Tag: EdTech

United Arab Emirates-based global EdTech Alef Education is on a mission to digitally transform the education sector to support its most valuable resource: teachers. The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Institute for Statistics estimates that the world needs almost 69 million new teachers by 2030 to meet the deadline of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal for quality education. But according to latest projections, the world will fail its education commitments without addressing the teacher shortage.

In July, Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced a new contest in collaboration with SXSW EDU designed to find the best application of voice technology in education. Our challenge to the EdTech world? Tell us how you would use Alexa to transform education. From tutoring help and language learning programs to teaching guides and career planning tools – we’ve been amazed by the creativity and potential impact of the ideas EdTechs sent us.

Prodigy Game (Prodigy) has a mission to help every child in the world love learning and make education freely available to students globally. Prodigy’s math game – geared toward learners in the first to eighth grade – allows students to hone their math skills with questions delivered according to their individual needs. As their user base grew, so did the strain on their ability to handle the increasing demands. They turned to AWS.

With the increased focus on school safety, now more than ever schools are using information technology solutions to address concerns about the digital and physical security of students and teachers. Amazon Web Services (AWS) helps enable innovative EdTechs to create revolutionary solutions to keep students safe from harm. Bark, an AWS EdStart Member, is an online student safety platform, with the mission to help keep every child safe online.

Enter the Amazon Alexa EdTech Skills Challenge to submit your great idea for how Amazon Alexa can help your education technology product better serve students, teachers, administrators, or parents. In collaboration with SXSW EDU, this contest is designed to find the best application of voice technology in education and is open to all US-based education technology companies.

CDSM Interactive Solutions Ltd (CDSM), founded in 1998, is a multi-faceted EdTech company that provides bespoke e-learning services and Thinqi, a next generation learning management system (LMS), to the state education sector. We spent some time with two of CDSM’s more senior colleagues, Steve Finch, Head of Marketing, and Darren Wallace, Chief Technical Officer, both of whom have been with CDSM since the early 2000s.

Video is everywhere – from TV sets to mobile displays, digital billboards, and even classrooms. With consumers often glued to their digital devices, video has quickly become a preferred instructional tool for teachers and learning aid for students. Recognizing this trend, education and technology company Cengage incorporates video into almost all of its instructional and research materials, which are tapped by teachers and students in classrooms, as well as K12, public, and academic libraries across the world. Cengage’s Library and Research business unit, Gale, takes a similar approach with its educational materials.

As students prepare to go back to school, over 1,000 students, educators, university presidents, college administrators, superintendents, and business leaders from 43 different countries met in Seattle, Washington, to discuss the opportunities in the world of education, and how AWS can be used to create innovative solutions. The conference revolved around three core themes: building the workforce of tomorrow, innovation and transformation, and the role of machine learning in education. Read on for the major highlights from the event.

AWS EdStart members are transforming education in every corner of the globe. Read on for more about three of our members – ArcLab, Lightbulb Education, and Yellowdig. Each of these EdTechs rely on AWS to create a more student-centric learning experience.

AWS EdStart members are pushing the limits in education, creating products and solutions to improve teaching and learning. FilterEd, Kornukopia, and SchooLinks use AWS to revolutionize parent-school communication, assess school’s learning technology needs, provide a complete education management ecosystem, and prepare students for the careers of the future.