Tag: K12

The second part of the Mission Critical Cloud Fix This podcast mini-series by Teresa Carlson, vice president of the worldwide public sector at Amazon Web Services (AWS), is now live. We explored remote education with the Los Angeles County Unified School District (LAUSD), Athabasca University, and Pearson.

In March, AWS Educate launched a global survey to understand the biggest issues facing educators during COVID-19 while also seeking educators experienced in remote learning to volunteer in a series of online workshops and webinars. As a result of the survey and through the support of AWS Educate educators, AWS Educate launched two efforts in April to provide remote learning resources: an educator-to-educator (K20) webinar series on remote instruction and a workshops from home series for educators and students that provided access to online classes for cloud skills, computer science, robotics, and machine learning. Throughout the remote learning resource series, educators had tips for teachers transitioning to remote education.

With most everyone off campus, parent and student communications are top of mind for school districts and universities. Amazon Alexa can help extend the classroom to home through integrations with commonly used education technology applications. Now Amazon Alexa can aggregate information across education skills into one response, creating a faster, streamlined, more convenient way to access information.

Chatbots and modern call centers provide governments with an efficient way to connect with citizens during critical times. Governments, health systems, and educational institutions are responsible for communicating and maintaining information portals regarding public safety, health and human services, emergency services, social services, and more. Now more than ever, communities are turning to their public sector organizations for up-to-date information. Read on to learn from organizations across industries and how they have scaled their services to meet increased demand.

For the first-ever Amazon Alexa EdTech Skills Challenge, AWS teamed up with SXSW EDU to challenge United States-based EdTechs to use Alexa to transform education. With six finalists remaining, the event is now virtual and the public can vote for their favorite. People who register to participate and vote will also be entered for a chance to win an Amazon Echo Show (2nd Gen).

Schools are looking for ways to help their students remain productive and connected while learning remotely. End user computing (EUC) helps schools enable remote learning by providing every student access to the applications they need for class on any computer. This means bring the on-premises computer lab experience to the students, virtually. Amazon AppStream 2.0 can help educational institutions create virtual computer lab spaces at scale. AppStream 2.0 is a fully managed application streaming service that offers on-demand access to desktops and applications. Check out five things you should consider when rapidly deploying a virtual computer lab space using Amazon AppStream 2.0.

At the end of 2019, el Servicio Nacional del Aprendiza (SENA) in Colombia graduated 160 students after completing AWS Educate Cloud Career Pathways to build their IT and cloud technology skills. This was the first group of students to graduate after Colombia’s President Iván Duque Márquez and Jeff Kratz, General Manager AWS Public Sector Latin America, Caribbean and Canada, announced a strategic partnership with SENA to train 10,000 students throughout Colombia in IT and cloud technology.

Over the past few weeks, I have been inspired by the vast community of EdTech companies who have stepped up to transform learning for millions of students around the world. During this unprecedented time of temporary and sustained school closings, virtual classrooms have become a necessity to ensure that teachers and students stay connected, and students continue their education. Whether schools need tools to keep administration offices, educators, and students connected, or need to deploy learning management systems, our EdTech Partners have a number of solutions.

In light of COVID-19, the Santa Clara Valley Science and Engineering Fair Association (SCVSEFA) was faced with the difficult decision of cancelling or postponing this year’s event to prevent the spread of the virus. A parent of a middle school student, an AWS employee, suggested that video conferencing might be used and connected the event planners with the Amazon Chime team. Within a week, the SCVSEFA and the Amazon Chime teams worked together to hold the science fair virtually.

Today, AWS Educate announced the 2020 faculty cohort for the AWS Educate Cloud Ambassador Program. The 2020 AWS Educate Faculty Ambassadors cohort joins the 2019 cohort and contains 235 members from over 47 countries and more than 180 higher education and K12 institutions.