Reflection
I chose to take a closer look at Kognity because we introduced it at the International School of Ulaanbaatar this year. Considering our remote location we have to pay a lot of money to have textbook shipped to us and they take a long time to get here, often not arriving until the school year has already begun. Add to this the knowledge that two new IBDP Mathematics courses would be introduced in 2019-2020, and the textbook publishers often update their texts and it was decided that we would try something different.
While the product essentially replaces the traditional textbooks that students use it also does a lot more. The ability for students to extend their learning beyond the textbook with photos, graphs, charts, and videos helps reinforce the content and visually enhance the learning process. Students are also able to test their knowledge throughout their learning with embedded quizzes and activities, and receive automated feedback and direction for what they have been successful with and what they need to review. For teachers the ability to track students' progress through the 'book' is an easy way to see who is doing their work and who isn't, and they also have access to the analytical data that is constantly being collected about each student as they work through the material.
While the appeal of physical textbooks and the prohibitive costs of purchasing licences every year may deter schools from making the switch (Greene, 2018), it has been invaluable to us from a cost analysis, with added bonuses for the environment, as we helped reduce carbon emissions from shipping physical texts and saved paper and eliminated the need for the consequences of printing publications (electricity, ink, materials).
We still may be a few years away from schools making the move away from traditional textbooks, which is why I believe that it is the right time to invest in this product. The potential for tremendous worldwide growth in the digital textbook industry is inevitable, even at the K-12 level, as device availability increases along with the infrastructure for schools to support the demands of such a product.
Screenshots of Kognity
REFERENCES
Greene, Peter. (2018, August 27). Why E-Textbooks Haven't Taken Over Schools. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/petergreene/2018/08/27/why-e-textbooks-havent-taken-over-schools/
Screenshots from Kognity. (2019). International School of Ulaanbaatar subscription.
Greene, Peter. (2018, August 27). Why E-Textbooks Haven't Taken Over Schools. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/petergreene/2018/08/27/why-e-textbooks-havent-taken-over-schools/
Screenshots from Kognity. (2019). International School of Ulaanbaatar subscription.