Readdle’s “PDF Expert”: Combining Technology and Education for a Sustainable Future
Victor Mylonas
Business Associate – Readdle Marketing Team
victor.m@readdle.com
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According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization Statistical Yearbook 2013, the increased world paper consumption from 2010 to 2011 is not likely to slow down. This is, primarily, due to the economic and technological boom economies such as China and Singapore are currently experiencing. With worldwide paper production amounting to 403 183 thousand tonnes in 2011 alone, FAO has continuously warned the international community of the negative side-effects tree depletion may have on our world due to climate deregulation and the risk that future generations will unfortunately be unable to enjoy as many forestry resources as we do. Unfortunately, education has taken its toll on the environment as well, since there still exists a heavy reliance on paper within educational institutions. The need for modernization of scholastic administration practices and habits is, thus, imperative.
Effort has been put towards the reduction of paper dependency in schools by Readdle – a highly-ranked I.T. Application firm. Its “PDF Expert” iPhone/iPad Application allowing for the processing, annotation and distribution of voluminous documents in PDF format may pave the way to a more efficient and environmentally safe educational experience for a multitude of students and teachers around the world.
This is because the more versatile PDF (or Portable Document Format) has become increasingly more popular than its paper counterpart. Be it multiple research articles, worksheets, textbooks or lecture materials, students and teachers can use “PDF Expert” to comment on, share, annotate, bookmark, create diagrams on, or simply highlight a given text as many times as they like: a larger amount of possibilities coupled with no paper waste whatsoever. To add to that, more and more consumers are officially making the decision to purchase Apple’s iPad as of Quarter 1 of 2013, since it allows for a more interactive learning process. If the Government of Canada’s claims that “54 KG of newspaper will save one tree” are true, then Applications like “PDF Expert” could help save a great many.
Readdle’s recent “Back-To-School Campaign” aims at encouraging Universities (among other actors) to take advantage of the aforementioned type of iPad Software, as they are home to Ph.D. students, Guest Lecturers and Professors who use a vast amount of journals and papers for their research and work. Nevertheless, “going paperless” can prove to be an effective strategy for a K-12 school teacher who wishes to diversify their methods in class or the underfunded, yet determined “Western” volunteer at a school located in a developing nation, where education-related commodities are scarce.
It may come as no surprise that, given our commitment, the input of high-tech Software could reinvent the education industry in an almost revolutionary manner. In this case, less paper consumption at school would not only entail a healthier environment. It would also mean enhanced portability of educational resources, with children and young adults of diverse cultural and economic backgrounds gaining access to said materials more easily. We could, hence, even go as far as saying that inventions like “PDF Expert” could potentially provide the international community with the tools it needs to further approach the achievement of one or more of the Millennium Development Goals.
For more information on “PDF Expert”, please visit:
www.readdle.com/products/pdfexpert_ipad/
For more information on all Readdle products, please visit:
Photo resource: Photo Credits: Schulknabe mit iPad, after Albert Anker by Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
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This article was published on September 15th: International Day of Democracy, in Global Education Magazine.
