eduk8 anticipates the move away from traditional browsing and communication applications with a stream, or cloud, approach that locates content in a more efficient, logical, and integrated fashion. All content—reading and writing assignments, announcements, email or chat communications, video or audio files, as well as calendar items—will be aggregated into a central workspace where students can touch their way through discrete tasks in a given order. Required content is delivered through directives that also become calendar, or task list, entries to help students manage their time and stay on-task; while enhancement content is suggested in a sidebar that is available outside of class.
From the student’s perspective, eduk8 is very simply a means of communication: whether they are receiving a reading or worksheet to accompany live instruction, creating a multimedia presentation, or streaming suggested third-party content on eduk8TV™ or eduk8RADIO™ to find out more about a topic they like.
Most importantly, all student activity can be controlled and accessed by both teachers and parents, who can see their student’s work in real time, access usage metrics and chat history, as well as send text, voice, and video communications to any party they wish (parent-to-student, student-to-teacher, teacher-to-parent). Teachers may control when and how third-party content may be accessed during school, and parents may control this content at home, allowing a student to play a favorite educational game, for example, once a given homework assignment has been sent to their teacher.
Finally, all users may access the eduk8 marketplace, where users can browse additional readings, activities, lessons, games, videos, and services that are indexed by age, grade, and academic theme. In this space, teachers can find and share original lessons, students can make wish lists of academic content, and parents can research, recommend, and purchase materials on a per-use basis. And because all of this content is unbound from bulky physical methods of delivery, it can be priced much more reasonably than ever before. So not only can everyone find the right materials, they can also afford them.
