More Teachers Trading in Textbooks & Lectures For Interactive E-Learning Software to Engage Students

Harbinger Knowledge Products helping transform the way students learn

REDMOND, Wash. – November 10, 2009 – As students across the country head back to school this fall, more and more of them are attending classes remotely via distant learning programs. That growing trend is rapidly changing the way instructors teach everything from History 101 to advanced calculus, with more teachers relying on interactive, eLearning software to connect with – and truly engage – their students.

Redmond-based Harbinger Knowledge Products is helping lead this educational revolution with Raptivity, a software product that enables instructors to create highly interactive eLearning content with games, simulations, 3D objects, videos and even “virtual worlds” that bring subjects to life. The games also test a student’s retention of the content presented in the course and are modeled after popular TV game shows to bring the content to life.

In recent years, many educators have started trading in traditional textbooks, lectures and slide shows for vivid, interactive eLearning software as they discover that students learn complex subjects more easily and retain information more thoroughly when education is interactive and fun.

One of the schools that has deployed Harbinger’s cutting-edge interactive eLearning software is Kaplan University, one of the nation’s largest online colleges. Michael Fimian, an instructional designer with Kaplan, said the university has now developed more than 100 courses using the Raptivity software, and that number is expected to grow exponentially in the next few years.

“We’re going through a real turning point in how we teach students,” Fimian said. “A lot of courses have historically been text based, but as the world evolves into more visual and interactive communications we need to change as well. There has been a big push at Kaplan and other schools to build more interactivity in course design. The next 10 years are going to be very interesting as this trend grows.”

Fimian said that there are other eLearning software programs available, but Raptivity is his choice for a variety of reasons. “It’s a great tool,” he said. “It’s extremely easy to use. You don’t have to be a software programmer or a designer to use it; any teacher can simply follow the template and create their own, customized interactive program. The hardest thing to do is to decide which of the 200 templates you want to use!”

Vikas Joshi, chairman and managing director of the Harbinger Group, said the company designed the company’s eLearning software with busy teachers and corporate trainers in mind. “Our goal was to make Raptivity both a powerful educational tool, and simple to use at the same time,” he said. “This allows teachers to focus on what they do best – to teach and inspire students, rather than spend their time being software programmers.”

San Francisco State University has deployed Raptivity in courses for English students and said the software is making life easier for instructors.

“Raptivity offers a wide range of learning interactions,” said Catherine Avington, an instructional designer at SFSU. “It’s easy to build interactions for verbal similarities, sequences, classification and analogies. Raptivity enables me to concentrate on the designing of the interaction rather than programming software.”

Although a growing number of colleges are incorporating interactive eLearning software in their programs, it’s not just professors and school teachers who are changing the way they teach. Trainers with a number of Fortune 500 corporations, police departments and even the U.S. Army have started deploying Harbinger’s Raptivity software. Customers include Disney, MetLife, Chase, Honda Canada, Abbot Laboratories, Chipotle and the Los Angeles Police Department, to name just a few.

Philips Children’s Medical Ventures is one such company that is using interactive eLearning software in employee training, and Mary Coughlin said the reaction from employees has been tremendous.

“Our training group does quarterly satisfaction surveys for our internal customers – sales, marketing, engineering, product support, etc. – and our scores have risen dramatically since we launched our learning resource site with the Raptivity games,” she said. “Many folks commented specifically on the games as a fun way of transferring knowledge. This product purchase has really shown an ROI for our training team!”

For more information about Raptivity or other Harbinger Knowledge Products, please visit http://www.raptivity.com or call 425.861.8400.

About Harbinger Knowledge Products
Harbinger Knowledge Products is recognized as a global leader in interactivity solutions for knowledge-sharing applications, including learning, presentation and web development. Harbinger Knowledge Products is a part of Harbinger Group, which serves customers in over 45 countries through its offices in Pune (India), Redmond (WA, USA), San Jose (CA, USA), Pleasanton (CA, USA), London (UK) and through its partner network worldwide. Harbinger's patent-pending technology and sound thought leadership have resulted in groundbreaking products, including market-leading Raptivity, innovative YawnBuster and cutting-edge TeemingPod. For more information, please visit www.harbingerknowledge.com

Seema Chaudhary
President
Harbinger Knowledge Products Inc.
Tel: 425.861.8400
Fax: 425.671.2641
PO Box 2827, Redmond,
WA 98073
seema@harbingergroup.com

This release was published on openPR.