Amazon launches AWS Educate to promote cloud learning

Amazon hopes to form the next generation of cloud specialists by bringing its services into the classroom.

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Amazon has announced AWS Educate in order to accelerate cloud technology learning in the classroom.

Announced on Thursday, the program is designed for teachers and students involved or interested in the cloud technology field.

Cloud computing is rapidly transforming the modern business landscape. Cloud computing can be used for data storage, disaster recovery, information analytics and as a means to outsource IT services and functions or utilize infrastructure as a service (IaaS), which can help corporations keep the cost of IT down. In addition, cloud computing is becoming an essential component in research and development, and is now a hot area for application development.

However, a field can only progress if it has skilled staff behind it -- and Amazon plans to be involved in training the next generation of cloud developers.

Amazon's AWS Educate is a program designed to help educators bring cloud technology into the classroom as well as give students valuable experience before they enter the workforce. Amazon says the platform will make it easy for teachers to "quickly and easily find cloud-related course content, incorporate cloud technology into their teaching curriculum, and provide students with hands-on experience with cloud technology."

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Following Amazon's approval of applications to use the software, AWS Educate is free for educational institutions. Teresa Carlson, Vice President of the Worldwide Public Sector at AWS said:

"Based on the feedback and success of our grant recipients and the global need for cloud-skilled workers, we developed AWS Educate to help even more students learn cloud technology firsthand in the classroom.

We're pleased to offer AWS Educate to educators, students and educational institutions around the world."

By joining the program, students and education professions gain access to AWS Educate resources including:

  • AWS credits: AWS credits can be earned and used for services including Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS), Amazon CloudFront, Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon Elastic MapReduce (Amazon EMR), Amazon Redshift, and Amazon Glacier.
  • Web-based training and labs set at your own pace: Hands-on experience working with AWS technologies. In addition, educators receive online access to AWS Essentials courses to better their understanding of cloud technology.
  • Collaboration forums: Teachers and students can attend in-person and virtual events designed to grow the AWS Educate community.
  • AWS resources: All AWS Educate members have access to a wide library of learning materials including webinars on best practices,videos and customer case studies.
  • Educator content: Education professionals can access and share professional development materials. Currently, AWS Educate hosts over 100 educator-uploaded materials from universities worldwide, including Harvard, Stanford and Cornell Tech.

Dr. Patricia Ramos, Dean of Workforce and Economic Development, Santa Monica College commented:

"By providing content, training resources, and access to AWS credits for students, AWS Educate helps us create clear career pathways in IT for almost 2,000 community college students.

Our regional consortium of eightLos Angeles-area community colleges, LA Unified School District, and four other school districts and charters, relies on access to new technology and knowledge sharing between educators to equip our students with the skills needed to succeed in a competitive workforce."

Read on: In the world of ed-tech

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