Amazon to Launch Amazon Inspire, a Platform Offering Free Educational Resources for K‑12 Teachers

A quick heads up on a new open edu­ca­tion­al resource (OER) ini­tia­tive…

Last week, Ama­zon announced that it will launch Ama­zon Inspire, “a free ser­vice for the search, dis­cov­ery, and shar­ing of dig­i­tal edu­ca­tion­al resources.” Once up and run­ning this fall, Inspire will help edu­ca­tors quick­ly find resources they need in the classroom–for exam­ple, free les­son plans, teach­ing mod­ules, work­sheets, dig­i­tal texts, and more. In large part, much of the con­tent will be pro­vid­ed by schools and edu­ca­tors them­selves. Then Ama­zon will use its ser­vices to organize–or even curate–the con­tent, allow­ing instruc­tors to find appro­pri­ate mate­ri­als in an effi­cient way. In a press release, Ama­zon enu­mer­at­ed some of the ser­vices the plat­form will pro­vide. It reads:

• Smart search — With smart search, teach­ers can explore resources by grade lev­el, stan­dard or even from a par­tic­u­lar dis­trict. Edu­ca­tors can fil­ter search results using more than 10 cri­te­ria to find great resources that best fit their needs.
• Col­lec­tions — Edu­ca­tors can group resources into col­lec­tions. They can describe the col­lec­tion, curate the resources in it, rec­om­mend an order for going through the resources and share the col­lec­tion with oth­er teach­ers.
• Sim­ple upload — Ama­zon Inspire offers an easy to use and intu­itive upload inter­face. Edu­ca­tors can drag and drop files they want to share, add basic meta­da­ta such as title, descrip­tion, grade and sub­ject, and pub­lish the con­tent on the ser­vice, all in a few min­utes.
• Cus­tomer reviews — Teach­ers can rate and review resources on Ama­zon Inspire, help­ing their col­leagues around the coun­try select the best resources for their needs.

• Acces­si­bil­i­ty sup­port — Ama­zon Inspire has built in acces­si­bil­i­ty fea­tures. For exam­ple, edu­ca­tors can nav­i­gate Ama­zon Inspire using pop­u­lar screen read­ers and users are also able to indi­cate the acces­si­bil­i­ty fea­tures of resources they upload.

Although Inspire is cur­rent­ly in a closed beta, K‑12 edu­ca­tors can fill out a form here to get ear­ly access to the ser­vice.

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