Feb

McGraw-Hill Interactive eBook Learning Tools Released for Canadian Students

One of the most innovative educational concepts to come out for student personal use this year was the concept of an interactive and adaptive learning interface, embedded directly in the titles that students use. These dashboards from companies like Kno and CourseSmart actually provide feedback for the learners that let them know how effective their reading and learning time was by using algorithms to pinpoint which areas they have improved in based on their study habits. These methods are optimized by also judging the students’ confidence levels about the subject matter and targeting instruction to the areas that the learners feel they are weakest.

After already reaching more than one million unique users since its original LearnSmart launch in 2009, McGraw-Hill has brought its newly launched LearnSmart Advantage program to college-level learners in Canada through its McGraw-Hill Ryerson Higher Education division.

“Since the launch of LearnSmart by McGraw-Hill Higher Education in 2009, we’ve developed a deep understanding of how personalized learning through adaptive technology helps improve student productivity and performance,” said Patrick Ferrier, president of McGraw-Hill Ryerson Higher Education, in a press release. “Leveraging the expertise and proven effectiveness in adaptive learning provided by McGraw-Hill Education in new areas of the learning experience provides an enormous opportunity for students, instructors, and institutions across the country, as well as for McGraw-Hill Ryerson. With the launch of the LearnSmart Advantage suite, we continue to lead the industry in the use of adaptive technology to help improve student productivity and performance.”

The LearnSmart Advantage suite is a series of individual components that help students along the way, from the pre-course prep materials to help students identify areas of skill and knowledge deficiency to its interactive ebooks that help evaluate student learning throughout student engagement. University administrators and professors can opt to use LearnSmart Advantage within their curricula, but McGraw-Hill also makes the tools available for direct purchase.

Mercy Pilkington (1079 Posts)

Mercy Pilkington is a young-adult author and a teacher in a correctional facility. She does not have a single textbook in her classroom. With the top-of-the-line technology at her disposal and the low reading ability of many of her students, there’s no need for standard paper texts. Instead she relies on e-readers, iPads, desktop PCs, Polycom video conferencing equipment for virtual field trips, live streaming for science demonstrations, and text-to-speech read-aloud software to teach English and science. Within the next ten years, public school classrooms across the country are going to look a lot more like Mercy’s classroom because the educational possibilities with these kinds of technologies are limitless. Have a question? Send an email to mercypilkington@yahoo.com