For those who think that the use of photography in education will remain the same, here are some numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau.
There are 55 million elementary and high school students in the U.S.
- There are 114,700 schools.
- As of fall 2003, 100% of public schools have Internet access.
- There were 14.2 million computers available in these schools in the 2005-2006 school year. That is an average of 124 computers per school, or an average of one computer for every four kids. It is unknown how much this has increased in four years, or how rapidly it will increase with the use of iPads.
- 17% of high school students nationwide took an online course last year.
Non-traditional education systems include home and virtual schooling.
- 1.1 million students were home schooled in 2009.
- The Florida Virtual School has 100,000 students taking some of their courses online. Most teachers and students say they have more interaction with their teachers and students than they do in a traditional setting. One advantage of such a system is that it is easy to employ repetition and interactive testing to determine in real time how well the student is grasping the information.
- Clayton Christensen of the Harvard Business School estimates that half of all high school courses in the U.S. will be consumed over the Internet by 2019.
There are about 17.6 million students in colleges and universities.
- There are 4,216 institutions of higher learning in the U.S.
- 39% of students are age 25 or older.
- 31% of undergraduates attend 2-year institutions.
Whiteboard use in schools
The use of interactive whiteboards and other multimedia presentations in the classroom is growing rapidly. A whiteboard is a device that, when used with a computer and some type of large video display, makes the surface of the display become touch sensitive in some manner and allows it to be used to control the computer.
Manufacturers sold 747,572 whiteboards in 2009. Decision Tree Consulting in the U.K. forecasts that in the next four years, the global installed base will reach more than 7 million. At that point, one in every five classrooms worldwide will be equipped with an interactive whiteboard. One in six classrooms is expected to have an interactive whiteboard by 2011.
The world leader in producing white boards is Smart Board of Calgary, Canada. Some 1.3 million of its Smart Boards are installed in 175 countries. More than 25 million students worldwide currently benefit from the product every day.
Why is this important to photographers?
With this much interactive and online capability, there will be less need for books and more need for products that function on the computer.
There will be more need for video and less need for stills.
Most of the stock photo licenses written in the last two or three years have granted the publishers unlimited electronic use in any electronic media for the next 10 years. Therefore, it is unlikely that there will be any additional compensation for the use of the images licensed recently.
If Christensen is right, there would seem to be little likelihood that there will be much demand for new printed books 10 years from now. Most of the new products will be electronic.
As electronic use increases, there is likely to be less demand for single illustrations and more demand for short one- to three-minute stories. In some cases, still images and captions may be sufficient, but video, sound and narration are likely to become a more satisfactory solution in many cases.