Leverages Silicon Valley non-profit Gooru's powerful search
engine
Pearson today announced Project
Blue Sky, a cloud-based, content service that provides
instructors with easy access to Open Educational Resources
(OER). Pearson is partnering with Silicon Valley non-profit
Gooru, a search engine for learning materials, and will
leverage Gooru's powerful search capabilities to build
applications that seamlessly integrate high-quality
learning resources on the web, including OER, with
instructor-created and Pearson content. Faculty will also
have the ability to publish their customized digital course
content within multiple types of learning management
systems, including Pearson's OpenClass
and LearningStudio.
With the anticipated beta launch in spring 2013, Project
Blue Sky will directly address barriers to adoption of
digital material and Open Educational Resources. According
to a soon-to-be-released report
from Babson Survey Research Group, faculty reported that
key challenges to adopting OER include the lack of a
single, comprehensive catalog of content, and concerns
about too much time spent finding and evaluating the
material.
"The creation of Project Blue Sky is an extension of
Pearson's shift to developing innovative services that
provide rich and engaging teaching and learning
experiences," said Don Kilburn, Vice Chairman of Pearson
Higher Education. "Working closely with an education
technology non-profit that is committed to providing access
to high quality content for every student, and
institutional development partners, we are empowering
faculty to have control of the selection of a wide variety
of text and rich media assets."
Pearson is collaborating closely with 13 faculty on Project
Blue Sky's design to provide an optimal experience that
lets faculty identify the most relevant and high quality
content for their courses. The Project Blue Sky Pilot group
is reviewing the content service and building unique
multimedia eTextbooks for use in their courses.
"As an educator, I am constantly seeking out effective
course materials, and I usually have resources in many
places that are easily lost," said Sarah Strout, Department
Coordinator & Assistant Professor of Psychology, Dominican
College. "The potential of the Blue Sky platform is
enormous because it will give me control over the course
materials and save me much time spent frantically searching
and vetting OER content on the web. I can pull information
from lots of sources and compile all my materials in one
spot."
"Students and faculty are increasingly relying on digital
learning resources and would like to spend more time
learning rather than sorting through millions of videos and
websites for a given topic," said Dr. Prasad Ram, CEO of
Gooru. "The integration of content from Pearson and
high-quality web resources from Gooru in a single platform
provides immediate access to the most appropriate learning
resources for Pearson users."
Pearson is currently piloting the system with Psychology
faculty, and is actively seeking more development partners
in other disciplines. For more information on how to become
a development partner, visit http://www.pearsonbluesky.com.
To see a demo of Project Blue Sky, visit the Pearson booth
#1423 at EDUCAUSE on Wednesday, November 7th at 6:00 pm in
the Exhibit Hall.
About Pearson
Pearson, the world's leading learning company, has global
reach and market-leading businesses in education, business
information and consumer publishing (NYSE: PSO). The
company provides innovative print and digital education
materials, including personalized learning programs such as
MyLab/Mastering, education services including custom
publishing, and content-independent platforms including the
EQUELLA digital repository and the cloud-based Pearson
LearningStudio online learning platform and OpenClass
online learning environment.
About Gooru Learning
Gooru is a free search engine for learning developed by a
501(c)(3) non-profit organization whose mission is to honor
the human right to education. Teachers and students can use
Gooru to search for rich collections of multimedia
resources, digital textbooks, videos, games and quizzes
created by educators in the Gooru community.http://about.goorulearning.org.
Susan Aspey, susan.aspey (at) pearson (dot) com or (800)
745-8489
Xenia Shih, xenia (at) goorulearning (dot) org or (650)
331-0219
Recommend:
