News Corp’s Amplify is looking to introduce tablets and digital learning materials into the classroom
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At the SXSWedu conference in Austin Texas, News Corp’s education division showcased their Amplify tablet. It’s a 10 inch Android tablet that has a “unique student-centric interface” designed for use by school children, from Kindergarten to Year 12.
“We want to transform the way teachers teach and students learn,” said Amplify CEO Joel Klein in a statement. “Technology has revolutionized the world, but not the classroom. Our hope is that this tablet will help change that.”
Amplify hopes to achieve this by creating interactive teaching and learning materials, starting with English, Science and Maths; by developing a new distribution and delivery systems (app store anyone?); and by focussing “on educational analytics and formative assessment.”
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The tablet will require a two year subscription which will cover Amplify education software, pre-loaded content and reference tools, customer care, professional development and school-level device management.
Amplify claims the tablet can be organised around the in-school courses and out-of-school interests held by students. Teachers too are to benefit from user-friendly instructional tools to help plan lessons, prepare quizzes, send assignments, share multimedia resources and easily manage their students’ devices.
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The tablet itself is manufactured by tablet connoisseur Asus, who pioneered the tablet-computer hybrid and manufacture Google’s Nexus 7. Its innards largely resemble Asus’ own Transformer range as it’s powered by Nvidia’s quad-core Tegra 3 chipset, has a 5MP camera and a battery that can last 8.5 hours before its next charge.
At present, the Amplify Tablet will only be offered in the US and tablets ordered by the 30th of June will be ready in time for the start of the 2013-2014 school year.
In the US, the WiFi only model will cost $299 plus $99 for a two year support subscription. Also on offer is the Amplify Plus which features a 4G Cellular modem and data plan for $349 and a more expensive $179 two year subscription.
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