Apple Launches Teacher Portfolio, Updates Learning Apps

Apple Inc AAPL unveiled on Tuesday the Apple Teacher Portfolio and updates to its Schoolwork and Classroom apps and the Everyone Can Create curriculum.

What Happened: Apple’s new Teacher Portfolio provides teachers a platform to create an anthology of lessons, while updates to its learning apps and curriculum program will offer more creative ways to teach and learn.

The new Apple Teacher Portfolio product is designed for teachers to create a collection of their most creative and engaging lessons to share with colleagues and leadership teams as a demonstration of professional growth. 

“Reflecting on what worked — and what didn’t — leads to transformation in the teaching practice, and the portfolio acts as a journal to capture those milestones,” Apple wrote in its blog.

Apple is updating the Schoolwork and Classroom apps to allow remote learning to happen alongside, or in the absence of, in-classroom learning. The updates have new features allowing teachers to monitor student progress on assignments as well as giving teachers and students the ability to view each other's iPad or iMac screens when students are remote learning.

Apple’s updates to its Everyone Can Learn curriculum allows students and teachers to use updated programs such as GarageBand, iMovie, Clips, Keynote and Photos. Teachers and students can implement these artistic-focused apps into lessons and assignments to help students creatively express their understanding of subject matter.

Why It Matters: Globally, more than 5,000 K-12 age institutions are currently using the Everyone Can Create curriculum. Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, education systems throughout the world had to digitally transform so learning could continue during stay-at-home orders. The updates Apple is making to its education-focused products help school systems prepare when students learn outside of the classroom, which is likely to remain for the foreseeable future.

What’s Next: Apple Teacher Portfolio is now available for free to teachers through the Apple Teacher Learning Center. The Everyone Can Create Guides are available through Apple Books and new versions of Schoolwork and Classroom will soon be available through AppleSeed for IT.

“After this unprecedented year, we want to continue to inspire every educator as much as they inspire us,” said Susan Prescott, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide Developer Relations and Product Marketing for Enterprise and Education. 

(Photo: Apple)