Britannica LaunchPacks Takes Blended Learning to the Next Level and Tackles Digital Divide
Enhanced version of popular K-12 science and social studies platform effectively enables students and teachers in both remote and classroom settings. Printable and digital offline capabilities serve students with limited Internet access and help to combat the "digital divide." The platform is ideal for blended learning, personalized learning, Social Emotional Learning (SEL).
CHICAGO, Aug. 20, 2020 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Britannica Digital Learning today announced an enhanced version of LaunchPacks, its popular science and social studies platform for K-12 schools, aimed at better enabling students and teachers in the era of COVID-19, where students learn sometimes at home, sometimes in the classroom, and sometimes in both places.
LaunchPacks offers teachers and students access to rich, high-quality, and diverse content sets that are easy for teachers to find and assign to students based on their learning levels and preferred learning styles wherever they are. The content in each pack relates to a specific topic that is vital to curriculum-aligned instruction in a given grade range. It saves time and enriches learning.
"LaunchPacks transforms the way teachers deliver lessons and the way students engage with them," said Karthik Krishnan, global CEO of the Britannica Group. "It helps students master core concepts and develop lifelong skills while making it easy for teachers to create, assign and monitor lessons whether students are at home or in the classroom. Serving student populations, including those with special learning needs and affected by the digital divide, LaunchPacks promotes equity while providing the right set of tools to meet the blended learning needs of today."
With the approach of a new school year in which many schools will be closed and others only partially open, school systems and teachers are being called upon to take the lead and enable effective remote learning. LaunchPacks aims to make that experience as smooth and effective as possible and to help build "remote resilience." For example:
- LaunchPacks provides equitable access for students without Internet connectivity at home, by making it easy for schools and teachers to print any digital content set in an engaging and easy-to-use form. This helps to mitigate the "digital divide."
- Teachers can assign lessons easily online, through their school's learning management system, delivering content to students and conducting assessments wherever they may be.
- LaunchPacks also provides support for offline learning, for students who may have limited or intermittent Internet access. In addition to being able to print the materials, teachers and students can also download a pack in PDF format for offline viewing on digital devices. This can be valuable if they know they might not have access to the Internet at a later time, or if their access is unreliable.
- It's easy to integrate social and emotional learning into lessons.
- LaunchPacks enables students to personalize their instruction through embedded reading support tools and articles available on three different reading levels.
- You can turn any article set into an interactive Pear Deck lesson to drive student engagement either in class or through a remote delivery platform such as Zoom or Google Meet.
- And assess students' understanding in the classroom or virtually with Kahoot! Quizzes.
"LaunchPacks will change how teachers teach," said Andrew Collins, a senior teacher at Shireland Collegiate Academy Trust. "Their job will be less about sourcing high- quality resources...and more about how they personalize them and how they make sure that the children in front of them are accessing those resources in a really purposeful way."
More information is available here and here.
About Britannica Digital Learning
Our mission is simple: to inspire curiosity and the joy of learning. Future dreamers, leaders, and builders depend on educators every day to help them learn to examine their world more deeply. We partner with educators, school districts, ministries and media companies all around the world. Trusted in over 83 countries, translated into over 15 languages and used by more than 150 million students, we provide educators and learners with effective, enriching, and innovative tools, resources, and ideas to meet evolving teaching and learning needs. Britannica Digital Learning is a division of the Britannica Group, which is headquartered in Chicago. Information about North American products and services is at https://britannicalearn.com/.
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SOURCE Britannica Group
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