Adobe Offers New eLearning Tools for Educators

Quick Start Bundles and New Curriculum Help Campuses Enhance Online Learning Experience

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced new eLearning tools to make it easier for educators to create and deliver online learning to students. New hosted and license options - or Quick Start Bundles - for Acrobat® Connect Pro, and new curriculum resources help equip faculty with the tools they need to engage students in online learning.

The Quick Start Bundles provide special pricing on hosted or on premise licenses of Acrobat Connect Pro to help educators get started with eLearning. The bundles provide a variety of licensing options for rapid development of presentations and quizzes, as well as hosting virtual classrooms with up to 100 attendees. Additionally, free curriculum resources show educators how to create reusable course content, and host and teach in a virtual classroom environment.

Acrobat Connect Pro is adopted by educational institutions worldwide. In this new release, customized features for education include break-out rooms that let students and faculty in virtual classes initiate separate conversations online, and tools for organizing and tracking classes. Additionally, educators can: record and edit classes; archive online or offline; use new presence capabilities that can allow federation with popular instant messaging (IM) clients; and easily tailor their online classrooms or lectures to help capture students’ attention and increase knowledge retention. For campuses that use learning management systems (LMS) from Blackboard® or SumTotal, any student, faculty or administrator can now join an Acrobat Connect Pro classroom or course instantly via a link in their LMS account.

Pennsylvania State University implemented Acrobat Connect Pro to connect its geographically dispersed staff, faculty, and students. “The Acrobat Connect Pro solution increases communication throughout the campus locations, reduces travel costs, and connects remote students to university content and personnel,” said John Harwood, senior director of the Teaching and Learning with Technology program at Penn State. “Staff, faculty, and students alike have found that sharing and seeing the same information at the same time is extremely useful. The low overhead equipment requirement of the Connect Pro solution has facilitated broad implementation throughout the university.”

“Providing quality online experiences that keep students engaged is a constant challenge for universities and schools,” said Peter Isaacson, vice president of Education Marketing at Adobe. “Acrobat Connect Pro empowers administrators and educators by making it easy to create virtual learning environments and offer students interactive course content. Additionally, students are able to connect and collaborate with their peers and professors in real-time, to simulate the classroom experience online.”
Pricing and Availability

The QuickStart bundles are available from Adobe on a hosted or licensed basis. Pricing for the bundles starts at $1,399.