Dive Brief:

• Houghton Mifflin Harcourt on Monday debuted a new app, HMH Player.
• The app is designed with iPad and Google Chrome in mind, and provides educators with offline access to high-quality content and customization tools that enhance the publisher's own content. Additionally, the app facilitates real-time student-teacher collaboration.
• The app's easy-to-use interface features touch, swipe, drag-and-drop functionality, and simple menus, and also allows teachers to incorporate YouTube videos, news articles, and a variety of other media into lessons.

Dive Insight:

As you might also expect in today's data-driven school environment, the app collects data in real-time that can be analyzed by student, grade, class, or standard, and feedback can be sent to an entire class or a single student.

With the increasing amount of tech coming into classrooms, recent years have seen companies traditionally known for publishing in the space expand their offerings with apps that meet the needs of that shift. With the iPad and Google Chrome becoming the dominant tablet and operating system, respectively, in classrooms, HMH is wise to focus on each specifically in HMH Player's design. Equally smart is the capability to access content offline, as not all schools have the necessary WiFi infrastructure in place to allow constant access — and some educators may also wish to limit network connectivity during classroom instruction anyway in order to keep students focused.