Summer is traditionally the season for renewal and growth.
Over at itslearning, it is our most important time of the year. This is when we kickstart our annual Back to School project to help teachers and students prepare for the new school-year. When school is out for summer, we have the time to take stock, revise and refine our platform by tweaking existing features and adding big, new designs and tools to make teaching and learning more meaningful and fun. Teachers never stop trying to improve how they teach and how their students learn, so we don’t either. We’re here to help you, by making our learning management system better and easier to use every day.
The big change in the coming school year for itslearning users will be the new homepage, which will make it easier for you to see all your courses and the latest updates at a glance. A new look, better layout and more customization options. Why? Because the itslearning homepage is our most visited page, teachers and students use it every day, so we want to make sure that the most important information is readily accessible for our users.
We also strongly believe in bolstering critical thinking and problem solving skills by giving students more ownership of their progress. There many ways within the itslearning platform to review student progress and personalize learning, but the standout feature is our 360° Reports which allows teachers to pinpoint gaps and bolster instruction based on actual data. Teachers can selectively share this information with students to let them take charge of their progress. We believe that giving them this responsibility will spark a lifelong love for learning.
Our platform is designed by teachers specifically for the education market. We are unlike other learning management systems, in that we focus only on education. So, our LMS is built with a lot of input from educators who use itslearning in their classrooms and lecture halls every day. We’re constantly reaching out to them, as well as students, to improve on our design and functionalities. We also have the Ideas portal where you can submit your ideas on how we can be better for you. Collaboration is key. Together, we can build a platform that will allow you to bridge any gaps and make those crucial educational connections with your students.
To this end, we will continue investing in people and technology so that our teams around the world remain agile to keep building on our successes, the kind of team that encourages collaboration and communication to foster the digital citizens of the future.
It’s not enough to just develop the education technology for today. As a learning management system provider, we also need to look forward and be nimble, because the generation of tomorrow, like my grandchildren, will be learning in a whole different way and we need to be able to complement their way of learning.
Anyone who knows me, knows I love my work. I love meeting the people whose lives have been changed by the itslearning platform. I love hearing their stories and connecting with them. Just as much as I love my work, I also like my downtime.
Our business lives, just like our personal ones, have seasonal rhythms. And summer for me, is the time that I get to really recharge, surrounded by family. This summer, we will be joined by the newest member of the family – my granddaughter Olea. I hope to be spending some quality time with her and my trusty, 80-year-old sailboat (pictured left) exploring the waters near my island home. I hope you, too, will be creating happy memories with your loved ones this summer and come back refreshed for the new school year.
Enjoy your summer!
Arne Bergby
CEO, itslearning
