Amazon helps teachers share free digital education tools

Part of the promise of digital education is the ability to share knowledge between schools, but that's not easy when there isn't a central hub for making that happen. Amazon, however, thinks it can help. It's launching Inspire, a free service that helps American educators find and share resources. If a teacher creates useful material for a grade 8 science course, it's just a matter of uploading it and giving it the right tags -- classrooms around the country can then find it when they need to bolster their curriculum.

The service is only in beta testing right now, but it's already getting support from numerous school districts, publishers and contributors. The Folger Shakespeare Library is offering material to help teach Shakespeare's plays, for instance, while the Department of Education is giving prospective college students a leg up by providing its scorecards. While it may be odd to see Amazon serving as an educational gateway, it's clearly not messing around -- this could be a go-to hub for teachers who'd rather not search the web (or whip up their own content) to get digital material.