It is all good news for school going children in Singapore. And it is the right time singtel launched Singapore’s first e-book service, offering readers not just the latest best sellers but also study guides and educational books for children in primary and secondary schools. 

In my last post on ipad, I have explored on the future use of ipads. In that post, I have also wrote on the heavy load of carrying heavy books to school. By this the posture of students are affected. My daughter appears to be humble as her posture is not straight. This is due to the heavy school bags she had been carrying for the past 6 years. I hope her posture improves when the secondary school introduces ipads for children. 

Skoob 

E-book services from abroad had overlooked the Singapore market. E-book users in Singapore have had to go through several steps to access, say, Amazon or Barnes & Noble’s wide array of titles. 

Amazon and Barnes & Noble do not accept Singapore credit cards for e-books. To buy them, consumers pay with e-gift cards, which can be purchase using Singapore credit cards. Moreover, such chains do not ship their e-reading devices –Kindle and Nook, respectively- to Singapore. E- readers are delivered through online concierge services like Borderlinx, ComGateway or vPost. 

Singtel has collaborated major international publishing houses- Random House, Penguin, HarperCollins, Hachette Book Group, Simon and Schuster, and Macmillan – to offer the international bestellers. The Singapore titles and educational books are supplied by Popular, Marshall Cavendish, Cengage Learning, Asiapac, Flame of the Forest, McGraw Hill, Sunbear, Monsoon, Singapore Asia Publishers and Janus Education. 

Visit skoob and download the Skoob app onto your smartphones, tablets, ipads or iphones and devices powered by the Android operating system. Android device users can browse, buy and read e-books through the app. If you are using ipad or iphones, use Safari Web browser on your devices to browse and buy e-books. 

Content

 Content is still the King. Currently, skoob offers 39,000 bestsellers. However, skoob will soon offer the latest local study guides, assessment papers and a wide range of educational books, making it the ideal study companion for school students. 

My only hope for now is that skoob is the media where school textbooks are made downloadable onto ipads. Students like my child can get away from the heavy bags that they have to drag with them throughout their school lives. 

 Ipad has revolutionized living and it will soon change the way our children go to schools. My daughter had just passed me an invitation on the 18 November 2011 for her graduation night. She had completed her 6 years of study in the primary school and waiting for the Primary School Leaving Examination PSLE results, which will be out by next week. Read my last post here. 

 As she will proceed to walk of fame, I foresee her bright future in her secondary school with a straight posture and all her e-school textbooks in her ipad.