It's all about the student

Supporting Student-Centred Education

it‘s learning was founded in 1999 to introduce a Learning Platform that would truly support student-centred education.

Students are responsible for their own educational progress. it‘s learning gives them the tools they need to fulfil that responsibility through learning, research and peer instruction:

Progress reports for students and their instructors showing their progress through assignments, grades, and remaining tasks,
Project rooms where students can work with their peers and their instructors around a virtual table,
Built-in video conferencing with white board where students can interact with their instructors and work together, developing the same team-building skills they will need in the work world,
A suite of multimedia and Web 2.0 tools so that students can create in order to learn,
ePortfolios for every student to store, access and publish their work

Supporting Student Creativity

The true value of a Learning Platform is unleashed when faculty members use the system to deliver courses that they could not cost effectively deliver otherwise.

it‘s learning provides both the software features, and the professional development to help faculty use them, that help faculty challenge their students to think, and to demonstrate their thinking in their work.

The course planner – simple, yet sophisticated – helps instructors create course structures that take students beyond traditional linear progressions into contextual learning based on their own knowledge and interests.
The course planner includes links to learning objectives set by the professor, the institution, or the state to ensure that students are exposed to, and learn, the material they are expected to master.
Faculty or student mentors can also create Individual Learning Plans (ILP) which provide every student with supplemental materials, activities or assignments that support their individual learning needs.
Fully integrated assessment tools allow instructors to create and use the results from formative assessments in order to better guide their students through course material.
Fully integrated multimedia tools including image management, audio creation and video creation encourage both faculty and students to use the best media to get their point across.

Supporting student engagement

A recent survey of graduating high school students showed that less than 20% used the library for research, where over 50% used Wikipedia and a different 50% used YouTube.

Students regularly watch video to learn new material, participate in online social groups to share information, upload their work to community sites like Flickr and MySpace for comment, and answer other people’s questions within their areas of expertise on Adrvark.

it‘s learning makes those vehicles for education available to professors with less effort than it used to take to upload a syllabus.

Create multimedia content in two clicks with integrated audio and video tools.
Insert a YouTube video or an RSS feed into a lesson with integrated Web 2.0 tools.
Assign licensed material from publishers with the Diglib digital content management system integration.
Multimedia discussion groups allow students to communicate with their professors and with their peers using text, images, audio and video – with no extra effort.

Supporting Individual Students

Students have a wide variety of learning styles and needs. Language, experience, interests and ability all determine ability and approach to learning.

it‘s learning supports the needs of individual students.

Delivered in a variety of European languages including Spanish, with the ability to specify language at the individual student level.
Digital library of materials supports the assignment of remedial materials to those students who need it, and advanced exploratory materials to those students who are ready for it.
The mentor role provides for an advisor or other individual to have access to student progress through their Individual Learning Plan, with the communications tools to interact with each student to provide guidance, advice and motivation.
Progress reports allow professors, mentors or other responsible parties to track student progress against tasks, supporting early intervention to prevent procrastination and other behaviours which put students at risk. Students see their own progress, tasks and guidance messages every time they log on, helping them to manage their time to ensure their own success.

Supporting flexible learning

Lifelong learning begins with the integration of the learning experience into one’s life.

When course material is available only in the classroom, learning is isolated from the student’s daily concerns. Conversely, it’s learning integrates learning into the student’s life through a suite of communications, assessment, media and organisation tools.

Access is available from any web-enabled device, whether computer (Windows, Mac, Linux) X-Box 360, mobile phone or other.
Existing student and faculty e-mail accounts are fully integrated into the learning platform, and it’s learning offers institutional Gmail accounts free with licenses.
Students can check their progress, assignments, mail and course content from any location, anytime.
Instructors can provide students with materials they have developed, that their colleagues have developed, or that any it’s learning user has developed and chosen to publish to the learning community.

Supporting student retention

The operative word in the research on the impact of learning management systems is use. On those campuses where both faculty and students use the system on a daily basis, outcomes improve. Unfortunately, on most campuses, system use is not a regular event.

On it’s learning campuses, faculty really use the system because:

It really is easier. Professors who have used other course management and learning management systems tell us that it takes 1/3 to 1/10 as much time to create a course in it’s learning.
Professors can easily import their courses using standard formats such as IMS and SCORM, and then set them up in nested hierarchical tree structures.
Grading rubrics tell what students what they must do, so that they can meet their professors’ expectations.
The full integration of email, calendar, attendance taking and administrative communications turns it’s learning into everybody’s home on campus.
Mobile device support helps students track their progress and assignments while they are off campus, and away from a computer.
it‘s learning training and 24/7 support make sure that everybody knows how to use the features they need to succeed within the it’s learning platform.

EU (current)