Kno Launches K-12 Digital Textbooks, Empowering Parents to Go Digital at Home

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Kno, a pioneer in education software, today announced that the company is entering the K-12 education market through a new partnership agreement with global education leader Houghton Mifflin Harcourt [HMH]. Previously only available to college students, Kno will offer interactive K-12 textbooks for the iPad, the Web, Android and Windows 7.

“With digital books priced at $9.99 or below, parents can now finally stop their kids from carrying their heavy backpacks to and from school for less than $60 for the school year by supplementing classroom materials with interactive textbooks that can be used at home and on the go.”

The agreement marks a turning point for elementary and secondary education by giving children and parents the resources and power to supplement classroom learning through enhanced digital content at home. Just in time for the back-to-school season, parents can now rent digital textbooks for their children, including subjects aligned with Common Core standards, for a one-year rental rate of $9.99 or less per book.

“Even if the schools have not adopted digital textbooks, we wanted to give parents the option to have their kids’ same textbooks available at home,” said Osman Rashid, CEO and Co-Founder of Kno, Inc. “With digital books priced at $9.99 or below, parents can now finally stop their kids from carrying their heavy backpacks to and from school for less than $60 for the school year by supplementing classroom materials with interactive textbooks that can be used at home and on the go.”

The Kno digital textbook app is available today for the iPad and Web and will be available for Android tablets and Windows 7 in time for back to school. With Kno’s app, parents can enhance their children’s learning experience with more than 70 interactive features that bring academic content to life, making learning more engaging and fun. All of the app’s features are engineered to help students retain information more easily and ultimately help improve their grades and comprehension of material.

“By offering digital access to enhanced K-12 content on the go and at home, this collaboration will empower parents to get more involved in their children’s education. We know parental involvement is an important factor in student achievement, and we’re proud to be the first content provider to bring Kno’s technology to the K-12 world,” said Tim Cannon, Executive Vice President of Strategy and Alliances for HMH. “HMH aims to make quality content available to the widest possible audience with the mission of changing people’s lives by fostering passionate, curious learners. This partnership with Kno supports that goal.”

The interactive features that allow students to engage with the content better and study more efficiently include:

A digital Journal that automatically saves a student’s notes and highlights them in a study notebook.
Automatic Flash Cards of key terms in a book to help students study more efficiently and better retain information.
3D models that bring difficult chemistry concepts to life to make them easier to understand.
Quiz Me feature, which automatically turns any diagram in a book into a multiple choice quiz for easy self-quizzing before tests.
SmartLinks that deliver instructional videos, images, and photos to formulas and concepts in a textbook in real-time for easy reference.
Coming soon, an analytics feature that will enable active engagement between parents and students to better measure reading progress.

About Kno Inc.

Kno, Inc. is an education software company on a mission to make learning engaging, effective, and social for students. Osman Rashid (http://twitter.com/osmanrashid), the co-founder of Chegg, and Babur Habib (https://twitter.com/BaburHabib), a consumer electronics veteran, founded Kno, Inc. in May 2009. The company has received funding from Andreessen Horowitz, Intel Capital, Goldman Sachs, FLOODGATE and GSV Capital and is based in Santa Clara, California. For more information, go to www.kno.com, or follow Kno at http://facebook.com/GoodtoKno and http://twitter.com/GoodtoKNO.

About Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is a global learning company with the mission of changing lives by fostering passionate, curious learners. Among the world’s largest providers of pre-K–12 education solutions and one of its longest-established publishing houses, HMH combines cutting-edge research, editorial excellence and technological innovation to improve teaching and learning environments and solve complex literacy and education challenges. HMH’s interactive, results-driven education solutions are utilized by 60 million students in 120 countries, and its renowned and awarded novels, non-fiction, children’s books and reference works are enjoyed by readers throughout the world. For more information, visit www.hmhco.com.

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