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In the News

Pearson LearningStudio – Campus Edition Design Partner Program a Success

Participants Excited About New Personalized Learning Platform
Four flagship institutions from around the United States are participating in the Picasso Design Partners Program. In this program they are providing valuable feedback on Pearson LearningStudio Campus Edition, a managed learning environment previously known as Fronter in Europe. The partners are focused on functionality and utilization of the product prior to General Delivery in March. Thus far the schools have received on-site training and phone consultation as well as meeting collectively to analyze product strengths and weaknesses.  In the near future they will begin building courses for the spring term and have them ready for the January 2010 start. 

The Design Partners Program which began in October includes educators from Arizona State University (ASU), Case Western Reserve University (CWRU), Ocean County College (OCC) and The University of Mary Washington (UMW). All completed the initial introduction and training on how to utilize Pearson LearningStudio Campus Edition in face-to-face and blended courses and programs last month. Several of the Design Partners also helped Pearson discuss their experiences to date regarding Campus Edition to a very receptive audience at the EDUCAUSE 2009 Conference held in Denver on November 3 - 6. The four institutions are now busy with implementing the Campus Edition in actual courses on their campuses.

An Open, Up-to-Date Platform
Pearson LearningStudio Campus Edition is based on the Fronter managed learning environment that was created in Oslo, Norway in 1998 and acquired by Pearson in February of 2009. Fronter has an open and robust solution and is in use with more than 6 million users throughout K-12 schools and higher education institutions in Europe. The platform includes more than 100 tools for faculty and students and is highly customizable in terms of functionality, design and language.

In the same spirit of Fronter in Europe, Pearson LearningStudio Campus Edition will be continuously developed and enhanced through the feedback and needs of its user community as it’s made available in the US. Its roadmap is open and will be influenced by the institutions that use the system—such as the current group of Design Partners—thereby ensuring that the platform is up to date with the ever-changing needs of its user community.

Pearson LearningStudio Campus Edition offers an advanced learning environment inside a virtual building, comprised of rooms. Each room is equipped with the tools required to empower the collaboration and learning activity in that room. The room owner invites members and assigns rights according to each member’s role in the room.

Users Impressed
“I am very impressed with all the functionality,” said ASU Director, Learning Technologies, Ruvi Wijesuriya, about ASU’s adoption of Pearson LearningStudio Campus Edition. “The ability to expand functionality gives us a nice level of flexibility to offer our instructors.”

ASU Director, Media Distribution Systems, James B. Casey, who had previously evaluated Fronter for use at ASU, added that Campus Edition “is a full-featured product that does much more than it previously could.”  

Wendy Shapiro, Senior Academic Technology Officer at CWRU, noted that the Design Partners Program has been “an amazingly wonderful experience. We have been given a voice into the design of the product, and that is something we need. With Pearson, we get to say that these are the things that are important to us.  “