itslearning’s App Library contains a variety of free and paid teaching and learning apps that teachers use to improve their teaching. Using an open system similar to Apple’s App Store, the itslearning App Library enables any person or company to easily develop and add an app to the library for free. According to Roger Stjernberg, global business development manager at itslearning, the open platform will give teachers and students access a wider variety of apps than ever before.

“A few other learning platforms include apps from third-party developers, but these use a closed system that restricts who can add apps. The itslearning App Library is different,” says Roger. “We’ve taken a leaf out of the mobile phone and tablet app markets. Their open systems have led to a massive variety of apps, and this has proven hugely popular with consumers. Anyone can create an app and add it to our Library. There are already apps from some of the biggest digital teaching publishers, such as Britannica Online, J2Simple and Bridgeman Education, but there are also apps developed by more specialised companies. Kikora, for example, provides thousands of maths exercises that are matched to the Norwegian national curriculum and students can complete online.”

Kikora passed the one million exercises completed mark on 13 September 2011. Kikora CEO Johan Kvarving Vik feels much of the apps success is down to the simplicity of the App Library: “Many of our end users already use itslearning, so integrating Kikora was simply a case of addressing their needs,” he explains. “Now, our customers don’t need a separate password or interface to use our application. They use Kikora directly from itslearning. It’s a feature they really love.”

Find out more:

Please contact Kristine Lango for more information.

Marketing Communications Manager
Email: Kristine.lango@itslearning.com
Tel: +47982 83 778

About itslearning
itslearning is a learning platform provider dedicated solely to the education sector. Its learning platform is used by millions of educators, students, admin staff and parents around the world – and can be found at all levels of education, from primary schools to universities. The company is headquartered in Bergen, Norway, and has offices in London, Birmingham, Berlin, Enschede, Paris, Mulhouse, Malmö and Boston.

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App Store is a trademark of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries

Norwegian-based educational ICT provider itslearning announced today that it will shortly acquire majority ownership of the Dutch company Dactique. Both companies provide learning platforms and related products to customers in primary, secondary, vocational and higher education.

As a result of the deal, itslearning will establish a subsidiary in the Netherlands, called itslearning Nederland which will combine both Dactique and itslearning’s current Dutch operation. itslearning has operated in the Netherlands since 2004 through partners.

itslearning AS CEO Arne Bergby comments: “One of our main goals with this deal is to be able to serve our customer in the Netherlands better. We want to be closer to our customers on the ground so we can offer them even better service and support, and Dactique are known for their strong customer support and service – so joining forces will be advantageous for all.”

“We’re delighted with the deal,” says Quirijn Hamel, Managing Director, Dactique. “After years of fierce competition between the two companies, the new cooperation will give us more room for product development and innovation – which will be good news for educational institutions across the country.”

Currently, Dactique provides two products to the education sector in the Netherlands: Dapter, a learning and ePortfolio system; and Teletop an advanced learning platform. The two products have a combined total of around 400,000 users.

Operations will continue in Dactique’s facilities in Enschede, the Netherlands and the management team will remain the same. Dactique and itslearning will now work together to combine the best features of their two learning platforms, while continuing to develop Dapter.

The acquisition will consolidate itslearning AS’s position as one of the world’s leading learning platform providers with around 180 employees and millions of users.

For more information on itslearning, please visit www.itslearning.eu. For more information on Dactique please visit www.dactique.nl (in Dutch).

For more information, please contact:

Arne Bergby, itslearning CEO, Email: arne.bergby@itslearning.com, Phone: +47 9715 7095

Quirijn Hamel, Dactique Managing Director, Email: q.hamel@dactique.nl, Phone: +31 6 2047 7777

You can find your local itslearning press contact at www.itslearning.eu/press

Notes to editors

About itslearning
Headquartered in Bergen, Norway, itslearning has offices in Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, the UK and USA. More than 40% of itslearning’s resources are dedicated to product design and development.

About Dactique
Dactique provides a number of products and services to the Dutch education sector, including an advanced learning platform and an e-Portfolio solution. Founded in 2003, the company is headquartered in Enschede.

BERGEN: 71% of teachers feel that a secure internet ‘parent portal’, where parents could see details about their child's schooling, would improve school-to-parent communication, according to a survey of 5805 teachers released today by leading educational ICT provider itslearning.

In the survey of teachers in France, Germany, Norway, Sweden, the UK and the US, 75% of teachers also rated parental engagement as either ‘important’ or ‘very important’ for the success of a child’s education. However, 44% said they didn’t have the time or means to communicate with parents as much as they would like.

“Teachers agree that involving parents is critical, but they aren’t able to communicate with parents effectively,” says Morten Fahlvik, Research Manager at itslearning. “Most teachers speak to parents at least once a semester. But communication has to occur more often to be really effective. The internet could be the answer – as long as the tool is correctly designed.”

How do teachers currently communicate with parents? According to the survey, 46% of teachers email each of their students’ parents at least once a month; 37% use texts/SMSs and 24% still send letters.

“Many teachers use a mix of technologies to communicate with parents, but none of them are specifically designed for the task,” says Fahlvik. “Teachers want a tool that will improve the flow of information and reduce their workload.”

To meet this need, itslearning launched a parent portal last year. As part of the company’s cloud-based learning platform, much of the information on the portal – such as grades and attendance – is updated automatically to save teachers time. Teachers can also add specific information about individual students as required.

“The teachers have been extremely positive,” says Fahlvik. “We’re now surveying the parents to discover how they feel about the portal.”

For more information, please visit www.itslearning.eu/parentsurvey2011

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Contact information:

Kristine Lango
Marketing and Communications Manager
Email: kristine.lango@itslearning.com
Tel: +47 9828 3778

Visit www.itslearning.eu/press to find your local itslearning press contact.

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About itslearning

itslearning is a learning platform provider dedicated solely to the education sector. Its learning platform is used by millions of educators, students, admin staff and parents around the world – and can be found at all levels of education, from primary schools to universities. The company is headquartered in Bergen, Norway, and has offices in London, Birmingham, Berlin, Paris, Mulhouse, Malmö and Boston.

3 December 2010, BERGEN: Today, itslearning announced that it will acquire a 66% stake in educational technology provider InfoStance from the French publishing giant Hachette Livre. Hachette Livre will retain 34% ownership of the company. The deal should enable itslearning to use InfoStance’s expertise in school administration systems to create an even stronger learning platform.

Although both itslearning and InfoStance offer similar products, the two learning platforms have different strengths. InfoStance is the only company to have achieved full user adoption in French Local Education Authorities and its product, ScolaStance, is renowned for its administrative tools and seamless integration with other IT systems. itslearning is more focused on giving teachers tools that improve collaboration and improve classroom teaching.

itslearning CEO Arne Bergby believes the combination of the two will prove very appealing for educational institutions both in France and around the globe. “Our goal is to develop the perfect learning platform and we have set an ambition plan to incorporate the best features from ScolaStance into itslearning,” he comments. “Thanks to our software as a service model, our customers will see a gradual improvement in the product they use every day, without experiencing any disruptions.”

A new learning platform leader in France

Currently France’s leading provider of learning platforms, InfoStance has revenue in excess of €1.6 million. Based in Norway, itslearning has millions of users in Europe and the US, and is one of Europe’s 50 fastest growing technology companies.

The acquisition of InfoStance makes itslearning the largest learning platform provider in France in terms of users, with more than 900,000 users across the country. InfoStance CEO Cyril Voidey comments: “The acquisition is an excellent move for InfoStance. it’s learning’s international experience, pedagogically focused product and experience in primary education will enable us to expand rapidly in a growing market.”

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For further information, please find your local itslearning press contact at www.itslearning.eu/press

Notes to editors

About itslearning

Headquartered in Bergen, Norway, it’s learning has offices in Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, the UK and USA. More than 40% of itslearning’s resources are dedicated to product design and development.

About Hachette Livre

Hachette Livre, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lagardère SCA, is the world’s second largest trade book publisher with sales of €2,273 million. It is #1 in France, #1 in the UK, #2 in Spain and #5 in the USA. It publishes over 17,000 new titles a year under more than one hundred different imprints in a dozen languages, but mainly in French, English and Spanish. It covers all segments of trade publishing: general fiction and non-fiction, mass market pocket books, books for young readers, illustrated books, travel guides, school books, as well as partworks. Its headquarters are in Paris, France.

12th April 2010, Bergen, Norway – Microsoft and it's learning, an international learning platform provider, today signed a Memorandum of Understanding to improve products and services that will transform teaching methods and advance next-generation learning. The agreement represents the first Education Partner Alliance where the Microsoft cloud computing services are adopted to develop a fully cloud based, integrated offering to the education sector.

Under the agreement it's learning will integrate Microsoft Outlook Live, SharePoint Online and Office Web Applications into their education platform. This means it’s learning can now deliver the best suite of online communication tools to improve productivity and collaboration in education. Students and teachers will be able to securely upload, easily share, and collaborate on Office documents from anywhere with internet access, including mobile devices.

Arne Bergby, CEO, it's learning said “it's learning has chosen Microsoft's cloud services for education. All future customers will benefit from Outlook Live and Microsoft’s web applications and we will build a migration plan for existing users to move to the Microsoft solution over the coming months. We took this decision because students and teachers are familiar with Microsoft’s rich, high-quality communications products which will keep up with their changing needs. Microsoft not only provides the best platform, but is the best partner for it’s learning because it is an enterprise company which has experience with large organizations and has a strong heritage in working with local authorities and school districts.”

Mark East, General Manager, Microsoft Education said “We are delighted that it's learning have decided to integrate the Microsoft platform and partner with us to provide future customers the best learning experiences. As students become increasingly tech-savvy at a younger age and demand more technology services from their schools, we believe that our technology offers the familiar, rich solutions and flexible platform that will best prepare them for the workforce.”

About it’s learning

it’s learning is an international learning platform provider with over two million users in primary and secondary schools, as well as Further and Higher Education. The company is represented in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and USA. With more than 40% of its resources involved in design and development, it’s learning invests in the future. The company's goal is to offer the best learning platform worldwide and to be the most innovative organisation within the educational market.

Contact

Microsoft: Matthew Fox, Western Europe Education, +44  118 90 94 929, mfox@microsoft.com

PR Conatact: Charlie Meredith-Hardy,Webershandwick, +44 (207) 067 064, cmeredith-hardy@webershandwick.com

it’s learning: Arne Bergby, CEO, +47 971 57 095, arne.bergby@itslearning.com

What is Outlook Live?

Microsoft Outlook Live is based on the Microsoft Exchange Online, the market-leader in business email, calendaring, and voicemail. With Outlook Live, teachers and students get the familiar, intuitive Outlook user experience, whether on a PC with the Outlook desktop client or through a browser with Outlook Web Access, or on mobile phones.

Live@edu currently serves more than 30 million users in 129 countries.

What are Office Web Applications?

Microsoft Office Web Applications are new web-based tools that extend the Microsoft Office 2010 experience to a supported browser. They are online companions to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote that enable users to view, do light editing, and share Office documents from virtually anywhere.