Houghton Mifflin Co. News Release - June 25, 2008

ThinkCentral from Holt McDougal to Be Released at NECC 2008

SAN ANTONIO, Texas — June 25, 2008 — Holt McDougal (www.holtmcdougal.com) announced today that it would launch ThinkCentral — a full-featured learning management system (LMS) combining digital content with class and district management tools — at the National Educational Computing Conference (NECC) next week in San Antonio.

At a time when the K–12 market is undergoing rapid growth in the adoption and utilization of digital learning systems like online textbooks, ThinkCentral offers middle and high schools a powerful LMS previously unavailable to secondary schools. ThinkCentral combines instructional content, pedagogical function, and management tools and allows schools to connect all elements of their teaching into a single location.

With ThinkCentral, teachers can customize their teaching environment by managing textbook content, teaching tools, administrative tasks, and by individualizing the instruction experience for each student. Additionally, districts can use ThinkCentral as a system-wide resource to manage content delivery, generate standards-based reports, and allow collaborative curriculum development.

"ThinkCentral is the culmination of many years in research, planning, and curriculum development. To launch this new system when over 10,000 educators will convene in San Antonio, all of them looking for the newest and most significant technology products and innovations in education, is a special opportunity for us," said Allen Wheatcroft, president of Holt McDougal.

As a publisher-hosted LMS, ThinkCentral includes an assignment manager; a reporting system to analyze class or student performance; a content authoring system; a schedulable calendar; a roster manager; tools for delivering automated remediation and differentiated instruction; and a searchable database of instructional materials that makes it easy to locate content by standard or keyword. In addition to Holt McDougal online textbook content, ThinkCentral can incorporate many other types of digital content including question banks, leveled resources, multimedia components, web links, and more. Because the content and system work so closely together, it is easy to deliver automated remediation and targeted resources to specified learning groups.

ANGEL Learning, one of the leading developers of LMSs for higher education, developed ThinkCentral in partnership with Holt McDougal and its parent company, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. "Textbook publishers are experts in basal content and aligning that content to the state learning standards," said Paul Draper, director of digital strategy from Holt McDougal. "Our expertise combined with ANGEL Learning's skill at building user-friendly and powerful systems has allowed us to create the Learning Management System teachers have asked for."

ThinkCentral for K–6 is available through Houghton Mifflin Harcourt School Publishers.

See ThinkCentral at the National Education Computing Conference (NECC) in San Antonio, Texas from June 30 to July 2 at the Holt McDougal booth 3190 in the Exhibit Hall.

About Holt McDougal
Holt McDougal (formerly Holt, Rinehart and Winston and McDougal Littell) a division of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, is one of the nation's leading secondary education publishers. Products include print, technology, and Internet support for curricular instruction in science, language arts, mathematics, social studies, and world languages. For more information visit www.holtmcdougal.com.

About Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Boston-based Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company is a global education company with approximately $2.5 billion in combined revenue. The Company publishes a comprehensive set of best-in-class pre-K–12 educational solutions, ranging from research-based textbook programs to instructional technology to standards-based assessments for students and educators. The Company also publishes an extensive line of reference works and award-winning literature for adults and young readers. With origins dating back to 1832, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt combines its tradition of excellence with a commitment to innovation. To learn more about Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, visit www.hmhpub.com.

About ANGEL Learning
ANGEL Learning, Inc. develops and markets enterprise e-learning software. Our flagship products are the ANGEL Learning Management Suite and the ANGEL ePortfolio system. Our products have been honed by use — with millions of students and instructors served from K to corporate. We enjoy a reputation for creating products with exceptional ease of use, excellent vision into learner progress and for keeping our commitments. ANGEL LMS won the Software & Information Industry Association CODiE award for Best Postsecondary Course Management Solution in both 2006 and 2007 and is the only product to win the award two years in a row. Educators ranked ANGEL first in customer satisfaction in the IMS GLC Learn-Sat awards. ANGEL world headquarters are in Indianapolis, Indiana. To learn more about the ANGEL difference, visit us at www.angellearning.com.