Apple expands education efforts with new tools, grants, and app highlights

Today is World Teachers’ Day, and to mark the occasion, Apple has announced a variety of expansions to its education efforts. There are new tools for teachers, grants funding education, and a campaign of Apple’s apps and services to highlight education.

Apple apps and services celebrate educators

Whether you’re an educator or not, you’re likely to start seeing education-related spotlights in your favorite Apple apps.

• App Store is gaining a Great Tools for Teachers collection
• Apple Music has a collection of learning-based albums and playlists
• Apple Books has assembled nonfiction and kids’ books about inspiring educators
• Apple Podcasts features shows with conversations by and for educator
• Apple TV spotlights movies and shows highlighting the importance of teachers in pupils’ lives

New resources for educators and schools around the world

Beyond these awareness initiatives, Apple is offering new resources for teachers and continuing to grow its grant programs.

Today, Apple is launching new Everyone Can Create resources for teachers. Creative Activities are a collection of quick, interactive, and fun lesson ideas that empower educators to sprinkle imagination and originality into their learning plans. Creative Activities for Early Learners (ages 4 to 8) and Creative Activities for Students (ages 8 and up) enable teachers to engage their students without increasing their workload. Each activity strengthens essential skills and gets students creating quickly with templates and shareable links.

Apple highlights the grants it has provided through Apple’s Community Education Initiative, which “provides hardware, scholarships, financial support, educator resources, and access to Apple experts to schools and organizations in under-resourced communities.”

The company released a new Education Impact Report that highlights its impact over the past five years:

• over 10,000 teachers have received professional learning opportunities through Apple grants
• over 500,000 students in 2,000 schools and global communities have “engaged in the company’s grant programs”
• currently over 200 schools and nonprofits are supported by Apple

To learn more about Apple’s efforts in the area of education, you can visit the company’s dedicated webpage.

Have you used Apple’s education resources? Or been impacted in another way? Let us know in the comments.