Main Page/K12 Online Initiative back-office/Nonprofits/educause/with an email to her


 * to		"Diana G. Oblinger" 
 * cc		"Alan Guinn, President" 
 * date		May 7, 2007 11:18 PM
 * subject		exploring the possibility of EDUIT becoming an Educause initiative.

Dear Diana,

Thank you for taking the time to chat with me. Sorry, if I was going a million miles a minute.

I would like to set a meeting to discuss the possibility of setting the stage for adding EDUITs Global K12 Education Initiative as part of your initiative programs. We wouldnt be looking for any funding in FY 07-8, just in-kind support. EDUIT's goal is simple: Flatten Global K12 Education (initial emphasis math and science). Currently we are in the process of identifying our strategic partners that will play a key role in the development process ( TVworldwide.com, Fablevision, Ourmedia and MITs Education Arcade--to name a few).

I live in Japan and telecommute as the acting chairman of EDUIT until we can secure the right person to replace me. I am a seasoned fundraiser and have secured close too $7m in funding for NCDS before retiring to Japan. NCDS has agreed to assist in raising the funds once we have competed a successful feasibility study.

This project's vision is huge in scope, and to be completely honest, it need an association like Educause behind it to help get it off the ground and leverage investor support. The ramifications of its success may very well change the way we learn. It may help cause a needed revolution in education--many believe education needs one. Its vision and concept is a radical change to the traditional education model, yet all the web2.0 technology exists for it to be built--its just needs assembling. Other events such as the One Lap Top Per Child initiative ( olpc.com), AMD's 50X15 initiative, China and India's education disparity, and others, will help us position EDUITs Initiative for success. The time is right to move forward. We've been approached by Marshall Islands to submit a proposal for online math and science education.

We already have in-roads with the World Bank for funding and are working relationships with other parties. Our success, though, will lie in who we can leverage to become partners in the Initiative (I'm sure you agree--it cant be US centric). Its hard for me to run things from Japan, we need an entity to help incubate EDUIT until we can raise the initial funds to roll it out. Can Educause help? Will you help? What barriers if any do we need to overcome for you to do soK?

One final note, the tools we are looking to develop will have far more reaching implications than just K12 education. They will impact workforce development and higher learning too. However, we feel K12 math and science education is a good starting place.

In extremely simple terms how will we flatten education? Here's how... establish media archive for AV educational programming from the BBC, Discovery, NPR, PBS etc... (EDUIT media project), build a editing tool to take advantage of it (Wikitube) by allowing users to manipulate and create short video modules; and finally plug these modules into a non textual, point-touch(click) play-learning system ( K12 Online) where these community modules can be explored. I would be more than willing to do a presentation on how specifically, and more over how simply this will be accomplished. Here is an overall strategic image and a powerpoint of how it all fits togther.

Alan Guinn will touch base with you and take it from here. He's a great guys from Tennessee--speaks a lot slower and much more eloquently than me :)

Sincerely,

Michael

-- Michael J. Trout, MFA Eduit.org Skype: eduitorg