Amazon is the marketplace wizard that has always found ways to adapt to niche markets. Their recent efforts seem to have increased in the field of education with the expansion of Amazon Whispercast across thousands of schools.

Amazon Whisper is a platform designed to deliver eBooks, eTextbooks and educational Apps to schools across the nation, ranging from grades K-12. It’s a free tool that promotes both the discovery and management of multiple types of digital texts and tools.

“Since the company in 2012 started offering Whispercast…it has expanded into thousands of districts and universities,” says CNET's Ben Fox Rubin.

“The e-commerce giant said Tuesday Whispercast is now used in more than 130 of the 250 largest school districts in the US and over 2,400 higher education organizations, including 24 of the 30 largest in the country.”

With the widespread use of their product, Amazon has released an updated version of the tool that will make it easier for teachers and professors to manage the materials they share through Whispercast.

"In the past couple of years, we've learned a lot about how these school districts are all deploying content in a very unique way," says Rohit Agarwal, General Manager of Amazon Education in the CNET article.

The Center for Digital Education says that Amazon will be using Whispercast as a way to create exposure for a more than $20 billion market for K-12 and higher education.  

“With the newly designed Whispercast 3.0, administrators can now delegate more control on purchasing and distributing materials to teachers, so all functions of the service don't have to run through a central administrative office,” reports Rubin.

“Also, in addition to the current self-service model of Whispercast, Amazon now offers free service representatives to help schools transition to the digital platform.”

There are other platforms that allow educators and administrators to share eTools, but Amazon looks to perfect their platform and aims to become a top player in the field. While profits are a motivating factor for many of these companies, they are all looking for ways to improve their usability and effectiveness in the classroom.

Read the full story and comment below.

Article by Navindra Persaud, Education World Contributor.