Pearson via Will Fitzhugh:

Today Pearson announced a collaboration with Microsoft Corp. that brings together the world’s leading learning company and the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions to create new applications and advance a digital education model that prepares students to thrive in an increasingly personalized learning environment. The first collaboration between the two global companies will combine Pearson’s Common Core System of Courses with the groundbreaking capabilities of the Windows 8 touchscreen environment. The Common Core System of Courses is the first curriculum built for a digital personalized learning environment that is 100 percent aligned to the new standards for college and career readiness.

“Pearson has accelerated the development of personalized digital learning environments to improve educational outcomes as well as increase student engagement,” said Larry Singer, Managing Director for Pearson’s North American School group. “Through this collaboration with Microsoft, the global leader in infrastructure and productivity tools for schools, we are creating a powerful force for helping schools leverage this educational model to accelerate student achievement and, ultimately, ensure that U.S. students are more competitive on the global stage.”

“Personalized learning for every student is a worthy and aspirational goal. By combining the power of touch, type, digital inking, multitasking and split-screen capabilities that Windows 8 with Office 365 provides with these new Pearson applications, we’re one step closer to enabling an interactive and personalized learning environment,” said Margo Day, vice president, U.S. Education, Microsoft Corp. “We’re in the middle of an exciting transformation in education, with technology fueling the movement and allowing schools to achieve this goal of personalized learning for each student.”

In addition, iLit, Pearson’s core reading program aimed at closing the adolescent literacy gap, will be optimized for the Windows 8 platform. Designed based on the proven instructional model found in the Ramp Up Literacy program, which demonstrated students gaining two years of growth in a single year, iLit offers students personalized learning support based on their own instructional needs, engaging interactivities, and built-in reward systems that motivate students and track their progress.

Milissa Crum, a teacher at Highland Middle School in Anderson, Ind., is illustrative of the ways teachers around the country are discovering iLit as a powerful tool for personalizing learning and closing the literacy gap for their students. She said, “The iLit program and curriculum provides real time data that can guide my interaction and teaching with my students everyday. The feedback from the program enables my sixth grade students to become hands on in their own learning and growing and become involved in the conversation in how to make changes in the learning and growing to increase their own performance. Making programs like this more accessible with the release of them on mobile devices would only make this already amazing program invaluable in today’s pedagogy and curriculum.”

A Windows 8 app will also be developed for Pearson’s hundreds of core and supplemental eText titles, allowing students and teachers to access the full functionality of the company’s eBook solutions on Windows 8 devices. In addition, Pearson’s innovative TestNav 8 assessment app, incorporated into Next-Generation Assessments around the United States, will support Internet Explorer 11.

The Common Core System of Courses, iLit, eText titles, and TestNav 8 are a sampling of a variety of instructional resources, assessments, professional development, virtual learning, and school improvement services delivered to millions of students around the globe.

The Pearson solutions on the Windows platform will be available for use by schools in the 2014-2015 school year.

About the Common Core System of Courses

Written from the ground-up to support the new, more rigorous learning goals, the Common Core System of Courses is a new, all-digital curriculum that’s designed for use as a system of courses. Underlying the development of the Common Core System of Courses is the belief that the teacher is the key to the quality of education provided to students. This curriculum is designed as a workshop model that engages students and teachers in a variety of activities. It provides opportunities for students to develop their ways of thinking about complex text and complex problems individually, in pairs or small groups, and then shared in a whole-class discussion. This ensures that students are developing the skills requisite for success in the digital age: deeper cognitive and meta-cognitive academic skills as well as their personal skills: communication, collaboration, problem-solving, analysis, synthesis and evaluation.

About iLit

A tablet-based reading intervention for grades 4-10, iLit provides teachers with everything they need for their students to gain two years of reading growth in a single year. In an iLit classroom, each day begins with the students reading a self-selected title from the thoughtfully curated high-interest leveled library, which culls Pearson’s vast collection of Penguin, DK, Adapted Classics and other texts. The daily instruction allows for gradual release of control through explicit guided reading, modeling the fluency and meta-cognition of a successful reader while teaching important skills and strategies to fill reading deficiency gaps. By taking advantage of Pearson’s award-winning proprietary technology learning solutions, iLit provides students real-time feedback and coaching on informal summary writing and formal essays. Scaffolded hints and personalized feedback allow the students to write and re-write independently, practicing skills in a safe engaging environment before submitting for grading. It is the only reading intervention program with technology-based writing coaching.

About Pearson eText

Pearson’s eText platform is the company’s electronic book technology (eBook), designed to meet the varied requirements of learners in the classroom. Beyond providing perfect fidelity to the printed textbook, the Pearson eText platform offers easy-to-use interactive and intuitive features such as navigation controls, enhanced searchability, personal highlighting, bookmarks and note-taking.

About TestNav

Pearson’s comprehensive approach to assessment includes an innovative online delivery solution, TestNav delivers millions of secure, high-stakes assessments in K-12 schools every year. TestNav allows schools to administer tests online and on demand, securely and dependably. Today’s students are completely at home in a digital environment, where a keyboard, mouse, navigation buttons, toolbars, and point-and-click skills are familiar tools. TestNav uses these tools in a student friendly interface that employs interactive tools and innovative items, enhancing the test-taking experience for all computer literacy levels.

About Pearson

Pearson is the world’s leading learning company, providing educational materials and services and business information through the Financial Times Group. Pearson serves learners of all ages around the globe, employing 41,000 people in more than 70 countries. For more information about Pearson, visit http://www.pearson.com.

Pearson Media Contact: Stacy Skelly, stacy (dot) skelly (at) pearson (dot) com, or (800) 745-8489.