not-so-successful predecessors, apps that it can offer and its future. While debate on all of these is justified, some more thoughts:
Why is cost such a big issue?
So I played devil’s advocate, whil
e the rest of the learning world appreciated the leap forward with the Apple iPad. Having carefully evaluated the bad and the ugly (thanks to everyone on Linkedin/this blog who shared), there is definitely a need to look at everything good that’s coming out of the tablet industry, of relevance to the learning community.
A market-ready foolproof device the iPad still is not, but there are plenty of interesting ways it may be leveraged for learning at the workplace / university (or actually, outside of those places). In this post, I want to the cover the actual implementations being made by educators (I’ll cover corporate initiatives in my next post). A great example is Rutgers University’s iPad marketing course that I blogged about earlier. There’s a lot of talk of how the iPad is a game changer, but how many universities are putting their money where their mouths are, and investing right away?
The Union Human Resource Minister, Kapil Sibal has taken it upon himself to completely overhaul the Indian education system… a good and long-awaited move. The Right to Education Act (RTE) was indeed a major development in the scheme of things. This is another move towards making education universal, as primary education, something that many of us take for granted is actually out of bounds for millions others.
Recently the Minister talked about the need to recruit 2 million teachers to achieve the goals set out by the Act. The other requirement would be more schools… schools where students are actually taught, and not just decrepit buildings. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has also expressed a desire to build 6500 ‘model’ schools. This is where the private players come in. That the Government will need help from the private sector to successfully implement RTE, hardly needs an intelligent analysis. What is debatable is – Will the PPP work? How will it work? And how long do we have to wait before it makes an impact? The problem, we cannot afford to lose any more time.
Continue reading ‘How long before PPP bridges the education demand supply gap?’ »
The developments in the education space have evinced a lot of interest. The pace at which changes take effect may not alter much with respect to the earlier years. Though if any of these are effective and achieve what they are meant to, India will arrive on the global education scene. The two instances mentioned above tackle two different segments within the education market – K-12 and Higher Education.
Continue reading ‘Indian education: Giant leap to globalization’ »
When Kapil Sibal first started to make news with efforts to bring education to the forefront, he took pretty much every one by surprise. Hardly does education grab front page headlines in the newspapers. With 44 Universities set to lose their deemed status, it is the status of more than 1 lakh students that is at stake now. Will they manage to pressurize the government into not doing anything? National Knowledge Commission and the Prof Yashpal-led Committee to Advise on Renovation and Rejuvenation of Higher Education have both recommended that ‘deemed to be university’ system be scrapped.
Considering that the repercussions of any university not functioning properly will be borne by the student community, its extremely important that their interests be held paramount. With universities running in 2-3 rooms, it is obvious that deemed university is a tag that many use for dubious purposes. The UGC has also added to the woes by providing the deemed university status to as many as 36 institutes in the last 5 years. Deemed is the now ‘doomed’… do you think?
The failure of IGNOU’s online engineering entrance test made headlines. The reasons cited include sabotage by someone who was not given the contract (which I hope is not the case, way too easy!!), too many people logging onto the website at the designated time (shouldn’t this be anticipated), among others. Of course, we will know the truth once the Delhi Police cyber security cell completes its investigation.
For a university that has presence in over 34 countries, and caters to 1.8 million students, it is imperative to gradually adopt e-learning in a big way. And online tests form a major part of it. Equally important is that it gets everything right, as issues like this really undermine the efforts and the people associated. Especially in developing countries which have only in the last few years considered experimenting with online learning alternatives, instances such as these serve as less than desirable examples, and might deter institutions from venturing online.
Almost all of us remember fondly teachers who tried to make lessons interesting. Iinnovation is still the key, as it was then. Our research in the education segment, corroborates that blended education is generating interest, but is quite sporadic. Studies have indicated that e-learning is equally, if not more effective than traditional teaching methods.
The use of ICT for education is a worldwide movement, yet the effect is still limited. How many schools in SE Asia have really started including ICT as a teaching media – it is at best an elitist phenomenon. While education has become a booming business, we are still struggling with the quality of instruction. The corporate world is adopting training at a pace like never before, going all out to include training in all strategic decisions. How often do teachers undergo training? How equipped is an English teacher today to make Shakespeare come alive on the screen? Will a geography teacher for standard V use ICT to explain earthquakes? Will the management of a school equip all teachers to care and handle successfully a dyslexic child?
Continue reading ‘Fast forwarding 'E' into learning for K-12’ »
With 100% literacy rate, we thought there was nothing better that Kerala could do… but think again, they went one up on that. Kerala, a state in Southern India, is set to declare 100% e-literacy in November 2009.
Kerala, a tourist hub, has always maintained a giant headway over other states, and has continued to beat national averages. The initiative, called Akshaya Scheme, spearheaded by the government has found acceptance at the grass-root level of Panchayats (rural governing bodies) and citizens alike. So what did they do right? This definitely was not an achievement that came about overnight and there is really no shortcut to this feat. This is a result of sustained efforts over the last six years, with an actionable plan, in conjugation with funds, building up on past achievements, partnerships (BSNL, Tulip, others, in this case), and a set time line that was adhered to. This is just another example of ambitious projects being completed with a good mix of PPP. Quite a phillip to the e-learning industry.
Any lessons that states like Rajasthan, Bihar, UP, can learn from this bit of news?
