ExploreLearning, the three-year-old Charlottesville, Va.-based provider of online learning solutions for middle school, high school and introductory college courses, announced a partnership with McDougal Littell, a division of Houghton Mifflin. Together the two will develop e-texts for McDougal Littell's Algebra I and Algebra I: Concepts and Skills, incorporating ExploreLearning's multimedia simulations, known as GIZMOs, and its online system of individualized progress checks.
For McDougal Littell, which publishes textbooks for grades 6 12, these e-texts are a company first, according to Sue Cowden, v-p of marketing and technology development. "We have a companion Web site in the marketplace now. We're certainly encouraged by the responses we've had," said Cowden of school systems' reactions to the new e-texts, which are being marketed for the 2002 03 school year.
While Houghton Mifflin's college division has had books online for the past two years, the middle school and high school markets have been slower to demand online texts to replace or supplement print books. In addition to the two e-texts that McDougal Littell is doing with ExploreLearning, the former is working with MetaText to put 13 of its history, geography and social studies books online. "We have a commitment that every new book will be online," said Cowden. "It will be interesting to see how schools want to use and purchase e-texts." At present, McDougal Littell is selling e-texts and print books separately. School systems that want to use the online texts as a supplement are charged a subscription fee.
In other news, ExploreLearning announced that it hired former Harcourt College Publishers president Theodore Buchholz as president and CEO. He will succeed interim CEO Carl Frischkorn, the company's founding investor and chairman of the board. Of his transition from a larger more traditional education publisher to a smaller firm, Buchholz commented, "I saw the benefit of being with a smaller company and making more of a difference." Unlike most online businesses, he added, "ExploreLearning is cash-flow positive and we make a profit."
