21st Century Educator

Introduction:

Educators frequently need to create digital resources to use with their students.  These may be in the form of worksheets, lesson plans, project descriptions, media file, etc...  Unfortunately each educator is supposed to reproduce these worksheets themselves, and so much duplication around the world exists as multiple educators create similar resources for similar classes.  A need exists for educators to be able to have access to high quality resources created by other educators.  We need to become smarter about our resource management and sharing as a profession.

Pedagogle.com is the future of resource sharing among teachers.  No longer are your resources bound to your computer.  You can easily share your resources with anyone, anywhere, anytime.  The process is designed to be easy and painless, and best of all free!  Simply create an account on Pedagogle.com, upload your resources and be part of the future of open source pedagogy.

Resources on Pedagogle are categorized as they are uploaded, allowing for easy searching of resources.  Instead of each teacher implementing their own unique organizational structure, we share a common hierarchy of topics.  When you download a resource, go back and rate it, and the system improves as better resources float to the top of lists.

Once a resource is uploaded to Pedagogle.com, it gains the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial Share-alike license.  This means that you are free to download a resource, modify it in anyway you like, and share it again with other educators, provided there is no commercial enterprise involved.  This license means that when you upload a file to our server, you agree that this resource is one for which you hold the license and is not copyright any other party.

Using Pedagogle has some immediate benefits for educators as a whole:

1. Resources become easier to find instead of being lost in the labyrinth of the typical user Desktop.
2. Reduces duplication of effort from teachers recreating resources someone else has already created.
3. New teachers can focus on lesson building and classroom management instead of creating resources
4. Veteran teachers' resources are not lost to the profession, we gain an institutional memory
5. Over time resources get modified and rated, which leads to improved resources.

The Future:

Pedagogle.com is looking for sponsors and or grants in order to achieve some of our organizations goals.  We would like to improve our interface further so that the process is even easier to use.  We would like to hire someone to maintain our web site as the size of it grows.  We need to advertise our services so that we can grow.  Finally, we need to pay for upgrades to our server and bandwidth capabilities.

Your organization is free to use Pedagogle.com and join our initiative to provide a meeting place where educators share their resources.

Video Introduction:

Watch the video here and see a quick introduction into what Pedagogle is.  Note that this video is quite large, around 50 MB and because of the format will not stream so before you can view the video, you will have to wait for it to download in full (about 2 minutes on a 512kb connection, more on a slower connection).  It has been tested and is viewable in Firefox 3 and Internet Explorer 7 on Windows.  If you are having trouble viewing the video, right click here and choose "Save file as" and then pick a location on your computer to which to download our presentation. 

Executive Summary:

Quick facts

1. Allows educators to share file resources with other teachers.
2. Nonprofit status means it is free to use
3. Process is simple and fast
4. Categorization allows for quick searching
5. Resources automatically backed up
6. Service is available from anywhere, anytime by anyone
7. Community maintains itself through a user karma system
8. Costs for our organization are low since we only pay for our server

Organization name:    Pedagogle
Organization leader:   David Wees
Location:                     Pedagogle.com
Current project:          Improve server capabilities
Funds needed:            $4000 per year

Who is David Wees?

David Wees is a mathematics teacher who has been working abroad for the past 7 years.  He is the vice-president of Open Educator, an organization dedicated to providing tools for educators to collaborate on lesson and curriculum building.  His experience working in the international teaching circuit combined with his expertise as a web developer have made him an ideal candidate to spear head the Pedagogle.com project.  He is the author of a textbook for the International Baccalaureate and a contributor of articles on every day uses of Mathematics for the Bangkok Post.

You can view samples of his work at davidwees.com and judge whether he is capable of pulling off this venture yourself.