eSembler for Education 3.5 Debuts at NSBA Annual Conference

Business Wire, April 18, 2002

Business Editors & High-Tech Writers

CITY OF INDUSTRY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 18, 2002

Premio Computer's Easy-to-Use and Infinitely Customizable Learning Management System Provides a Comprehensive Means for Managing Student

Information and Assessment

At the National School Boards Association (NSBA) 62nd Annual Conference, held April 6th in New Orleans, Premio Computer Inc. announced the release of eSembler for Education(TM) 3.5, an easy-to-use, infinitely customizable application that K-12 schools and school districts use to manage grades, assignments, attendance and related tasks.

Using the intuitive, Web-based application, teachers are freed from labor-intensive administrative tasks and are able to devote their energy to helping students learn, while schools and districts benefit from the time and cost savings associated with eliminating outdated assessment and reporting processes.

The core features of eSembler for Education 3.5 have been enhanced for this release, based on extensive field testing and customer feedback in installed schools. Foremost among the eSembler(TM) features are its:

-- Grade Book eSembler's online grade book lets teachers efficiently post and
track student grades, automatically calculating class and student averages as
grades are input. Teachers are allowed multiple methods for entering grades,
helping ensure universal acceptance throughout a school district. Standard
grading options include the ability to "weigh" and drop assignments by
category.

-- Assignment Manager eSembler groups assignments into fully customizable
categories that are determined by individual teachers. Assignments can be
easily added, modified or removed by using a simple form that prompts the
teacher for the Assignment Name, Category, Due Date, Points Possible,
Description, and whether the assignment is exclusive to a particular class or
one that applies to all classes of a particular subject.

-- Attendance Tracking Monitoring student attendance is a simple matter. All
that teachers have to do is select the appropriate status for each student from
a short list of check boxes. eSembler even provides photo support for rapid
student identification -- especially handy for substitutes!

-- Reports More than 40 real-time reports come standard with eSembler. The
fully sortable reports detail a wide range of information like District Grade
Validation, Student Eligibility for Extracurricular Activities, Student
Averages, Attendance and more. Additional reports can be developed to meet
specific school and/or district requirements. With eSembler's open
architecture, all report data is available to secondary systems and may also be
exported by individual users in a variety of file formats.

"eSembler works the way that teachers want it to work," said Jim Hysaw, executive administrator of information technology for Garland ISD. "We started to write our own application, but the beauty of eSembler is that it was designed with the input of teachers and administrators.

"Beyond grade and assignment capabilities, eSembler also provides a personalized user interface and the flexibility to integrate smoothly with Garland's existing student information system. eSembler is an Internet-based system and Garland ISD is just scratching the surface by using it as our Internet grade book. There are endless possibilities and future uses as key features are added."

In addition to the aforementioned key features, eSembler for Education 3.5 provides an easy means for monitoring student attendance that incorporates photo support for rapid student identification; a powerful calendar function that gives users an "at-a-glance" view of daily activity levels, using an elegant color-coding system, while automatically displaying user-appropriate assignments; a versatile asset tracking feature that helps teachers keep track of everything from textbook and equipment allocation to participation in field trips to collecting program fees; and a comment tool that is especially useful for documenting student behavior, activities and special needs information.

"eSembler has been designed to make it easy for teachers and administrators to use," said Rob Greer, vice president of product management for eSembler. "The application is Web-based, so there's an immediate familiarity that comes with a browser-based user interface.

"It is also extremely customizable, allowing users to work the way that they are used to rather than forcing them to learn a radical new process. Many of these customizations can be readily done by individual teachers; for all others, we can quickly implement changes based upon specific school or district requests."

Greer continued, "Furthermore, eSembler is extremely scalable and extensible. It's designed to support districts of more than 100,000 users, but can easily scale down for use in a single school of only a few hundred students.

"And because many schools and districts have already implemented a wide variety of systems and administrative applications, eSembler is architected to easily integrate and support data exchange with a limitless number of heterogeneous applications -- like student information systems."