Digital Textbooks | News

Online Bookstore Teams with Kno on E-Textbooks for Private Schools

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 10/11/12

A company that sets up online bookstores for schools is teaming up with another company that develops content-related educational technology to deliver digital textbooks on multiple platforms to 200 private high schools. ClassBook.com is working with Kno, which only recently entered the K-12 segment with its multi-device textbook platform; previously, the latter company served higher education customers exclusively.

ClassBook.com creates customizable, personalized online bookstores for its school customers. The company has a large inventory of printed textbooks. In the newest agreement it will add digital editions of books to its online inventory.

Kno rents access to 200,000 K-12 and higher education e-textbooks from 65 publishers. Its texts are available for the iPad, Android, Windows 7, and the Web.

South Kent High School in Connecticut was one of the early adopters of the new offering. In fall 2011, following a pilot program, every student and faculty member received an iPad 2. Now 92 percent of students use e-textbooks on those devices. Previously, the private boys school used textbooks converted by Inkling for the iPad, iPhone, and Web and sold through Classbook.com. The deal with Kno ensures that other types of devices are supported too.

"With Kno, we take a big step in v2.0 of our technology solution at South Kent," said CIO Gonzalo Garcia-Pedroso. "Kno's digital solution allows us to scale and adapt rapidly as learning environments continue to evolve. We're excited for our faculty and students to use Kno."