Norwegian Education Provider Brings Learning Platform to United States

• By Scott Aronowitz
• 07/16/09

Bergen, Norway-based education solutions provider it's learning has introduced its specialized instructional platform to the United States. The it's learning platform is designed to focus on the needs of individual learners rather than classes or groups classified by member needs.

Similar to other learning platforms, the it's learning system offers tools for the storage of, sharing of, and collaboration on text, images, projects, assignments, online discussions, tests and presentations, and digital sound, video, and images. Parents and teachers can also access students' saved content for review, assessment, and team building. And all users on a network running the platform have access to blogs, e-mail, internal chat, A/V conferencing, progress reports, and other standard learning platform tools.

However, the it's learning platform also includes the following functions, primarily geared towards individualized instruction:

• Differentiated user interfaces that can be customized to grade level, progress level, and other needs of individual students;
• User pages, task charts, and other organizational tools for each member of an individual student's community, including parents, teachers, and mentors;
• Tools for each student to create and share his or her own wiki, plus a wiki assessment tool;
• Built-in audio and video recorders for easy multimedia creation;
• ePortfolios that allow educators and parents to monitor student progress and permanently store original text and video creations;
• Individual page design tools;
• Tool for each user to create a personal library for visitors to access; and
• Individual URLs to allow students Web access to materials they've created and choose to display.

Finally, the platform comes with administrator tools, such as a built-in software development kit for user customization and a plagiarism control system supported by an international database of online materials for teachers to monitor for potential cheating.

The it's learning platform is currently available for purchase in the United States through the company's Web site. Pricing is based upon annual licenses issued for each teacher and student user. Further information and a product demo can be found here.