Millions of U.S. students lack the connectivity, technology and skills required for success in today’s digital economy. Verizon Innovative Learning, a part of Citizen Verizon, aims to address barriers to digital inclusion for students by partnering with nonprofits to provide schools with connectivity, devices, technology and teacher training to power next-gen learning opportunities both at home and in school.

Originally launched in 2012, Verizon Innovative Learning is a key part of Verizon’s long-term commitment to provide digital skills training to 10 million youths by 2030, focusing on underresourced communities. The objective for 2021 was to accelerate progress and improve the accessibility of Verizon’s growing library of digital education content (including immersive augmented reality [AR] and virtual reality [VR] applications, lesson plans, and professional development resources for teachers) with a free, easy-to-use online portal available to all.

Verizon Innovative Learning HQ is an online digital platform built to provide next-gen learning for all and to help close the digital divide in education. It expands the work being done by Verizon Innovative Learning by giving educators access to a free, easy-to-use library of AR and VR learning experiences, lesson plans, and professional development resources. Through it, Verizon equips educators with the tools they need to provide more-immersive learning experiences and better engage their students’ infinite capacity for imagination, curiosity and play.

While the Verizon Innovative Learning HQ portal includes relevant content for teachers, students and parents, teachers are the primary leaders in K–12 education and the priority audience for the program. Teachers are acutely aware of both the learning challenges their students face and the limitations of their own educational resources. While they are eager to provide their students with next-gen learning experiences, they are also wary of any sort of advice coming from outside their own profession.

To earn teachers’ trust, the Verizon Innovative Learning HQ portal focuses on the goals Verizon and educators share in common, like inspiring students’ imagination and excitement for learning. The AR/VR experiences are presented from the students’ perspective to prove that Verizon Innovative Learning HQ helps teachers teach the way they’ve always wanted to: with deeply immersive and engaging lessons.

Verizon Innovative Learning HQ represents the culmination of years of collaboration between Verizon, NY Media Labs, multiple AR/VR app developers and multiple nonprofit organizations. It includes pioneering extended reality (XR) experiences built by student engineers and professionals alike, standards-aligned lesson plans, and fully credentialed professional development courses.

To make this library as widely available and accessible as possible, the entire portal is hosted online at www.verizon.com/learning. The portal launched August 23, 2021, and will remain available indefinitely as part of Verizon’s ongoing efforts to close the digital divide in education through the Verizon Innovative Learning program.

Since 2012, Verizon Innovative Learning has been able to reach more than 1 million students in more than 500 school communities and provide more than $900 million in market value to support STEM education with the help of nonprofit partners. Verizon Innovative Learning HQ extends that impact further and faster by making Verizon’s XR learning experiences and other education resources digitally available for all.

Verizon also conducts regular surveys as a part of Verizon Innovative Learning to improve the program and measure success. So far:

• 92% of teachers say it has helped them explore new ways of teaching.

• 88% of teachers say it has allowed for more individualized instruction.

• 84% of teachers say it enhanced student engagement.

• 71% of teachers say it has enhanced positive interactions with students.