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AWS and Instructure expand ai-powered learning access in 2026. News | 11.08.2026 AWS collaboration accelerates AI-powered migration tools and Canvas Career capabilities designed to expand access for underserved learners. For millions of learners worldwide, the biggest barrier to quality education is not motivation but circumstance. Limited access to technology and the internet, language barriers, geographic isolation, and legacy on-premise learning systems leave entire communities without modern learning infrastructure. Instructure, the maker of Canvas LMS powered by AWS, is addressing this challenge through the AWS Education Equity Initiative with AI-driven tools that reduce migration friction and open workforce pathways. What was announced. On August 4, 2026, Instructure announced it will build AI-powered tools to expand learning access for underserved communities worldwide, supported by the AWS Education Equity Initiative - a $100 million commitment of AWS technology. The initiative advances two workstreams: AI-powered LMS migration tooling for institutions on legacy on-premise systems, and acceleration of Canvas Career capabilities for workforce development, community colleges, continuing education, and public-sector programs. The initiative aims to reach approximately 900,000 learners in its first year - including roughly 280,000 underserved learners - with a path to reach approximately 5.4 million learners over four years, roughly 1.8 million of them underserved. The first year focuses on the United States, Brazil, Mexico, and the United Kingdom. Education equity means building systems that work for learners in every environment, including those who face the greatest barriers to opportunity. Through this collaboration with AWS, Softprom is accelerating tools that help more institutions modernize their learning environments and connect learners to workforce pathways. Melissa Loble, Chief Learning Officer at Instructure Why this matters. For CIOs, CTOs, and IT directors in education and public-sector organizations, LMS modernization has long been blocked by cost, complexity, and resource constraints. AI-powered migration tools reduce the friction of moving from legacy or homegrown systems to a cloud-based platform, freeing IT teams to focus on outcomes rather than infrastructure overhead. For procurement leaders, this signals a shift toward scalable, cloud-native learning ecosystems aligned with workforce needs. Technical details. * AI-powered LMS migration tooling: automates transition from legacy, self-managed open-source, and homegrown LMS platforms to Canvas. * Canvas Career platform: skills-first, workforce-aligned learning for continuing education, K-12 workforce programs, community colleges, and vocational training. * Low-connectivity infrastructure: secure deployment for correctional facilities and remote environments. * Accessibility frameworks: support for learners with disabilities. * AI-powered skill mapping: aligns training with job requirements and stackable credentials. * Employer tools: connect learning pathways with employment pipelines. * Public reporting: quarterly progress on adoption, learner reach, credential attainment, and job placement, beginning H2 2026. Softprom and Amazon Web Services. Softprom is the official partner of Amazon Web Services. Its team helps educational institutions, public-sector organizations, and enterprise customers design, deploy, and scale AWS-based solutions - including cloud infrastructure, AI/ML services, and modern learning platforms. Explore AWS cloud and AI solutions with Amazon Web Services and Softprom experts. This content was prepared as part of the Softprom DistriFlow project - an automated system for monitoring and adapting vendor news. Original source: original article.

Instructure and AWS expand Canvas career and LMS migration tools. AWS support will help Instructure develop migration tools and Canvas Career capabilities for underserved learners and workforce education programs Redação Portal ERP Aug 05, 2026 T | Fonte: 18px Instructure, the leading learning ecosystem and maker of Canvas LMS, powered by AWS, announced it will build AI-powered tools to expand learning access for underserved communities worldwide, supported by the Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS) Education Equity Initiative. The effort advances two workstreams. The first addresses a persistent barrier: many under-resourced institutions remain on legacy, on-premise systems not because they want to, but because migration has been too expensive and complex. AI-powered LMS migration tooling is designed to make that path faster and more affordable, so more learners in those communities can access modern learning infrastructure. The second accelerates Canvas Career capabilities to support workforce development, continuing education, community colleges and public-sector programs, with a focus on learner populations including adult learners returning to education. For millions of learners worldwide, the biggest barrier to quality education is not motivation but circumstance. Limited access to technology and the internet, language barriers and geographic isolation leave entire communities without modern learning infrastructure. Through the AWS Education Equity Initiative, Instructure and AWS will address this issue, aiming to reach approximately 900,000 learners in its first year, including roughly 280,000 underserved learners, with a path to reach approximately 5.4 million learners over four years. "Education equity means building systems that work for learners in every environment, including those who face the greatest barriers to opportunity," said Melissa Loble, chief learning officer at Instructure. "Through this collaboration with AWS, we are accelerating tools that help more institutions modernize their learning environments and connect learners to workforce pathways. Instructure is committed to helping institutions expand opportunity through scalable learning infrastructure and workforce-connected learning experiences." "AWS is proud to power Instructure's reach across more than 100 countries and millions of learners," said Aanya Niaz, Education Lead, Amazon Web Services. "They've built Canvas Career to serve workforce and continuing education programs that often fall outside traditional higher education models. We want to make these tools and infrastructure that drive positive learning outcomes accessible to educators and learners who need them most." Reducing the Barriers to LMS Migration Many institutions remain on outdated, on-premise learning systems not because they choose to, but because migration is expensive, complex and resource-intensive. Institutions with the fewest IT resources often face the steepest path to modernization. AWS support will help Instructure build AI-powered migration tooling designed to reduce that friction, making it faster and less costly for institutions to move to Canvas from legacy LMS platforms, self-managed open-source LMS environments, homegrown systems and other non-standard platforms. The goal is to give more institutions a realistic path to modern, cloud-based learning infrastructure so administrators and educators can focus on outcomes rather than overhead. Expanding Canvas Career for Workforce and Continuing Education Programs The initiative will also accelerate Canvas Career, Instructure's platform for skills-first, workforce-aligned learning. Canvas Career is built to serve learners and programs that often fall outside the scope of traditional higher education tools, including continuing education programs, K-12 workforce initiatives, community colleges, vocational training centers, public-sector workforce programs and adult learners. Development will address two areas. The first is access: secure, low-connectivity infrastructure for correctional facilities and remote environments, and accessibility frameworks to support learners with disabilities. The second is outcomes: AI-powered skill mapping to align training with job requirements, credential and certification management for stackable credentials and workforce badges and employer tools to connect learning pathways with employment pipelines. A Commitment to Measurable Impact The success of this initiative will be measured by whether more learners in underserved communities can access education that changes the trajectory of their careers and lives. In its first year, Instructure aims to reach approximately 900,000 learners, including roughly 280,000 from underserved communities, with a path to approximately 5.4 million learners over four years, roughly 1.8 million of them underserved. Instructure will report progress publicly, beginning in the second half of 2026 and continuing each quarter, including institutional adoption, learner reach and, as programs mature, workforce outcomes such as credential attainment, program completion and job placement. The first year focuses on institutions and learners who have historically had the least access to modern learning technology in the United States, Brazil, Mexico, and the United Kingdom, expanding to additional regions over time. That work centers on four groups: * K-12 districts with workforce programs serving rural and first-generation students * Correctional facilities building credential pathways for incarcerated learners * Community colleges serving adult and budget-constrained students * Workforce development organizations, including vocational training centers and public-sector programs This is a starting point. The structural barriers to education access run deeper than any single initiative can address, and Instructure and AWS intend to keep building. Future phases of this work will expand the tools launched today and reach more institutions and learners, expanding opportunities for learners everywhere. About Instructure Instructure is shaping the future of learning by delivering a future-ready ecosystem that helps learners thrive in tomorrow's landscape. Our vision is to drive a future where education technology seamlessly amplifies human potential, empowering people to excel in a perpetually changing world. Instructure is setting potential in motion by connecting educators, institutions and learners across K-12, higher education and the workforce - enhancing experiences at every age, every stage and every pivotal transition. Discover more at Instructure.com. Redação Portal ERP. Editorial Team

Protecting student data through smarter vendor risk management. Thousands of Software as a Service tools create risks districts cannot manage equally. A rightsized program starts with visibility and focuses resources where exposure is greatest. Nathan Eddy works as an independent filmmaker and journalist based in Berlin, specializing in architecture, business technology and healthcare IT. He is a graduate of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. Recent breaches involving Canvas and PowerSchool, resulting in the theft of millions of individuals' private information, have intensified attention on third-party technology risk in K-12 education environments. The incidents underscore that a district can protect its own environment and still be exposed through a vendor - a risk difficult to contain when the average district relies on thousands of ed tech tools, many delivered through Software as a Service (SaaS). While small IT teams cannot investigate every provider with the resources of an enterprise security organization, they can build a defensible program by establishing visibility, ranking risks and setting minimum requirements. What the Canvas breach reveals about K-12 vendor risk. Large education platforms concentrate risk because one compromise can affect many customers at once. Matt Leger, research lead for IDC Public Sector's worldwide education and education technology digital strategies, says districts increasingly depend on outside providers to keep daily operations and instruction running. "Schools have become very dependent on third parties to do what they need to do for teaching and learning to happen every day," he says. Moving systems to the cloud may strengthen an individual district's security, but it can also create shared dependencies outside the district's direct control. Vendor reviews should therefore consider not only data protection but also hosting arrangements, redundancy, recovery capabilities and the operational consequences if a widely used provider becomes unavailable. Building a SaaS inventory for your district. Building a SaaS inventory is a strong first step toward better understanding a district's vendor risk profile. Districts should begin with known systems, such as student information, learning management, finance, communications and identity platforms. They should then add classroom tools, browser applications, administrative software and services purchased outside of central IT. The inventory should record the owner, purpose, data handled, users, integrations, hosting environment, authentication method and renewal date for every tool. Mapping connections matters because a compromised application may provide a path into another system. "Without investing in a full cloud access security broker platform, I think the most common and effective way is through the use of unified threat management firewalls to identify which platforms are being accessed," says Chester Wisniewski, director and global field CISO at Sophos. How to tier ed tech vendors by risk level. Districts should not devote equal scrutiny to every application but rather evaluate what type of information is being shared with vendors and then use that to determine which ones to scrutinize most, based on impact. High-risk vendors include those handling regulated or highly sensitive information, supporting mission-critical operations or integrating broadly with other systems. This tier typically includes student information systems, learning management platforms, identity providers and any tool with single sign-on access or broad application programming interface connections. A compromise in any of these can propagate across multiple systems. Tools that collect health, financial or behavioral data on students also belong here, regardless of their operational role. Medium-risk tools may access limited student records or support important but replaceable functions. A tool moves from medium to high risk when its access scope expands, either through broader system integrations, additional data collection at renewal or connections to other platforms. Low-risk products should receive basic review if they use little or no identifiable information. Reference tools, general productivity applications and anonymous content platforms typically fall here, though districts should verify that assumption rather than take it on faith. "Districts should also determine what student data each tool genuinely needs and restrict access accordingly," says Mary Schlegelmilch, business development manager for education at Cisco. That principle applies at the tiering stage; if a tool is requesting more data than its function requires, that itself is a signal worth flagging. Vendors who exhibit high levels of transparency typically have a stronger security culture as well as more mature practices." Chester Wisniewski Director and Global Field CISO, Sophos Contract language that protects districts before a breach. Security expectations should appear in the request for proposals and remain enforceable in the final agreement. Addressing security requirements at the RFP stage gives districts leverage before a vendor is selected, making it harder for a preferred vendor to negotiate those provisions away after the fact. Once contracts are on the table, they should define authorized access, breach notification deadlines, service levels, backup and recovery obligations, data deletion, audit evidence and each party's incident response responsibilities. For example: * Breach notification windows should be explicit and should require the vendor to notify the district even when the full scope of an incident is not yet known. * Subprocessor disclosure clauses are worth including, as many SaaS vendors rely on their own third parties to deliver the service, and those relationships extend the district's exposure. Leger says that, within contracts, districts need to embed requests pertaining to resilient design, which can include zero-trust controls, stronger identity management, reauthentication between sensitive functions and plans for maintaining service during a vendor outage. Right-to-audit provisions support this, giving districts or their representatives the ability to request evidence of security controls rather than relying solely on vendor-provided assurances. Vendor monitoring without enterprise tools. Monitoring can begin with inexpensive, repeatable checks. "The easiest thing is to contact [the vendor] and discover which security and privacy certifications they have achieved and inquire as to which frameworks they use for managing risk," Wisniewski says. Districts can subscribe to vendor security notices, review public incident disclosures and require annual updates from high-risk providers. "Vendors who exhibit high levels of transparency typically have a stronger security culture as well as more mature practices," he adds. He advises districts to document those reviews so they can show how monitoring decisions were made. Shadow IT: finding unapproved apps that store student data. Firewalls, endpoint security and device management systems can reveal cloud and locally installed applications. Districts can compare those discoveries with the approved catalog and investigate exceptions. Leger cautions that technology alone will not expose every tool, particularly when employees and students use personal devices or cellular connections. Schools need a nonpunitive process for educators to disclose what they use. Training should explain why unreviewed tools create risk while recognizing that teachers usually adopt them to solve real instructional problems. An accessible review process gives staff a safer alternative to bypassing central IT. Building a vendor incident response plan for K-12. An incident plan should identify the district owner for each vendor, escalation contacts, legal and communications roles, procedures for revoking access and steps for continuing critical services. Risk tiers should drive how detailed those playbooks are. High-risk vendors warrant named contacts, documented revocation steps and tested runbooks, while medium-risk vendors can be covered more lightly. Exercises should test what happens when a provider is unavailable or a compromise spreads through an integration. Two scenarios worth running explicitly: * A critical vendor going down during a high-stakes window, such as state testing or enrollment * A breach propagating from one integrated tool into another Even a short tabletop discussion with IT, administration and legal stakeholders can surface gaps that a written plan misses. K-12 districts also face a communication obligation that enterprise organizations do not. When a vendor breach involves student data, parent and community notification may be required - and the plan should designate who owns that process, what triggers it and how messaging will be coordinated with legal counsel. The inventory and risk tiers determine which vendors require the most detailed playbooks. Plans should be reviewed whenever services, data flows or contract terms change. "Knowing what your service-level agreement is with those vendors, whom to contact and what steps you can take, from both a continuity and containment perspective, is a bare minimum," Wisniewski says.