Amazon updates Whispercast digital book technology for schools

Amazon.com is rolling out a new version of its Whispercast software, designed to make it easier for schools and school districts to distribute digital books to thousands of students at a time.

Schools use Whispercast to manage e-books, electronic text books and documents on devices students use, such as Amazon’s Fire tablets, Apple’s iPads and Google’s Chromebooks. Whispercast lets schools acquire content, then distribute it to the right device.

Earlier versions of the technology “didn’t contemplate the complexities of (managing digital content) for a couple thousand students,” said Dave Limp, senior vice president of Amazon Devices.

That’s key as more and more schools incorporate digital devices from a variety of different manufacturers into their curriculum. At a school district with several thousand devices, it can be a challenge to make sure that everyone in an 11th-grade English class gets a copy of William Faulkner’s “Absalom, Absalom!” while a math work sheet goes to the right class of third-graders.

Whispercast is free and it works in sync with Amazon’s Kindle app. That makes it easier for schools and students to acquire books from Amazon.

“We hope they buy the books from us,” Limp said. “That’s part of the business model.”

Amazon said Whispercast is already used by more than 130 of the 250 largest school districts in the United States, including Seattle Public Schools. The company said more than 2,400 higher-education institutions also use Whispercast.

Many of those schools have deployed the technology in test programs, and the company declined to say how widely the technology is being used. But Limp said electronic-book use at schools is growing.

“We’re at the beginning of the inflection point,” Limp said.