MCHENRY, Ill., Nov. 5, 2018 — Follett today announced it has launched pre-built, standards-aligned collections that have been curated from open educational resources (OERs) by the company's team of former K-12 classroom teachers. Designed to be seamlessly integrated into instruction, "Classroom Ready Collections" include lesson plans, activities, videos, interactives, and worksheets that are easily searchable and discoverable within Follett Destiny.
"Built by teachers for teachers, Classroom Ready Collections is in response to our customers who wanted to grow and expand their standards-aligned instruction but didn't have the time to search and discover standards-aligned tools and resources for their classrooms," said Nader Qaimari, president, Follett School Solutions. "Our curations team—which has invested more than 3,000 hours to curate the content—has done the work for them. By reviewing both student and teacher materials found on the web, and then organizing those resources into their respective collections by standard, Classroom Ready Collections will save teachers a great deal of planning and research time."
Classroom Ready Collections are aligned to national standards and available for K-12 science, social studies and ELA for elementary, middle, and high school students. Unlike many tools that aggregate OERs, teachers will never stumble upon a dead link, Qaimari explained. Classroom Ready Collections are always live plus include a Follett-created feature called Nightly Checker, as each site is checked each evening to ensure it is still active and appropriate for users of all ages. He said Nightly Checker will provide an additional level of reassurance for teachers that the OER content they use in their classrooms is readily available, relevant and safe for their students.
"For teachers, Classroom Ready Collections are an entry point into the world of Follett Destiny," Qaimari said. "These collections are the first step along the way of sharing everything Destiny can offer to support the classroom and support instruction."
He added Classroom Ready Collections address key goals for teacher-librarians and Future Ready Librarians (FRL), including empowering students as creators and supporting collaboration between the classroom and library. With its support of Future Ready Schools and its work with FRL initiative, Follett has been at the forefront of helping to transform libraries and change the conversation about the role of the librarian.
"Classroom Ready Collections are here and we are excited," said Suzy Ferrell, director of library media services, Clear Creek (TX) Independent School District. "The collections are organized by content, are maintained for website accuracy, and are vetted for educational appropriateness—three must-haves for today's busy educators. As librarians, we understand and appreciate the amount of time it takes to curate materials, so we are excited that Follett has a team of specialists who are leading the way and working to support classrooms and libraries with digitally curated resources."
Classroom Ready Collections are available now as a subscription product through Destiny Library Manager (version 15.0 or newer). For more information, visit http://k12.follett.com/crc.
For more information about Follett, visit www.FollettLearning.com.
About Follett's PreK-12 Business
Follett is the largest provider of educational materials and technology solutions to PreK-12 libraries, classrooms, learning centers and school districts in the United States, and a major supplier to educational institutions worldwide. Follett distributes books, reference materials, digital resources, ebooks and audiovisual materials, as well as pre-owned textbooks. Follett also is one of the leading providers of integrated educational technology for the management of physical and digital assets, the tracking, storing and analyzing of academic data, and digital learning environment tools for the classroom focusing on student achievement.
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About Follett Corporation
Follett Corporation is the world's largest single source of books, entertainment products, digital content and multi-media for libraries, schools and retailers. Headquartered in Westchester, Illinois, Follett provides education technology, services and physical and digital content to millions of students at 70,000 schools and more than 2,850 physical and virtual campus stores in North America. Through Baker & Taylor, Follett's reach also extends to the public library and global retail markets.