Local Apple distributor, Core Group, has announced the availability of ZA Books, a digital bookstore which provides access to curriculum-relevant textbooks for South African schools and learners.
The ZA Books app is available exclusively for the iPad, and can be downloaded free from the SA iTunes App Store. At launch, ZA Books has over 600 titles from local textbook publishers.
Publishers already supporting the platform include Cambridge University Press, Macmillan, Oxford University Press, Berlut Books, Career Focus, Classroom Masters, Pan Macmillan, Random House Struik, PUO, Shuter and Shooter, among others.
Marketing manager for ZA Books, Linda de Klerk, says: "This is the first comprehensive SA K12 textbook store for the iPad. It offers textbooks from Grade 1 to 12, in line with the stipulations of the Department of Education, but we also have 'light reading' titles, teacher handbooks and even workbooks for learners."
De Klerk says the ZA Book store covers 33 subjects at launch, including Maths, Science, Accounting, Economics, English and Drama. "More titles will be added on a daily and weekly basis, and more publishers will also be added post-launch."
In terms of pricing, Core Group says every title will be a minimum of 25% cheaper than the printed version but pricing is set by the individual publishers.
How it works
In the first phase of launch, ZA Books is geared at schools, but can also be used by individuals. Schools can visit the ZA Books Web site to create an account and browse the catalogue of textbooks. Purchases are currently done via EFT, although Core Group says credit card facilities for individual customers will be added in the second phase of launch.
Schools can create booklists for learners and purchase multiple titles within the same order. Once the purchase is processed, specific licence codes are generated and sent to the school by the ZA Books administrator.
"Each learner whom the school will give the licence code needs to go onto www.zabooks.co.za and create a user name for their individual account," explains Core Group. "The learner needs to log into the Web site using their user name and then proceed to the 'My Books' tab and click on the 'Add Books' button."
The learners then enter the licence code they have been given by the school, and all books linked to that code will be automatically downloaded to the learners' accounts. Once the download is complete, learners can open the ZA Books application, where the books will automatically be available.
The textbooks are rendered as PDFs and within the application various interactive tools are available including highlighting, bookmarking, annotation and free-hand writing. The books are also fully searchable.
Digital shift
According to Hyam, as the iPad has increasingly been entering South African classrooms, feedback from local schools has highlighted a number of recurrent trends. Some of these include better engagement, less absenteeism, improved literacy and numeracy skills, and better independent learning.
Results from an internal survey conducted by St Albans College found that 74% of learners felt the iPad increased their engagement. A further 86% of learners said the iPad improved communication between the learners and teachers. Eighty percent of parents also said they believe the iPad is an effective learning tool. Internal research conducted by St Mary's also showed improved exam results among learners using iPads.
"Globally, people are questioning whether it is necessary for children to have heavy backpacks filled with expensive, out of date textbooks," says Hyam, adding that some countries have already stated their intent to switch to all-digital textbooks. South Korea has set 2015 as the deadline for this transition, while Brazil has also committed to this by 2018.
Hyam says the ZA Books app will "definitely not" be made available to other platforms. "We feel that iPad is the best technology solution for South African schools and have launched a textbook store to support this."
Hyam also believes many of the other devices and platforms fall short when it comes to meeting the needs of schools and learners. "They simply don't offer the right app environment and the devices themselves are often unreliable and don't last.
"We have worked extensively with local schools to get full book lists in order to ensure that we cover all the essential titles. This is our commitment towards the iPad as a solution for education. The faster we can get this technology and resources into as many students' hands as possible, the better."
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