KITABOO Masterclass
Your eBook Works Perfectly. Until a Real Student Tries to Use It.
A Frankfurter Buchmesse Masterclass in cooperation with KITABOO, hosted online on 20 May 2026.
Digital textbooks rarely fail on content. They fail when students can’t log in, rosters don’t sync and old school devices freeze. Former K-12 chief product officer Doug McCollum explains what US schools are dealing with, and Pavan Modh shows how a book opens from an LMS when the chain holds.
- Recorded
- 20 May 2026
- Length
- 57 minutes
- Speakers
- Doug McCollum, Pavan Modh
- Access
- Free to watch
The recording plays through YouTube and follows your cookie preferences. The opening image is illustrative.
The conversation
The product worked, but something between the product and the student didn’t.
Darshit Shah opens with a publisher who lost a school contract a year after the school had chosen her book. The school’s IT setup changed, rosters stopped updating, teachers went back to print, and she only found out when the renewal didn’t come. He says almost every publisher he speaks to with low adoption has a version of the same story.
Doug McCollum, who launched his first digital product in 1995, explains why delivery matters more now in US schools: a backlash against screen time, aging low-end devices, learning management systems rolled out with little training, and more students learning at home on weak connections. Pavan Modh then walks through KITABOO and opens a book from an LMS sandbox.
In the conversation
Four decades of edtech, and the platform behind the books.
Guest expert
Doug McCollum
Former CPO and EdTech Business Leader, Independent Senior EdTech Consultant
Has spent about 40 years in publishing and educational technology, including at Pearson, and has been chief product officer at several K-12 companies, developing hundreds of digital instructional products from pre-K to grade 12.
Speaker
Pavan Modh
Business Manager, KITABOO
Works with KITABOO’s customers and has more than nine years of experience in digital publishing. He presented the platform and ran the live demo.
Host
Darshit Shah
Segment Lead – Marketing, KITABOO
Opened the masterclass, ran the polls and took the audience questions.
Inside the session
Go straight to what you need.
Pick a chapter and the recording starts at that moment.
From the audience
What publishers asked.
What to take away
Make the chain hold, not just the content.
Doug’s advice, from four decades of building digital products for US schools.
After the session
Will your books open on every school device?
See how KITABOO helps publishers create, publish and distribute DRM-protected content across multiple devices. Book a demo and we’ll walk you through it on your own content.