Curious Brings Lifelong Learning Marketplace To The iPad

MENLO PARK, Calif., Aug. 22, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Curious.com, Inc., the marketplace for lifelong learning, today announced the launch of its first mobile application, extending the capabilities of its interactive learning environment to the tablet. Curious for the iPad integrates features such as content syncing across devices, touch gestures for an enhanced lesson experience, and a video player optimized to work at any connection speed. The iPad app release marks the next step in Curious' mission to create the world's largest community for learning about anything – anytime, anywhere. The announcement comes at a time when Curious' library has surpassed 2,000 lessons across 100 different subjects, and Curious lessons have already been viewed over 400,000 times.

"From day one we conceived of Curious as a multi-device service. The tablet form factor works beautifully because Curious' lifelong learners want to take their iPads into the kitchen for a cooking lesson or into the garage for a messy project.  The tablet allows students to immerse themselves in lessons, answer exercises and record projects on a device that can go from the backyard to the subway," said Curious founder and CEO, Justin Kitch. "What's just as exciting are the ways our community of teachers benefits. They can now deliver their lessons instantly and effortlessly on iPads around the world."

Interactive Features Drive Adoption by Teachers and Students
Since launching in May, Curious has created a compelling home for lifelong learners by designing a fun and intuitive environment for both students and teachers. The Curious Lesson Player has been praised by students and pundits alike as an innovative and engaging way to learn online. While watching short-format, video-based lessons, learners can interact with attached files, purchase related materials, collaborate with fellow students and even send the teacher a Curious Card that contains a video or photo of what they have learned or created. 

By embracing the form factor of the tablet for high-quality video-based content, Curious' iPad application pushes the envelope even further. The visually appealing layout was designed specifically for the iPad in order to be truly immersive as learners incorporate touch gestures. Equipped with the LearnSync^SM  feature, learners also have the ability to pick up a lesson on the iPad where they left off on their computers or vice versa. Taking advantage of the iPad's HD camera, students can make a video or photo of their work and send it instantly to the teacher via a Curious Card for feedback.

Launch of Curious Collections Helps People Search Growing Repository of Lessons That Span Variety of Content
Curious' flavor of lifelong learning has clearly resonated with Curious teachers and learners. Since launching in May, the Curious library of lessons has increased four-fold to 2,000, covering 100 subjects, and these lessons have been viewed more than 400,000 times. Some of the most popular and interesting lessons cover topics as varied as foreign language, arts and crafts, cooking, piano, running, Parkour, and game theory. To help navigate this diverse range of content, Curious launched Curious Collections to enable learners to easily browse its rapidly expanding library. The initial 20 Collections include such favorites as Staff Picks, Fit & Active, Health & Beauty, Smarty Pants, Green Thumb, Around the House, Art & Photo, Under 5 Minutes, Tasty Treats, Learn to Code, Languages, Fancy Free, Around the House, Crafting, Game On, Great Outdoors, Kids Only, Music and Dance, Party Time and Software.

"Lifelong learning is something that I've always been passionate about and when I learned about Curious I knew I wanted to be part of it," said Curious teacher, Ryan Moriarty, Sign Language 101.  "Curious' shift toward the importance of student-teacher relationships instead of advertising is great to see as an online teacher. In the short amount of time my Sign Language videos have been on Curious, I've received great feedback from students. With the addition of a Curious iPad app, I know accessibility and discovery of my own and other's lessons will grow with this portable age in which we live. This is an exciting time to be an online educator of any kind."

Whether you have 10 minutes or two hours, you can start your learning adventure by downloading the Curious app from the App Store or going towww.curious.com.

About Curious
Founded in 2012, Curious.com, Inc. offers an innovative and engaging marketplace that connects lifelong learners with exceptional teachers around the world. Curious is home to short-format video-based interactive lessons that help anyone learn about anything on their own time. It also provides a range of free, easy-to-use tools for teachers that enable them to market, share, and monetize their lessons to millions of learners. Curious is a private company funded by Redpoint Ventures, Bill Campbell, Jesse Rogers and Justin Kitch based in Menlo Park, CA. For more information visitwww.curious.com.

Jody Kramer
(650) 906-9842
[email protected]

SOURCE Curious.com, Inc.