Amazon Stepped in for Education Through “Inspire”

Amazon released a new online portal called Amazon Inspire that is built to make available teachers with students anywhere from kindergarten till 12th grade, a spot to get and share education material without any charge. This is considered Amazon’s biggest move yet into the profitable and flourishing business, which makes use of technology to change the way of learning as well as teaching.

The new online portal consists of a number of free education material such as lesson plans and worksheets.

Rohit Agarwal, general manager of Amazon K-12 Education “Amazon joins educators from around the country in recognizing the power of digital learning to transform the classroom, by creating a personalized, engaging learning environment for all students.”

The tech segment of education industry is significant, having reached around $8.4 billion in 2014. Other business giants already involved include Google and Apple.

Amazon has been gradually but consistently moving its way into education. In this league, the American e-commerce company bought TenMarks, a math education app for Kindle. Also Amazon grabbed a deal worth $30 million to sell e-books to NYC (New York City) public schools.

This suite also has some contributions from federal government. The U.S. Department of Education is giving some material from its college scorecard that aids students in choosing the right university for them. Amazon had also been working on #Goopen, a campaign to encourage school districts, states and educators, to use and freely share openly licensed educational materials.

Inspire holds a significant amount of Amazon.com’s core functions, such as being able to search for and evaluate products. Teachers can upload education material which can be used in other schools.

Joseph South, director for the Office of Technology at the U.S. Department of Education said “To truly transform learning in our schools and ensure educational equity for all students—regardless of grade level or zip code—it is crucial that we put high quality, open educational resources at teachers’ fingertips.”

Folger Shakespeare Library are among various resources which will contribute more than 2000 fragments of educational material. The access is restricted for now and interested teachers, schools and states have to request in order to gain access.