Six-year-old Trikaaya Sharma gets two hours every day to play with her father’s iPad and she spends a good deal of that time reading and interacting with her digital books. “I love to sing along, colour, count objects on my iPad books,” she responds over a telephone conversation. Her father, Tinesh Sharma, interrupts by saying, “Although we have a number of games for her age, too, all she wants is more books on iPad. We are happy to purchase new learning content on the tablet as long as it keeps her interested in play-learning.” The young student cites her recent favourite, an e-book titled Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes, where she can change the colour of Pete’s shoes by tapping on it, can sing along with the lyrics rolling alongside, or listen to a narrator and even record her voice while reading aloud.
Pre-schoolers and young digital media users are revolutionising the concept of learning claim experts. Given the choice between reading e-books or print books, children prefer e-books, claims an exploratory field study. Children who read e-books also retain and comprehend just as much as when they read print books, suggests QuickStudy (named for its short duration and the small size of its sample group) that observed 24 families with children ranging in age from 3-6 years reading both print and e-books. Plus, digital books and e-reader apps for kids have simply flooded onto the market, with over 6,000 kids' book apps available in Apple's App Store alone.
Publishers believe that digital books are beginning to find their place with both schools and students. Amrit Singh Chopra, director (Product Development), Unique Publishers says, “Audio & Visual memory is key and the digitization trend targets that well. Special emphasis towards digitization of examinations is and will be rendered by schools and that should increase manifolds in the time to come, keeping in mind that many top notch entrance exams such as GMAT, CAT, etc. are already aboard the digitization bandwagon with other key examination bodies set to follow suit.” Chopra notes that monotonous lines of text can only hold the attention of young readers for a certain time, but if this is supported with videos, interactive revision modules, learning would prove to be easier and more fun. “Chapter-wise tests for revision on digital platforms can help students know instantly the right answer with proper explanations,” he adds.
Shantun Deshmukh, a 15-year old school student in Mumbai, states that he came across free digitalized books and test papers on Attano.com and went on to download the company’s app on his father’s Samsung Galaxy tablet PC (Android platform). “It’s so much more interesting to solve test papers or understand computer or physics theories when diagrams interact with you,” he shares.
Soumya Banerjee, CEO of Attano, is optimistic that Rs 10,000 crore digital content creation market in India which is where Attano partners with education book publishers is poised for a huge leap in 2012. The reason, lists Banerjee “On average educational content on Attano is priced 20 per cent cheaper than the paperback books. Students can download content in under 5 minutes and start learning.” Attano ebooks can be accessed across all major platforms – Android, iPad & Windows, and the company stocks over 10,000 free learning videos and 250 eBooks.
Sensing the opportunity in digital content, Cartoon Network along with Attano has launched video-ebooks and interactive activity books, based on channel’s brands including Ben 10, Gwen 10, Generator Rex and the Powerpuff Girls. This interactive platform provides multiple tools for drawing, coloring, making notes etc. while the video-ebooks can play video clips from episodes bridging the gap between reading and viewing for a complete story-telling experience. The books are priced between Rs 40 and Rs 200 and are suitable for 4-14 year olds.
Cartoon Network has hit bullseye with young consumers like Chaya Mattani, 8 year old from New Delhi, a fan of Powerpuff Girls. “When I saw the ad of Powerpuff Girls books for iPad, I asked my mother to download the same for me. I will be using these e-books during my summer holidays,” she responds.
Chaya’s mother, Chandra Mattani sees e-books as essential. “Old books don’t really cut it anymore,” she says. “We have to transform our idea of learning as we know it.”
Deepak Sheth, director at Sheth Publishers agrees. “Digital books when incorporated with videos, animations, audio, tests and ability to make notes share with friends, will present a whole new way of effective personalized learning,” he says. Sheth predicts that as most schools are already teaching via video content in classrooms, in addition to what students study from a textbook. “In my opinion, the next trend will be to use digital books as the central point sincestudents are already familiar with them and incorporate videos, animations, assessments whichcater to a student’s personalized learning needs and deliver them to individual tablets,” he observes.
Since today's children have grown up with iPads and Kindles almost from birth, it seems like digital kids' book dominance should be a slam dunk. But it's not. Part of it is because mobile reading devices (and much of the interactive kids' content created for them) encourage kids to read and interact alone rather than with their parents, which does not appeal to all parents. Second, web-enabled digital devices like tablet PCs, laptops and smartphones have a cost attached which limits them in reaching a wider mass beyond the affluent few in metros.
Yet, what we can’t overlook is that rise in adoption of e-books, learning apps and interactive videos among the school going population that encourages learning in real-time, allows to create bookmarks, drag finger to highlight passages and add notes right within the digital text.
