There’s little
debate about the potential electronic devices have in the realm of learning.
The problem comes in realizing that potential, says to Mehdi Maghsoodnia, CEO
of Rafter, the parent company of BookRenter.com, in this guest post written for
Forbes.com.
Cost is one large
stumbling block to reaching that potential. At this point, the cost of the
device and the educational content assigned doesn’t ensure a savings for
students compared to printed textbooks, which is a primary reason why e-books
remain less than 5% of all textbook sales.
There is also the
issue of supporting the device and getting educators to use digital content
effectively.
“Simply putting
digital books on a device is not enough to truly digitalize education,”
Maghsoodnia writes. “In order to make real inroads at colleges and
universities, devices must be accessible for students, and adopted by their
professors and administrators.”
Becoming the
device of choice for education will not be a race to the coolest features or
content. It will be a race to solve the problems of cost and scale to help
institutions find their way into the digital future, according to Maghsoodnia.
