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How teachers will benefit from Amazon Inspire: The new online education resources platform
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Amazon has announced the release of the new online education resources platform, Amazon Inspire. The platform is a source for teachers ad other educators to search, discover and share online materials. - photo by Megan McNulty
This week, Amazon announced the release of a new online education platform, Amazon Inspire.

Through the Amazon Inspire online platform, teachers and other educators nationwide can search, discover and share digital education resources including lesson plans, worksheets and other instructional materials for students from kindergarten to 12th grade.

"The content is a mix of crowdsourced resources from teachers and other educators uploaded via an interface that is not unlike Amazons self-publishing platform; and primary content posted by third parties," TechCrunch explained.

Engadget, a technology blog network with daily coverage of consumer electronics, noted if a teacher creates useful teaching material, "it's just a matter of uploading it and giving it the right tags classrooms around the country can then find it when they need to bolster their curriculum."

Amazon Inspire is set to feature more than 2,000 educational learning materials from the Folger Shakespeare Library, according to Mashable. Some of these learning materials will include classroom instruction.

The site called for additional collaboration inviting states, districts, schools and other creators of educational resources.

Despite the fact that Amazon Inspire is in beta stage, teachers and other educators are now allowed to request access. Schools in California, Missouri, Tennessee and Virginia are already using the service, ZDNet noted.

Mashable argued the launch of Amazon Inspire is Amazon's "biggest move yet into the lucrative and growing industry that is using technology to change how students learn and teachers teach."

There is no fee to join Amazon Inspire or use the educational materials on the platform, according to TechCrunch. "But the service will bolster several products that are key and strategic for Amazons business," TechCrunch stated.

According to The New York Times, the Software and Information Industry Association estimates that high schools spend more than $8.3 billion annually on educational software and content.

"Ed tech industry analysts said the growing market for digital educational materials, which Amazon is entering, is likely to prove much more valuable over time than the school computer market," the publisher reported.

With Amazon Inspire being a huge step into the realm digital education, teachers are expected to benefit by finding course materials in a fast and easily accessible way.

Amazon estimated on average teachers spend about 12 hours per week searching for course materials sifting through various sites and blogs.

If we could enable every teacher to contribute resources or help discover them, we could collectively raise access for the 3 million-plus teachers out there, Rohit Agarwal, the general manager of Amazon K-12 Education, told TechCrunch.
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