Avid has announced a new partnership with North American academic marketing company ThinkEDU, LLC. that will provide even more K-12 educators with the opportunity to inspire future generations of video and audio creators.

ThinkEDU will work with existing Avid partner Rowman & Littlefield to help high schools across North America enhance their arts and media education tracks through the Avid Learning Academy (ALA) program, which empowers students to learn the technologies used by the editors, producers and other creators of the world’s most popular music, movies, TV shows and live broadcasts.

ThinkEDU hosts online stores for schools, colleges and universities across the country, working with more than 13,000 school districts and serving millions of students every day. It also manages some of the world’s leading training ecosystems that serve the academic community and acts as a technology consultant for educational facilities at all levels. The ability of ThinkEDU to provide a complete turnkey experience will make it easier than ever for schools to train and certify K-12 students on the Avid creative software tools specified by college media studies programs and employers across the media and entertainment industry.

Michael Fischler, CEO at ThinkEDU, said: “We’re delighted to officially partner with Avid and Rowman & Littlefield to help expand the Avid Learning Academy program. Our existing relationship with Avid and vast experience in the education sector puts us in a unique position that will enable us to guide educators in choosing the right software tools for their needs and those of their students. The ALA has already inspired so many young, talented people and we’re looking forward to helping take it to that next level.”

“ThinkEDU has a longstanding track record of taking programs such as Avid Learning Academy into the educational market. As an existing reseller of Avid’s Media Composer®, Pro Tools® and Sibelius® solutions, ThinkEdu is ideally positioned to help drive adoption of this current program,” said Bryan Castle, Director of Global Learning Partnerships at Avid. “We believe the synergies between Avid, ThinkEDU and Rowman & Littlefield make this joint partnership a perfect fit that will ultimately provide more students with a clear path to college media courses and unlock the next generation of creative talent.”

The Avid Learning Academy includes everything educators need to elevate their current arts and media programs, or rapidly launch a new program from the ground up. Courses have been designed by education professionals and are aligned to the National Core Arts Standards (U.S.), covering a wide range of media creation topics including filmmaking, video post production and audio terminology.

This program is available now and participating high school educators will be able to certify their students as Avid Certified Associates, placing them on the pathway to industry-recognized Avid Certified User and Avid Certified Professional certifications that are available worldwide through Avid Learning Partner institutions.

Educators can visit the Avid website to discover the full potential of the Avid Learning Academy program.