Follett Acquires Fishtree Adaptive Learning Platform

Follett today announced that it has acquired Fishtree, a leading adaptive learning platform that streamlines both the technical integration and educational adoption of personalized learning in school classrooms. Follett will integrate the machine-based learning tools of Fishtree within Follett’s industry leading Destiny content and resource management platform used by more than 70,000 schools and school districts across North America. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

The Fishtree platform brings together district-wide resources for every subject, aligns them to any standard or competency and then personalizes the experience for each student based on specific learning profiles, while providing a streamlined user experience for the educator and administrator.

“Fishtree’s AI platform offers a powerful solution to our customers looking to scale personalized, adaptive learning in classrooms across their districts, while demonstrating real outcomes and return on investment,” said Nader Qaimari, President, Follett School Solutions. “Integrating Fishtree’s adaptive learning tools within Destiny will extend the use of Destiny into the classroom and home, giving educators the ability to easily create a unique pathway for every student in ways that drive learning success. The Fishtree team has built some of the most advanced technology to date built for the education market.”

Fishtree’s ability to scale personalized 1:1 instruction with adaptive instruction is driven by specific learner profiles. Educators can build highly engaging lessons with resources from digital texts, user developed content, open resources and even real-time content. These resources are automatically aligned and lessons personalized with deep insights into achievement gaps and efficacy. Teachers can build their own assessments, draw from other assessments, and auto-build assessments from content. Teachers have reported more than 50 percent time savings on building rich and personalized lessons, and students have seen performance gains of over 10 percent after three months.

Terry Nealon, Fishtree’s former CEO who will lead the Follett initiative, believes Follett and Fishtree are a perfect match. “We built Fishtree to help educators engage students using machine learning and the latest technologies to do it in the most scalable way possible. Follett offers the opportunity to deliver this solution to thousands of customers globally with world-class implementation. This acquisition helps advance our original vision of making it easier for teachers to create compelling, individualized experiences for each and every student.”

Co-founded by Nealon and Jim Butler, the Fishtree team was supported by Arcady Bay Partners, DLA Piper in the process. Follett was supported by Jones Day LLP (US).

About Follett’s PreK-12 Business| FollettLearning.com, Facebook, and follow on Twitter (@FollettLearning). 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.

About Follett Corporation | Follett.com 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 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.

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