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Pearson Releases New Wave of Interactive Textbooks for Apple's iPad

Jan 19, 2012 12:30 PM ET

(3BL Media / theCSRfeed) January 19, 2012 - Innovative iBooks textbooks feature Pearson’s respected learning content enhanced with video, audio, assessment, interactive images and 3D animations.

Pearson, the world’s leading learning company, is today publishing a new suite of multimedia textbooks and reference titles for Apple’s iPad. The full-colour books, designed for pre-schoolers, school students and learners of all ages, are available today through a new education channel on the iBookstore. They feature Pearson’s respected learning content brought to life with video, audio, assessment, interactive images and 3D animations.
 
Pearson is publishing its first suite of new books to coincide with the launch of Apple’s iBooks textbooks. They feature new, specially-created content from two parts of Pearson: leading education services and technology company Pearson North America and world-renowned illustrated reference publisher DK.
 
The new titles include some of Pearson’s market-leading high school textbooks reimagined for the iPad. Miller & Levine Biology, Algebra 1 and Environmental Science: Your World, Your Turn are available today, with Chemistry, Geometry and Algebra 2 following soon. An estimated four million American high school students have studied math and science through the print versions of these programmes.
 
Reflecting the potential of Apple’s iBookstore to reach consumer learners, Pearson is also releasing four titles from DK that will appeal to students aged three to 103: My first ABC; Dinosaurs & Prehistoric Life; DK Natural History: Mammals-Carnivores; and DK Natural History: Insects. These new DK books are based on titles that have sold approximately one million copies in more than 20 languages.
 
In total, the first wave of Pearson books contains approximately 7,000 pages of learning content, 1,000 interactive widgets (including 3D animations and Keynote presentations), more than 100 videos and some 5,000 test questions so that students can check their understanding.
 
Genevieve Shore, Pearson’s CIO and director of digital strategy, said:
“These books break new ground in digital and mobile publishing. If you open one of these books, you will discover how a three-year-old learns his first words, how his heart beats, how you solve equations and how dinosaurs lived. We’re delighted with the results and we hope that readers, students, teachers and parents are too. We see enormous potential to create these kinds of programmes for more subjects, more stages of learning and more geographic markets.”
 
Pearson, the world’s leading learning company, is a pioneer in the use of digital and mobile technologies to transform and enhance education and publishing. Pearson reported revenues of approximately $9bn in 2010 and generated approximately $3bn in digital revenues in 2011.
 
Penguin, Pearson’s consumer publishing division, now has approximately 10,000 eBooks available including bestsellers such as Kathryn Stockett’s The Help, Stephen Fry’s The Fry Chronicles, Deborah Harkness’ A Discovery of Witches and Patricia Cornwell’s Red Mist.
 
Around the world, hundreds of millions of students and teachers use Pearson’s learning technologies including:

  • MyLabs, which provide online adaptive learning for school and college students;

  • Pearson Learning Studio, which powers elearning for many of America’s leading higher education institutions;

  • Dash, Pearson’s award-winning app that gives teachers mobile access to multimedia learning materials and personalised lessons;

  • OLE, Pearson’s Online Learning Exchange, which connects teachers to thousands of learning objects, videos, animations and photos to help    them customise their lessons and teach their own way; and

  • PowerSchool (acquired from Apple in 2006), which provides powerful tools for teachers to monitor their classrooms, record student progress and communicate with parents. PowerSchool Parent and PowerSchool student, two new free apps for iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad, give real-time access to attendance, grades, assignments and test scores to the ten million students and their parents in 65 countries whose schools use PowerSchool.

 
For more information:
Pearson plc: Luke Swanson/ Charles Goldsmith           + 44 (0) 207 010 2310
Pearson North America: Wendy Spiegel                      + 1 800 745 8489
Penguin/ DK: Toby Jones/ Rachel Kempster                + 44 (0) 207 010 3345
 
About Pearson

Pearson is the world’s leading learning company. Our major businesses are: Pearson, the world's biggest education business, providing print and digital learning materials and services used by more than 100 million students of all ages every year; The Financial Times Group, which has an international network of business and financial newspapers and online services that are read by millions of business executives and investors every day; and Penguin Group, which is one of the pre-eminent names in consumer publishing, with an unrivalled range of fiction and nonfiction, bestsellers, and classic titles. Through our books, newspapers and online products and services, Pearson helps people of all ages to live and learn. See www.pearson.com
 
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