The ubiquity of handheld devices and their ability to influence content consumption behaviors right from toddlers to an adult is reshaping how learning happens at different stages of life. We are continuing to see many innovative and interesting EdTech solutions for every type of learning need across age groups.
Today we see an explosion of bite-size learning as a trend which taps into the changing attention-spans of the current generation of learners. Adoption of gamification and game-based learning strategies making interaction with learning content more cognitive and adoption of social learning interventions paving way for collaboration while learning is making eLearning a more active and engaging experience than a mere passive mouse and keyboard task.
Learning solutions, tap into changing learner behaviors that can personalize learning and that are able to assimilate newer technologies to positively enhance learning experiences will deliver measurable results.
Integra is a leading digital content solutions provider with rich experience of working with some of the world’s largest learning services and education content publishers in – Academic, PreK-12, Hi-Ed and ELT segments and Corporates, for close to two and a half decades. Integra has been delivering highly customized digital content solutions spanning varied learner profiles – from a student learner to a career professional in pursuit of continuing education.
With a competent team of qualified professionals – content developers, instructional designers, content technologists, media developers and software development professionals, Integra is uniquely positioned to service varied eLearning solution needs for a diverse clientele across industries – Education content producers and Corporate L&D. Headquartered in Pondicherry, India, Integra has its Global Service Delivery Centers across 5 countries and operates out of 9 delivery centers – India (Pondicherry, Chennai, Pune, Noida, and Bangalore), Japan (Yokohama), UK (Reading), Canada (Richmond), and the US (Oakbrook, IL).
As an end-to-end content solutions provider Integra’s content services portfolio includes: digital content and courseware development, instructional design, content editing, design, illustrations, animations, HTML5 and App development, extended reality content services, audio & video services, accessibility, assessments and digital QA & testing.
A passion for ingenuity – Meet the driving force behind Integra’s Illustrious Journey.
Sriram Subramanya is the Founder, and CEO of Integra. He built the company on the timeless values of unparalleled quality and client success. His dynamism, forethought, and perseverance against all odds has made Integra the success story that it is today. With his passion for technology, contagious dynamism, and ability to bring out the best in people, Sriram is as much as a team player as much a CEO. Sriram continually invests in new technology, people, and processes. He is willing to listen to any idea, any innovation, big or small and enthusiastically pursues ideas that may seem unconventional. He has the ability to see beyond the immediate and into future requirements.
As a first-generation entrepreneur, Sriram has been the chief architect of Integra’s meteoric growth offering content services to global publishers and corporates today. Providing overall directions that include conceptualizing and implementing operating strategies to realize Integra’s business goals, he has taken Integra from a small-town organization to one of the top 10 content and digital services companies in the world. He has founded Integra on strong values that continue to be the guiding philosophy for the company.
By starting his venture in the tier-2 town of Pondicherry, India, in 1994 as partnership firm and incorporated as Private Limited company in 2000, Sriram has enabled the town’s professionals to be able to work with many of the top 20 global publishing giants including the world’s oldest publishing house. Integra today offers digital content solutions for education publishers and bespoke workplace eLearning services for global enterprises, evolving from a content transformation services organization to a content-as-a-service provider in line with today’s quantum leap from traditional print needs to digital content needs.
Sharing his experience of founding an organization and scaling it to global level, “When Integra was founded 24 years ago in a tier-2 town in India, there were many challenges that we had to navigate in servicing clients who were in the US and UK. There were constraints in terms of infrastructure like – shortage of availability of physical infrastructure for an IT enabled business, availability of dedicated ISD facilities, access to high-speed internet and most importantly the challenge in attracting talent from large cities to a tier-2 town. There was also this concern on scalability expressed by our customers which we overcame by being one of the first to launch a captive training center for needed technical skills – which was trend setting and even today is a critical competitive advantage.”
A Panoptic Vision
The eLearning solutions industry is entering a new phase of transformation, thanks to continuous disruptions brought about by, both, emerging computing technologies like Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processing, and content technologies like Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR) and Mixed Reality (MR).
Right from classrooms in Schools to Higher Education Institutions to Corporates, all forms of learning facilitators across the world are acknowledging the disruptive nature of these technologies and have started to interweave them into the learning process. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that the eLearning industry in the cusp of another phase of exciting transformation – all centered around the learner.
The ability to identify the impact of emerging trends that may challenge the status quo and responding agilely to newer demands driven by the end user are two very critical traits that would provide impactful leverage to an organization taking it to a leadership position.
Sriram shares a couple of examples of one such leap that Integra took in the recent years, “We were one of the early movers and proactively invested in Reality Technologies (AR, VR and MR) for more than four years now – investing in technology, hardware and people skills. As a content solutions partner to our customers, we were always on the lookout for possible market disruptions that technology could bring to our customers business landscape and the demand of our customer’s end users. As one of the early movers we were among the first to develop an AR content learning prototype and were able to showcase the impact it could have on learning outcomes. Today we have developed in-house capability to deliver content in any of the extended Reality Technologies (AR, VR, MR) across various devices and deliver content transformation in this emerging area.
In another instance, Integra had used 360° video solutions on the topic Seven Wonders of the World, creating an immersive learning experience for school students. As a prototype, Integra has developed a 360° video module that provides the learner with a virtual walkthrough for the Taj Mahal and is developing similar modules for the other six wonders of the world.”
Accessibility in the Corporate eLearning market was a given because it is a matured market. But for the educational content producers including the world’s largest content publishers for School and Higher Education, who were transitioning into ‘Digital Classroom’ landscape, this, was an area where they were both short on knowledge and resources to help them migrate their content from a print-only product format to digital courseware. Integra, as expertise in multiple industry segments was able to scale quickly to this emerging need by adopting best practices from its experience in the corporate eLearning domain into the School and Higher Education content publishing industry.
Scaling Boundaries – A Venture into the next-gen of Intelligent Systems
Learner-centered innovations are becoming the norm, being primarily driven by the influence of emerging technologies. The pace at which technology, computing and communication devices are proliferating, and access to these capabilities by a large portion of the world’s population is an aspect that no one can miss. It is also important to note that these factors have a tremendous impact on user behavior, in our context, a learner.
Widespread adoption of Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) in every domain including Education and Learning is already fueling the next phase of growth. Immersive technologies like AR, VR, MR and 360° videos will shape the new eLearning solutions landscape by delivering creative and engaging learning experiences. In addition to Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) this field will create new roles and capabilities through skills that are critical to craft unique learning experiences through human and machine interaction.
“Exciting times are ahead”, says Sriram. “Recently, for a Nursing education course, we had developed a Mixed Reality Content Prototype, for Microsoft Hololens. This was an entirely enriching experience for us as learning solutions providers, where we brought together a team of Content Developers who were practicing professionals, Instructional designers, Creative directors, Media developers and programmers. We were also able to integrate formative assessments as part of the learning module within the MR experience which took the experience a notch above. Currently we are investigating and experimenting integration of learning analytics to aid personalization within the MR content.”
This world is entering a new era where technology is dictating how we conduct our lives and human-machine interaction becoming the norm. “An explorer’s spirit is what is needed in venturing into this unchartered territory. At Integra, having had a head start already on a new phase of growth, the team is gearing up for an exciting journey ahead. We consider ourselves master craftsmen in pursuit of creating unique and impactful learning experiences that has the potential to impact a learner’s life, and are an integral part of the knowledge dissemination value chain – this is the fuel that powers our expertise as content transformation experts”, says Sriram, as he signs-off.
Source :-The 10 Most Innovative E-Learning Solution Providers 2018
