Voices of E-Learning: The Achievery Episode
On the heels of the pandemic, keeping students focused and wanting to learn on an online platform has become a challenge many have seen.
In this episode, the Voices of E-Learning host, JW Marshall, chats with Gwen Oldham, the Director of Corporate Social Responsibility at AT&T, Inc on AT&T’s newest edition, The Achievery which is a digital learning platform designed to make distance learning more engaging for students, and it’s free.
The platform, in collaboration with Warner Bros. Discovery, has learning units that help make learning fun, entertaining and inspiring for students in kindergarten up to 12th grade, and those who support them such as parents, mentors and educators.
“We are encouraging everyone to check it out,” Oldham said. “The digital divide and also the homework gap were issues created before the pandemic, but we saw the uptake and as a company we’ve made some pretty big commitments to help address them because one thing was clear during our research was that student and parents agreed their biggest struggle was not having exciting and engaging content, so we wanted to help fill that void.”
In almost every environment students are learning, at home and school, so the expectation for interactive and engaging content has increased. And with The Achievery, “every lesson plan and educational content is designed by leading education organizations with academic standards in mind,” she said.
Once developed the lesson is then sent to the association for supervision and curriculum development to ensure academic standards are aligned.
“We are designing The Achievery with feedback from actual parents, and we’re taking it and incorporating it into the platform such as the need for a safe space for students to learn and teachers and mentors as well,” Oldham added. “And I’m most excited about the rich and diverse group of education partners who provide content. We’re constantly adding new content and new subject areas so people can expect to see more of that.”
