Macmillan Education Partners with Knewton

NEW YORK, May 21, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --

Leading publisher to build next-generation English Language Learning and Teaching materials using Knewton adaptive learning technology

Today, Macmillan Education, a leading global publisher of English Language teaching (ELT), school curriculum, digital and online materials, announced a partnership with leading adaptive learning company Knewton.

Macmillan - widely recognized for its 150-year history of innovative publishing and award-winning materials used in over 120 countries worldwide - will create next-generation digital products and use Knewton technology to provide personalized recommendations and analytics.

These Knewton-enhanced materials will become available to students and teachers in 2015. Appropriate for both self-paced and classroom learning, the new products will offer a fully adaptive experience, featuring real-time student recommendations and highly personalized instructional and assessment content specially designed for language learning. Knewton technology will enable Macmillan Education to provide personalized grammar and vocabulary lessons, exam reviews, and supplementary materials for each student. Instructors, who will be supported with comprehensive training to guide them in implementing the new technology, can utilize Knewton analytics to gather real-time insights into their students' needs and determine how best to address them.

"Macmillan Education has always been at the forefront of developing cutting-edge digital materials for the educational market. We are fully committed to offering our customers the most effective platforms and products to improve learning outcomes," said Christoph Grau, Chief Digital Officer, Macmillan Education.

"Our new product design will ensure that every student succeeds in acquiring the life-enhancing skills required for communicating, studying, and working in English. Knewton is a perfect complement to these efforts because it allows us personalize materials to ensure that every student is fully learning and understanding the language they need to reach their goals," said Bryan Fletcher, Global Digital Publishing Director.

"Knewton's mission is to help personalize the world's learning experiences," said Knewton Founder and CEO Jose Ferreira. "We're excited to work with Macmillan to increase their students' mastery of cutting-edge educational content."

Macmillan Education joins a rapidly growing list of global learning companies, content providers, publishers, universities, and schools partnering with Knewton to improve learning outcomes and increase overall student achievement.

About the Knewton Adaptive Learning Platform

Knewton enables others to create continuously personalized learning experiences.

The Knewton infrastructure blends data science, world-leading learning models, and pedagogical expertise to enable personalization at massive scale. Knewton uses incoming data to tune and enhance generalized models of student knowledge, content structures, and learning objects in order to produce consistently improved results.

The flexible Knewton API allows third-party learning providers to enhance existing products and build new, innovative learning solutions on top of the Knewton framework. Every product that uses Knewton technology can provide a continuously adaptive learning experience to students as well as in-depth reporting capabilities for instructors.

About Knewton

The world's leading digital education products use Knewton to improve learning experiences.

The Knewton platform analyzes data about the performance of every student and similar students using Knewton-enhanced courses, as well as the relevance of the educational content itself, in order to personalize the experience for each student in real-time. Knewton creates tools that help learning companies, universities, and other educational content providers make personalized learning available to everyone worldwide. In 2012, Fast Company named Knewton one of the world's 50 Most Innovative Companies.

Knewton was founded in 2008 by Jose Ferreira and has received funding from Founders Fund, FirstMark Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, Accel Partners, First Round Capital, and other strategic investors. For more information, visit http://www.knewton.com.

About Macmillan Education

Macmillan Education is a global publisher of English Language teaching (ELT), school curriculum, digital and online materials. With over 150 years of publishing experience, Macmillan works with local teachers, students, institutions, and educational authorities to develop high-quality coursebooks, supplementary materials and digital products to suit the needs of classrooms around the world.

http://www.macmillaneducation.com

About Macmillan Science and Education

As part of one of the largest and best known international publishing groups in the world, the new global division of Macmillan Science and Education is characterized by seven high-quality academic, scholarly and educational businesses. These consist of Nature Publishing Group (NPG), Palgrave, Macmillan Education, Macmillan Higher Education, Macmillan New Ventures, Digital Science and Digital Education. The division employs more than 5,000 people, operating in more than 50 countries around the world, supporting scientists, professors, teachers, journalists, editors, writers and entrepreneurs transform the worlds of learning and discovery.

http://www.learndiscover.com

About the Holtzbrinck Publishing Group

Macmillan Science and Education and Macmillan Publishers are divisions of the Holtzbrinck Publishing Group, a family-owned company headquartered in Germany and one of the leading media companies in the world.

http://www.holtzbrinck.com.

SOURCE Macmillan Education