Digital Education Emerging in the NY Tech Scene

January 28, 2012

Last Thursday, Apple executives flew in to NY  to announce their investment in the e-book market and partnership with several large academic publishing companies, including Pearson and McGraw Hill.

However, the education sector has been going through digital changes for quite some time; and leading the way are several NY-based startups.

According to Crain’s New York Business, people like John Katzman, founder of The Princeton Review, online education is becoming less of a second-class learning tool, and more of a mainstream model. Katzman launched the company, 2tor Inc., which developed a digital learning system that creates a global classroom allowing real-time, virtual interaction between students and professors. The system has been adopted by top schools such as Georgetown’s nursing school and the MBA program atUNC Chapel Hill.

In fact, the online education market has grown so much that Jeremy Johnson, Chief Marketing Officer at 2tor, predicts that many schools will go out of business as people begin to adopt the online programs.

That being said, there are also critics of the digital move. These people believe that direct interaction between student and teacher is necessary, and are afraid that online tools will simply be used as a cheaper alternative. On the flipside, others believe it is imperative to cater to generation that has grown up in a digital age, and that a move to digital education will help to do just that.

According to Crain’s, It is estimated that the online learning products and services market will grow to $11 billion in 2015.

Please see the original article here.