Publisher BIGZ školstvo has spent more than a decade dealing with the publishing of textbooks tailored to suit students, but also teachers, and in this process, it monitors all innovations in the education sector both locally and around the world
Teachers recognise BIGZ‘s textbooks – particularly those covering biology, “the world around us”, informatics and computer science, history and fine arts – as being of the highest quality, which is supported by their market presence.
The education system is continually advancing. In your opinion, which are the trends to be followed?
– Our goal is to produce textbooks with structural components that support active and meaningful learning, and which respect pupils’ developmental abilities and needs. We improve the quality of textbooks and other teaching materials constantly, monitoring and applying trends in digitisation, striving to raise Serbia’s education system to a higher level.
How much can a good textbook stimulate and motivate children, but also teachers and lecturers?
– The synergy of good textbooks and quality teaching staff achieve the best results. It is therefore important they help encourage and motivate students to more easily learn the material.
We achieve this with a specially designed methodical didactic apparatus, which is created individually for each textbook. We thereby encourage creative activities and mental processes among pupils. Richly illustrated, with a host of graphical solutions and icons, our textbooks allow students to see connections between concepts easily and to practise their functional literacy.
Richly illustrated, with numerous graphical solutions and icons, our textbooks enable students to easily identify connections between concepts and practise their functional literacy
On the other hand, a good textbook also represents important support to teachers in preparing and implementing classes. It provides the teacher with a logical structure upon which they can further build upon procedures they will use in teaching. Our textbooks are recognised by teachers as being of the highest quality, as evidenced by their presence on the market – particularly prominent here are textbooks for biology, “the world around us”, informatics and computer science, history, fine arts etc.
Digitalisation is increasingly applied in education. Can e-textbook completely replace printed textbook? What are its advantages?
– Digitalisation has become part of everyday life, and that includes education. It is vital to use the opportunities it provides in teaching processes. A few years ago, our company was among the first to digitalise all primary school textbooks, even before the Law on Textbooks made that obligatory for publishers. It has been shown in practice that the e-textbook represents excellent support to the teacher in conducting classes, and gives pupils the opportunity to learn and check their knowledge in a fun and exciting way, using ICT.
In order to further improve e-textbooks and provide maximum support to pupils and teachers, as of this school year we decided to work, in cooperation with the MozaBook platform, to create all textbooks made according to new curricula on this platform. This is currently the latest solution on the market, offering numerous animations, 3D models, virtual tours, quizzes and tests, all the while monitoring and evaluating the work of individual pupils and the entire class.
Moreover, as has become traditional, we are again this year organising the contest “Digital treasure trove of knowledge”, with which we reward the most innovative solutions for the preparation of digital teaching.
We are grateful that this contest has been recognised and supported by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development and the Ministry of Trade, Tourism and Telecommunications. Digital textbooks are undoubtedly excellent additional content, but numerous studies around the world show that traditional textbooks remain a primary and irreplaceable teaching tool.