2018 Azbee Awards of Excellence
Category
Online > Enterprise News Story > Mid Atlantic
Awarded to
Emily Tate
Entry details
Behind one group of educators’ role in the Amazon Inspire relaunch
Issue date (if applicable): 7/27/2017
Publication name: EdScoop
Publishing company: Scoop News Group
Website home page: http://edscoop.com/
Please describe the publication's mission and readership:
EdScoop is an online publication that delivers breaking news and original analysis for and about top federal, state and local education leaders driving technology and digital learning decisions in the K-12 and higher education market. Our staff reporters and editors focus primarily on how schools and universities are adapting technology in classrooms, school districts and college campuses across America. We also report on technology developments that are likely to have an impact on blended learning and instruction, privacy and security issues, virtual schools, student and teacher assessments, STEM and digital equity.
Please describe the enterprising work that went into this entry and its significance or impact on readers:
The growing availability of free and openly licensed educational resources has been a godsend for budget-strapped schools across America. But finding well-vetted resources that actually meet state curricula requirements has been a huge challenge for teachers.
That’s why the promise of a national platform from Amazon — called Amazon Inspire — unleashed a wave of excitement among educators, many of whom formed beta testing groups to curate and contribute content.
But after months of anticipation, and just days after the new site launched, Amazon suddenly took the site down, leaving educators in the dark for more than a year and wondering when or if the site would return.
After Amazon declined several opportunities to provide an explanation, EdScoop staff reporter Emily Tate began looking for answers elsewhere. In the process, she uncovered a rich background story on how much effort school groups had poured into curating educational resources; why so much was riding on the project economically for schools; and what went wrong when Amazon Inspire debuted.
The resulting story is not only a great piece of service journalism — detailing for our readers what happened — but also one that’s personally engaging, as we learn firsthand from educators like Kara Pickens why it mattered. Emily also demonstrated tremendous tenacity, conducting 14 interviews with teachers, state education officials, open license experts and district CIOs. No other publication had a story even remotely as well researched about what went wrong at Amazon as this one for EdScoop.
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Entry URL(s), if applicable:
http://edscoop.com/behind-one-group-of-educators-experience-creating-amazon-inspire
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Behind one group of educators’ role in the Amazon Inspire relaunch
Category
Online > Enterprise News Story > Mid Atlantic
Description
Publication name:
EdScoop
Company:
Scoop News Group
Winner Status
- Regional Silver Award
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