Facebook has announced a partnership with Summit Public Schools, one of the best-ranked Public school in the United States of America, that will see the social networking giant stepping into the education sector.
With well over a Billion daily users, Facebook has clearly conquered the social networking field and now, they are turning their attention to other fields as to expand their horizon, or maybe just to see the impact they can make in the world besides just social networking. Facebook’s CEO and co-founder, Mark Zuckberg has always been inclined towards philanthropy, and this led him to being involved in the education sector. Impressed by Summit’s unique techniques, he offered to donate but Summit’s CEO Dane Tavenner wasn’t looking for money to help him run the school system, but for code to make it even better. And with this, Facebook ended up creating a dedicated 8-person team to work specifically on the school project which is now available for free in the form of a working tool. It is already being used in around 13 states and 20 schools.
Summit Public Schools is the one they chose to start their ventures with, and it is probably a no-brainer because this famous public school was ranked as one of the nation’s best public schools in the whole of America by Newsweek and US News & World Report. As if that wasn’t enough, they have an immensely impressive track record of 99 percent of its graduating students getting accepted into atleast one four-year college. They are also known for their unique teaching techniques, which let students learn at their own pace and allow for much more interaction between the teachers and the students instead of just plane bland lectures.
Formerly, Summit employed a single tech engineer to stitch together different programs in order to make their unique education system work, but it wasn’t idea. With Facebook’s solution in the form of a “Personalized Learning Platform” or PLP for short, it is a whole another story. It not only effectively shows the whole year’s curriculum, but it also lets each teacher review the each student’s work. PLP can be even completely customized to suit each student’s own learning pace.
One might wonder what Facebook’s motives might be if it is meddling in the education sector, but according to them,
“We are aligned with the broader mission Facebook has to not just connect the world, but help make those connections improve people’s lives — and in many ways, grow the knowledge economy.”
If you don’t find this answer satisfying, Facebook won’t be using any of this for advertising or other things because White House’s Student Privacy Pledge prevents them from selling student information or using their behavior to target advertising at them.
Like Google, Facebook is also involved in innovative projects which are completely apart from their main focus area but this one seems different from those with Mark Zuckerberg personally taking interest in this one.
