There is no question that Amazon is one of the fastest growing companies out there today. They have also been rapidly expanding their reach over to multiple industries such as video streaming, music, and even education. Now, their latest educational endeavor is making waves in the market at one of the best possible times: just before the back to school craze begins.
Amazon made a potentially game changing announcement this past Monday morning when they said that they would launch a marketplace in which thousands upon thousands of lesson plans would be made available to teachers. It is set for launch sometime in late August or in early September, as per a report from the Santa Fe New Mexican. It would be called Amazon Inspire and would feature many of the functionalities that Amazon shoppers are familiar with such as a dedicated search bar and user reviews and ratings.
By launching Amazon Inspire as a free service first, it can entice more users to sign up compared to if it were a paid service. Once it has established a strong foundation within the educational industry, experts say that it could eventually start introducing paid choices into the mix. It will start out in the coming months; however, as a platform for students from kindergarten to the 12th grade to share educational materials.
According to reports from Mashable, there was about $8.4 billion spent on EdTech in 2014. Other reports state that the United States spent an estimated $4.9 billion on laptops and tablet computers for use in primary and secondary schools, with Apple, Google, and Microsoft turning out as the biggest earners. There seems no signs of stopping for the growth of the technological sector of the educational industry. Hopefully this can change the way teachers and students approach education in the years to come.
