The Vision

To make personalized learning a reality for EVERY child.

Satisfying education’s universal challenge

Children are inherently diverse.  Each child carries within them a story, a host of unparalleled gifts, talents and interests.  Each has something unparalleled to offer the world.  This unique child is who education serves.  This child is also the source of education’s biggest challenge: How to meet the needs of a diverse group of children with a one-size-fits-all solution?  Children everywhere deserve learning experiences that are custom tailored to foster their gifts and talents. 

Have you ever seen a child struggle through the one-size-fits-all curriculum? Have you ever seen a child who is limited by the education they receive? A child who is bored? Disillusioned? Have you wondered over our apparent inability to offer children something better? That honors them for who they are?  We have.  We think every child deserves learning opportunities that are customized for their specific developmental level, learning preferences, interests, strengths and weaknesses.  We think it is time to satisfy this challenge.

Let us take you on a journey to the future of education…

Imagine if every child were offered an education that is completely personalized to their needs as a learner.  An education that honored their humanity instead of treating them like a widget.  Imagine if teachers could really be teachers again.  Focused on the needs and development of the child instead of teaching the masses through scripted curriculum.  Imagine if we could take advantage of the combined expertise of teachers, educational resource creators and learning specialists.  Imagine if educational resource developers had incentives to build applications that better met learners’ needs instead of developing in order to sell to the middle.  Imagine if parents had a place to go where they could easily discover resources that would encourage their child’s inherent curiosity to learn.  Imagine potential unleashed.

This is the Learning Genome.

The Learning Genome will empower teachers and parents to become engineers of learning by providing each individual child the exact content they need, at the exact moment they need it.  By honoring children as individuals and understanding that learning takes place at the pace developmentally appropriate to the child, the Learning Genome will enable children to explore the process of inquiry, experimentation, discovery and problem solving.  Instead of simply learning how to pass the next test, we will enable students to construct meaning and learn how to transfer that meaning to new life contexts.

The key to the Learning Genome’s success is crowd sourcing.  We are drawing on educators around the world to tag curriculum, books, lessons, videos, apps, websites, and other educational content.  This collection of tagged content lives in the centralized “cloud” and will allow users around the world to access the materials that best suit student needs.  By gathering information about the individual student’s learning style preferences, multiple intelligence strengths, and even emotional and maturation levels, the Learning Genome can create customized learning maps for each individual.  At the hub, the Learning Genome is a platform that aggregates resources and, using a series of algorithms, provides recommendations of the best resources to meet the individual learning needs of a specific child.  The Learning Genome creates those serendipitous moments of finding just the right learning tool to meet the needs of children at the right time.  

The Learning Genome hub (aggregate portion) will have an open API to encourage development of additional functionality and creative thought. This portion will be free to use.  Every child deserves the opportunity to enjoy personalized learning.

A personal or educational subscription to the Learning Genome goes even further.  In addition to the aggregate hub, the Learning Genome includes: 

• student information system (SIS)
• planning tools
• e-portfolios
• e-learning
• individual learning plans
• assessment tools
• blogging tools

Why indiegogo (and what part can you play)?

In order to provide a working prototype, we need to bring in funding for developers, graphics and to cover basic administrative costs.  $85,000 will allow us to kick start this process while exposing us to a broad audience of potential supporters and users. 

Please consider in investing in this important mission and helping to spread the word!

Blog about this project with a link back to the indiegogo campaign

Tweet with the hashtag #standagain

Invest to: pay our programmers, artists, and beta testing

Send this on to others who care about education and care about children. Spread the word!

Offer your time as a Learning Genome content tagger or beta tester

Timeline

The design/wire frame phase is coming to completion.  After the successful completion of this indiegogo Campaign, we will team up with the great people at Approbatics for programming.  We expect to deliver a prototype in early 2013 and will keep our launch community (that’s all of you) in the loop.  The Learning Genome will be an ever growing, ever evolving platform.

***Learn more at The Learning Genome Project website.

Who is the Learning Genome Project?

I am!  My name is Kelly Tenkely.  I’ve been involved in education for the last 10 years. I’ve taught in the classroom, worked with teachers around the world, explored curriculum and education reform and, most recently, I started a school: Anastasis Academy.  My passion is learning, I want to transform the education experience for children around the world.  I want every child to be honored by their education.  Two years ago, I dreamed up the Learning Genome Project.  You can help me bring this dream to completion for the benefit of all.   Join me in this important mission!