"The Story of India" and the future of educational publishing
I recently watched the 6-part BBC/PBS series “The Story of India.” Aside from being wonderfully entertaining and informative, the series got me thinking about ways in which educational publishers might adapt so that we could better meet the needs of students in the future.
First, consider some of these hallmarks of the India series:
- It was broadcast in high-definition TV
- It told the story of the past through the present–contemporary sites, scenes, and people were all used to illustrate past events
- It used a single, compelling person as the guide (in this case, the historian Michael Wood)
- It mixed in some very useful didactic tools, including superb maps and geographical animations and, very cleverly, clips from Bollywood films to illustrate key events (rather than lame re-creations, as has become the norm in so much history television)
- It offered a companion Web site complete with terrific photos, video snippets, and a social media component
- It offered a companion book
- Above all, it told a great story
In short, the series represented a multimedia, multichannel entertainment offering that brilliantly told a history lesson and that made a sprawling, complex narrative accessible and digestible.
For educational publishers in general and history publishers in particular, the take-aways are many. First, it has been clear for years that video and audio are playing an increasing role in students’ lives. While as publishers we must remain focused on what we do best–generally that means publishing written content–that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t also explore ways to incorporate video and audio content. To be sure, many publishers are already doing this. But the advent of high-def video, the development of video tools/sites like YouTube, and the fact that video/audio production can now be done fairly inexpensively increases the options for content producers. In the future, history publishers need to find ways to offer related video/audio content.
At the same time, publishers have only begun to tap the possibilities of digital history–using the Web in innovative ways to reach students and teachers. While I wouldn’t say that the companion Web site for “The Story of India” offers any great lessons on this front (e.g., its social Web component was too unfocused), nonetheless I think that a robust Web site–even for a single niche product offering–can be extremely beneficial in attracting and building an audience.
Finally, what comes to mind are partnerships. It may well be true that many publishers lack the resources and expertise to take advantage of the full range of multimedia/multichannel opportunities. If so, then we should seek out other companies to partner with–ones that can bring expertise that we may be lacking.
I wonder how many history teachers will use “The Story of India” in their classrooms, even in part? (It’s hard to see how they would have the time to use the full 6 parts, especially in the case of AP World History classes, for instance.) Nonetheless, it would make a brilliant teaching tool. I wish I had had something as visually arresting and compelling to watch when I was in school. Today’s students are perhaps more used to such programs, and their expectations for all sorts of media–video, audio, book, online–are no doubt higher as a result.