Sapling Learning to Present on Hot Educational Technology Trends During SXSWedu 2012 Conference

Sapling Learning to discuss the disenchantment of eTextbooks as a stand-alone teaching and learning tool.

AUSTIN, TEXAS (January 31, 2012) Sapling Learning, the leading provider of interactive

homework and assessment software for the Higher Education and High School sciences, announced it was chosen to present during SXSWedu, the second annual conference

focusing on innovations in learning.

SXSWedu 2012, which will occur March 6-8, 2012 at the Downtown Hilton in Austin, seeks to converge the wide variety of stakeholders who share an interest in 21st Century innovation and best practices. Attendees represent education professionals, including teachers, administrators and university professors, as well as business, industry and policy leaders who all share a keen interest in modernizing teaching and learning.

Sapling Learning’s presentation, eTextbooks are HOT! But *Still* Don't Matter, will cover eBooks’ place in the digital convergence taking place in the STEM education market.

Sapling Learning CEO James Caras, Ph.D., who visits a large number of college campuses each year, commented, “Students are fed up with paying hundreds of dollars for static print

textbooks that they primarily use as a reference. Educational technology trends suggest true digital convergence is realized when assessment, digital tutorials and remediation, media, virtual simulations, games, eBooks, learning performance analytics, and adaptive instruction are integrated into the teaching process.”

Continues Caras, “Simply putting textbook content in digital form is not enough, and does not lead to educational gains. In the STEM and other problem-solving disciplines, learning efficacy is accomplished through a digital convergence of problem-solving practice, simulations, and immediate coaching with passive references such as media and eBooks.”

The Sapling Learning SXSWedu presentation will address the following questions:

1. How do students use STEM educational resources and how is this different from educator perception?
2. How important is the textbook reference to STEM learning relative to other educational resources?
3. Are today's much-hyped eBooks any better?
4. What is effective and what does that mean for the future of STEM educational resources?
5. Are we heading towards immersive digital learning environments and what will they look like?

Those interested in registering to attend SXSWedu may visit http://sxswedu.com/attend.

Discounted registration rates are available through January 13. Attending press are invited

to register here: http://sxswedu.com/content/press.

eSchool Media Announces Sapling Learning a 2012 Reader's Choice Winner

eSchool Media Names Sapling Learning One of 2012's Best Ed-Tech Products of the Year

AUSTIN, TEXAS (January 12, 2012) Sapling Learning, the leading provider of interactive homework and assessment software for the Higher Education and High School sciences, was honored with the 2012 eSchool Media Readers’ Choice Award for one of the best ed-tech products in the market today.

Nominated by the readers and visitors of eSchool News, eCampus News and eClassroom News, the eSchool Media Readers' Choice Awards recognizes the ed-tech products and services with which readers have enjoyed the most success.

Sapling Learning offers the most effective interactive homework and instruction that improves student performance for the problem-solving disciplines. Sapling Learning’s software includes rich, discipline-specific interactions far beyond simple multiple choice to enhance student problem-solving skills and comprehension. It is a powerful online learning system that advances student achievement while providing timely, accurate student and class performance information to the instructor. Sapling Learning can be accessed anytime through a Web browser, and provides students with real-time tutoring when they need help in the form of hints, feedback specific to a student’s incorrect answer, and detailed solutions.

"Professors, teachers and students have embraced our products in numbers that surpass anything we imagined," said James Caras, Ph.D., CEO, Sapling Learning. “Instructors continually tell us how much they enjoy our products’ ease of use, targeted instructional content in an interactive learning environment and unsurpassed service and support delivered by teaching colleagues like themselves.”

An independent online homework provider, Sapling Learning can collaborate with instructors to customize assignments to match their curriculum and textbooks.

Continued Caras, “Most importantly, our products work. The efficacy of using Sapling Learning has been tested at several major universities with outstanding results and improvement in grades.”

Over 1,000 professors in 275 universities and colleges in the U.S. and Canada have adopted Sapling Learning for chemistry and physics courses in just two years.

In August, Sapling Learning’s Texas High School Science Programs for Biology, Chemistry, IPC, and Physics were approved by the Texas State Board of Education and listed as supplemental instructional materials available for Texas’ schools.

About Sapling Learning

Sapling Learning is a leading provider of interactive homework and assessment software for high school and higher education sciences. Since 2004, Sapling Learning has focused on providing students with rich, discipline specific interactions to promote engagement and comprehension in challenging problem-solving disciplines of chemistry, physics, biology, and engineering. With all its products, no other solution in the market provides the level of seamless integration of rich learning elements for both creating and learning scientific material.

For more information, visit www.saplinglearning.com.

Media Contact:

Patti D. Hill

512.218.0401

patti@penmanpr.com

Register to download the 16-page issue, announcing all the nominees and the winners:

http://www.eschoolnews.com/rca/

Sapling Learning Partners with W.H. Freeman

Sapling Learning Teams Up with W. H. Freeman to Offer Online Homework for Select Chemistry and Physics Textbooks

AUSTIN, TEXAS (January 3, 2011) Sapling Learning, a leading provider of effective, interactive homework and instruction that improves learning outcomes in chemistry and physics, today announced a strategic alliance with W. H. Freeman and Company to offer online homework for key titles in chemistry and physics for higher education professors and students throughout the United States and Canada. This partnership allows W. H. Freeman to bundle Sapling Learning access codes with key titles in those disciplines.

The arrangement between Sapling Learning and W. H. Freeman marries outstanding science textbooks with coordinated online homework assignments that create unique learning solutions designed to improve the practice of teaching and help ensure student success.

The W. H. Freeman titles for which Sapling Learning will offer online homework are:

• Atkins/Jones, Chemical Principles, Fifth edition
• Atkins/Jones, Exploring Chemical Analysis, Fifth edition
• Blei/Odian, General, Organic, & Biochemistry, First edition
• Guinn/Brewer, Essentials of General, Organic, & Biochemistry, First edition
• Harris, Quantitative Chemical Analysis, Eighth edition
• Harris, Exploring Chemical Analysis, Fourth edition
• Kesten/Tauck, University Physics for the Physical & Life Sciences, First edition
• Tipler, Physics for Scientists & Engineers, Sixth edition
• Vollhardt/Schore, Organic Chemistry, Sixth edition

Driven by today’s digital lifestyle and the need to compete in sciences on a global level, both instructors and students are finding that augmenting textbook instruction with active, engaging digital instruction of benefit. Sapling Learning provides a robust, interactive learning experience with tutorial instruction complete with assistance, remediation, and practice to adequately prepare students for class. As they work problems, they receive targeted feedback, hints and solutions, which not only help them learn the subject matter they also learn strategies that make them stronger problem solvers in general.

For instructors, Sapling Learning relieves them from of the burden of grading homework assignments. The automatic system provides sophisticated student interactions (such as molecule drawing, vector diagramming, etc.) which allows them the ability to assign meaningful, discipline-specific homework that would be too prohibitively time-consuming to grade if assigned as traditional "pencil and paper homework."

“The National Science Foundation (NSF) National Survey of Recent College Graduates (NSRCG) reports that science is experiencing far too much attrition between freshman intentions and undergraduate outcomes. It’s a contributor to the United States’ declining competitive edge in the sciences,” said James Caras, PhD, CEO, Sapling Learning. “By combining best-in-class textbooks with Sapling’s online homework systems, students receive digital problem-solving practice and coaching that is proven to be more effective in terms of increasing student exam performance than the hand-graded paper-and-pencil homework of the past. This, in turn, improves the impact and quality of science education and retention which is essential in ensuring our competitiveness in the global community.”

Independent instructor studies conclude that students who use Sapling Learning for 80% or more of their problem-solving practice see 18% greater scores than students who do not. This equates to an equivalent of a 1.3 letter grade difference, essentially taking students from a C+ to a middle A.

“W.H. Freeman is delighted to make Sapling Learning available with its titles in the physical sciences,” said Jessica Fiorillo, Executive Editor for Chemistry and Physics, W. H. Freeman.

About Sapling Learning
Sapling Learning is a leading provider of interactive homework and assessment software for the Higher Education sciences. Since 2004, Sapling Learning has focused on providing students with rich, discipline specific interactions, such as molecule drawing and graphing, to promote engagement and comprehension in challenging problem-solving disciplines of chemistry, physics, biology, and engineering. Sapling Learning provides instructors unprecedented flexibility to create and customize instructional content in an easy-to use, flexible, code-free environment. No other solution in the market provides the level of seamless integration of rich learning elements for both creating and learning scientific material.

For more information, visit www.saplinglearning.com.

About W. H. Freeman
W. H. Freeman collaborates closely with top researchers and educators to develop superior teaching and learning materials for the sciences. Our motto is: We know that a dedicated instructor and the right textbook have the power to change the world—one student at a time. We are committed to superior quality, discerning editorial vision and long standing commitment to education. For more information, visit: www.whfreeman.com

Media contact:
Patti Hill| 512.218.0401 | patti@penmanpr.com