Knowledge
Amazon plans to make a splash in education with a free platform for learning materials
Amazon Education is planning to launch a free online resource that will make it possible for educators, students and others to upload and freely access learning materials across geographies.
Andrew Joseph talking about Amazon’s new OER platform
Back in 2013, Amazon acquired (and continued to operate) online math instruction company TenMarks to gain a foothold in the online education space. Now it looks like Amazon is taking those learnings to the next level. The e-commerce giant plans to launch a free platform for schools and other educators to upload, manage and share educational materials. Signs indicate that the platform will be based around open educational resources (OER) and will come with a ratings system and interface that will resemble the commercial Amazon.com many of us already know and use.
As a prelude, earlier this month, Amazon Education quietly opened an “Amazon Education Wait List,” where educators could sign up to get an alert for when a new, free platform opens for business.
Interestingly the landing page for the wait list reads – “The future of education is open. Someday soon, educators everywhere will have free and unlimited access to first-class course materials from a revolutionary platform. Get on the wait list to be notified when the platform is available for all schools and classrooms!”
The wait list may be linked to another project that Amazon has been quietly promoting called “Amazon Inspire”. The name looks like it was first made public by Amazon in February at the National Conference on Education of the AASA (the U.S. school superintendents’ association), and reported on by Education Week.
At the conference, Andrew Joseph, who was the cofounder of TenMarks and is now VP of strategic relations for Amazon Education, described Inspire during a session entitled “Transitioning to OER.” He said the program was already being tested in a closed beta with select school districts and would soon be opening up to more users in the coming months. Judging by the description, Inspire looks like it may be same service that is being offered by way of the wait list.
Amazon has made a point of noting that its OER platform will be free and unlimited, but it comes amid a wider education play that is more revenue focused.
Currently, the Inspire platform is in beta and will be released publicly in the next two to three months. It will include the ability to self-publish learning materials and give schools the ability to upload the entirety of their digital libraries. People will be able to use the interface to manage their own materials as well as use those uploaded by others, with users able to rate and review materials as they go along.
It’s early days for Inspire, but there are some in the education community already questioning what Amazon’s financial incentives (and therefore long term efficacy) might be for offering an OER platform for free learning materials.
Image Courtesy: www.techcrunch.com