[January 19, 2012]

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

Pearson, the world's leading learning company, is today publishing a new suite of multimedia textbooks and reference titles for Apple's (News - Alert) iPad. The full-color 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 re-imagined 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 programs.

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 programs 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 LearningStudio, 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 personalized lessons;

• OLE, Pearson's Online Learning Exchange, which connects teachers to thousands of learning objects, videos, animations and photos to help them customize 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 (News - Alert) 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.

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