Discovery Education Collaborates with AWS to Enhance Recommendation Engine
SILVER SPRING, MD (Monday, September 27, 2021) — Discovery Education—a worldwide edtech leader supporting learning wherever it takes place—today announced that it has enhanced its K-12 learning platform with Amazon Web Services (AWS) machine learning capabilities. The pioneering use of machine learning within the Discovery Education platform helps educators spend less time searching for digital resources and more time teaching.
Connecting educators to a vast collection of high-quality, standards-aligned content, ready-to-use digital lessons, intuitive quiz and activity creation tools, and professional learning resources, Discovery Education’s award-winning learning platform facilitates engaging, daily instruction in any learning environment. Several months of planning and deep collaboration with AWS enabled Discovery Education to innovatively integrate Amazon Personalize technology into the “Just For You” area of its K-12 platform. The “Just For You” row connects educators to a unique, personalized set of resources based on the grade level taught, preferences, and assets used in the past.
As the ability to deliver more sophisticated digital experiences has evolved over time, so has the expectation and demand from teachers seeking a more personalized user experience similar to that which they receive through interactions with brands in the retail, media, and entertainment spaces. Today’s tech-savvy teachers expect real-time, curated experiences across the digital resources they use daily, and the integration of the Amazon Personalize technology into Discovery Education’s digital resources for the first time delivers that experience to users in the K-12 education space.
“For some time, educators have desired more resources to help personalize teaching and learning. ML technology is already being used to curate our entertainment experiences, help with workforce productivity, and more, and it’s exciting to see this innovation is being integrated into classrooms,” said Alec Chalmers, Director, EdTech and GovTech Markets at AWS. “Amazon Personalize creates high quality recommendations that better respond to the specific needs and preferences of today’s learners, which ultimately improves engagement in teaching and learning. AWS is proud to be collaborating with Discovery Education to support the educators and students they serve.”
Discovery Education’s team is continuously adding, contextualizing, and organizing exciting new content and timely and relevant resources to the platform in response to current events and the ever-evolving needs of educators. These resources, sourced from trusted partners, are aligned to state and national standards, and help educators bring the outside world into teaching and learning every day. These resources are the centerpiece of the “Just for You” row which adapts and changes with user behavior and preference over time.
The K-12 learning platform is designed to work within school systems’ existing infrastructure and workflows and provides safe, secure, simple access methods for educators and students. Through expanded, lasting partnerships with Brightspace, Clever, and others, integrating Discovery Education’s K-12 learning platform into existing IT architecture is easier than ever.
“Continuous improvement is a core value at Discovery Education, and as such, we are constantly seeking innovative new ways to improve our resources and save educators time,” said Pete Weir, Discovery Education’s Chief Product Officer. “Integrating AWS’s robust machine learning technology into our K-12 platform’s recommendation engine helps improve educators’ productivity by providing the digital content they want and need even faster than before. We are incredibly proud to be collaborating with AWS and pioneering how education technology can personalize teaching and learning. The success of this collaboration to date encourages my team to look for even more places within our services to integrate machine learning technology and improve our services’ ability to adapt to our users.”
For more information about Discovery Education’s digital resources and professional learning services, visit www.discoveryeducation.com, and stay connected with Discovery Education on social media through Twitter and LinkedIn.
###
About Discovery Education
Discovery Education is the worldwide edtech leader whose state-of-the-art digital platform supports learning wherever it takes place. Through its award-winning multimedia content, instructional supports, and innovative classroom tools, Discovery Education helps educators deliver equitable learning experiences engaging all students and supporting higher academic achievement on a global scale. Discovery Education serves approximately 4.5 million educators and 45 million students worldwide, and its resources are accessed in over 140 countries and territories. Inspired by the global media company Discovery, Inc., Discovery Education partners with districts, states, and trusted organizations to empower teachers with leading edtech solutions that support the success of all learners. Explore the future of education at www.discoveryeducation.com.
Stephen Wakefield
Discovery Education
Phone: 202-316-6615
swakefield@discoveryed.com