Oxford University Press took its Digital Education Roadshow from Karachi to Lahore this season
The Digital Education Roadshow was held on the 21st of February at the Oxford University Press Head office in Karachi and on the 23rd of February 2017 at Plan9 Office in Lahore. In the recent past a number of new players have entered the felid of education technology. These range from hardware manufacturers to developers of educational games and apps, learning management systems and multimedia e learning content. A young Ed Tech market has also evolved and it continues to generate increasing levels of interest among consumers.
As these mediums of education are leaping to digital Oxford University Press, Pakistan is extremely excited to announce its part in this transition. Traditionally, OUP is a digital giant and has actively pursued digital innovation, and it is now providing tech-based educational solutions. The “Oxford Achiever” an English Language learning and assessment application has met an enthusiastic response from schools. Our current and developing range of e learning services include different learning platforms such as E-Readers, mobile dictionary apps, SMS based assessments and interactive multimedia CDs for supplementing school textbooks.
OUP hosted these sessions with the purpose of facilitating ED-Tech vendors in pitching new or existing solutions to us. OUP also seeks to collaborate with other industry players in building innovative digital solutions for both school and higher education markets.
The tech related material provided by OUP include Educational Content, preferably multilingual: including instructional audio visual content and HTML 5 interactives and animation. The material also includes augmented reality apps and content for textbooks, readers and graphic novels.
The solutions include: assessment solutions, Educational games for Language Learning and STEM. They also include professional development solutions for teacher, integrated course ware platforms such as LMS, E- readers, digital aggregation and sharing platforms but not school management or administration tools. Hardware that is specifically designed to facilitate digital learning and DRM enabled distribution is also provided.
The services and solutions will be evaluated against the following criteria: firstly the content quality will be taken in to account, expertise needed to deliver superior graphics and writings. There has to be flexibility of platform (desktop, tablet, mobile) and content (text, images, audio, video). There should be interactivity/ learner engagement- use of interactive and /or gaming elements to achieve learning and assessment objectives. Intellectual property safeguards have to be present and sustainable innovation should be a feature- solutions that are innovative but simple and easy to implement with long term tech support structures. There should also be offline accessibility options for the solutions.
