Amazon Web Services (AWS), one of the largest providers of cloud hosting services in the world, has announced the launch of AWS Educate – a program that helps educators and students use real-world cloud technology in the classroom to graduate students ready to enter the cloud workforce.
AWS Educate is designed to make it easy for educators 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. AWS Educate is free for educational institutions, educators and students to join, following AWS’s approval of their application.
AWS Educate empowers educators with training, tools, and technologies to help students develop the skills to design, deploy and operate applications on the AWS Cloud.
“For years, the AWS educational grants program has put cloud technology in the hands of educators and students, giving them the ability to put big ideas into action,” said Teresa Carlson, Vice President, Worldwide Public Sector, AWS. “We’ve seen students develop assistive computer vision technology in collaboration with the National Federation of the Blind, and aspiring entrepreneurs take a web startup from conception to launch within 60 hours. 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.”
By joining the program at http://www.awseducate.com, educator and student members would receive several benefits, including:
- AWS credits – Educators and students can apply for and redeem AWS credits for eligible 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. While students and educators at any educational institution may join the program, those affiliated with an institution that becomes a member may receive additional AWS credits.
- Web-based training and self-paced labs – Access to self-paced labs can help educators and students gain hands-on experience working with AWS technologies; additionally, educators receive online access to AWS Essentials courses for a thorough technical overview of AWS products and common solutions.
- Collaboration forums – Educators and students can attend in-person and virtual events designed to help the AWS Educate community incorporate cloud technology into coursework; additionally, educators have access to a forum in which they can join discussions with other AWS Educators.
- AWS resources – All AWS Educate members have access to a wide library of learning materials they may use in their classrooms, including webinars on best practices, instructional videos on AWS services, and customer case studies.
- Educator content – Educators can access and share professional development materials to help them incorporate cloud technology into their coursework. Currently, AWS Educate houses over 100 educator-uploaded materials from many of the top computer science universities around the world, including Harvard University, Stanford University, and Cornell Tech. Materials include a wide range of full courses, syllabi, lectures, and homework assignments, for example: lectures, videos, and assignments from University of Pennsylvania Professor Zack Ives’ Scalable and Cloud Computing class; University of Toronto’s Eyal de Lara’s Introduction to Cloud Computing class; and University of Washington’s Magdalena Balazinska’s Introduction to Data Management
“Three years ago, I began incorporating AWS services into my cloud computing courses,” said Dr. Majd Sakr, computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University. “The cloud resources AWS provided me has allowed me to really challenge my students to develop real-world solutions to problems they might face in their careers. One such project involves giving students 1.2 terabytes of Twitter data and asking them to compete against other students by building a tweet query web service that meets correctness, budget and throughput requirements. So far, we’ve had over 770 students complete this course, and as an institution, we are committed to expanding our use of AWS technology in the classroom over the next several years through AWS Educate.”
