Educational CyberPlayGround ®
Mission Statement

Reasons to Play on the CyberPlayGround

ONE

We believe in the importance of play, creativity, and helping everyone get the most out of their life.

We believe that the arts must be in all K12 schools as not just part of the curriculum but the major interdisciplinary focus.

TWO

We use an interdisciplinary view to explain that there are lots of ways to enjoy the journey - not just one way to get there.

We believe in challenging the status quo, in thinking differently, and protecting citizens from bad information, disinformation, and propaganda.

We believe people deserve a fair world, a fair wage, public schools and access to exceptional vocational training, or an affordable college education with federal loans that won't burden us forever.

THREE

We are the culture keepers of K12 online history and the best research available, presented in historical context.

We offer Slow clicks not Fast clicks - we are all about finding the most creative and smartest people who can make it easier for everyone to understand the big picture.

Improving literacy through arts education and advocacy by providing collaborative and interdisciplinary resources for understanding the humanities, the universal laws of perception, the underlying the rhythms of both speech and music; world culture and our national culture.

Bringing the arts to life on the Web, for all ages.

The Educational CyberPlayGround provides the public, teachers, administrators, policy makers, parents, librarians, and home schoolers a "webliography" of links to educational resources in a wide range of subjects.

Focus on Folk Arts In Education:
Improving literacy through arts education and advocacy by providing collaborative and interdisciplinary resources for understanding the universal laws of perception, underlying the rhythms of both speech and music; world culture and our national culture.

Our Heart Work :
Teach Reading Using Playground Game Songs
National Children's Folksong Repository reflects Karen Ellis' continuing emphasis on linking local culture, arts, people, organizations, literacy, music technology and education.
Integrate, Literacy Music and Technology into the classroom. Use the technology to collect Children's poetry, nursery rhymes, clap pattern chants and songs, playground game songs then have the kids add them to the NCFR database. Use this content in a reading curriculum that will raise students grade level by years in just a few months.
1977 The original research showed that students who were taught to read using playground game songs successfully raised their reading level and spelling levels by a few years in a few months.
The Educational CyberPlayGround, Inc. website was created to provide all the hard science that proves why this simple successful approach works.
2010 Research Confirms original findings that Motor And Cognitive Skills Are Improved By Hand-Clapping Songs.

You've got a problem.
You don't know what you don't know.

You've got another problem.
People don't surf the web, they poke.
Click Click Click until finally people find enough clues to begin to understand all the options: sorting through data - which one is the best, which one is telling the truth, and finally realizing the big picture.
THAT TAKES TIME A LOT OF TIME, IT'S TOO SLOW.

Since we have been on the net since 1991 you can know that we've spent more than 10,000 hours finding the best, most trusted research / data out there. We've collected the information for you.

We've got a answer.
We connect the data, turning it into information, you'll find the meaning when you see the big picture. That is . . .

Our Transcendent Purpose:
In Everything we do, we believe in challenging the status quo, we believe in showing the big picture.

The way we challenge the status quo is by using disruptive transdisciplinary thought. [ IEC ] On one page we give you enough clues, enough information that gives you enough meaning to get the big picture.

This isn't about a perfect website, this is about you being in the right place at the right time, and getting the right story and the connections that bring you to meaning which is the big picture. You'll get the research, find the connections, learn what you need to know or who to ask, and who is trust worthy.

Problem Solved
It's Remarkable and worth talking about, tell your friends about the Educational CyberPlayGround and link to us . Help others find out.

REMEMBER THAT CIVILITY MATTERS: Consciously commit civil acts.

CHRONOLOGY
FAST FACTS

The freemium model — that is us, we have been offering a free service online since 1996.

We only charge for content that would take you hours, months, and years of research time if you tried to do it yourself. Your time is worth money and so is ours, so this is a fair exchange of energy.

We have been able to put together, showing the history and the connections which reveals the big picture, giving a true perspective. We have tried to do our best, to create something great, and be truly transparent.

Consumer Reports, Bill Moyers , and Daniel Shore , are the benchmark of truth tellers, who did their best. The politicians, and the media have squandered their social currency, and the publics' trust.

We hope you will be on our side, support us, link to us, and subscribe to our content.

We are here to help protect the commons, the common folk, and the common wealth.

The internet has dramatically widened the number of available substitutes. We don't have to like it, but it's true. That means we have to work far harder to create work that can't easily be replaced. No one can replace our point of view Our Transcendent Purpose .

GOALS

Reading and The Educational CyberPlayground ®
Great Reasons to Play in the Yard
National Children's Folksong Repository ™
Become a Sponsor
Indigenous Folksong Reading Curriculum ™
United States Virgin Islands Caribbean Curriculum ™
Philosophy - An Interdisciplinary Virtual Playground
Program Results and Impact
Evaluation
Mailing Lists for ECP Community

READING and THE EDUCATIONAL CYBERPLAYGROUND ®

Technology and the Oral Tradition By Karen Ellis copyright 1997

"The failure of inner - city schools to teach children to read is among the most serious social problems that our country faces."-- Dr. William Lobov
Professor of Linguistics and Psychology and Director of the Linguistics Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania.

ABOUT FOUNDER
KAREN ELLIS

BIOGRAPHY and RESUME
This web site is an innovative dynamic model using the World Wide Web and integrating Literacy, Technology and the Arts, effecting a systemic change for the disenfranchised group of people created by illiteracy. Using technology this project will teach children to read and write Standard English and turn a destructive situation around by, addressing the root causes of social problems through a neutral, non judgmental process giving the child's home dialect the dignity it deserves. And lastly to help all children (especially girls), teachers, and regular folks to learn to use and feel comfortable with technology.

About the Digital Divide, Digital Equity and the Gender Divide

GREAT REASONS TO PLAY IN THE YARD

Give teachers and students in the nation a reason to use a computer, learn to use the world wide web, -- and integrate technology, literacy and music into the classroom curriculum. Teach the 60% of urban children in every City School District throughout the US to read and write Standard English. Statistics say these children never read beyond the fourth grade level, graduate from high school or will find employment. For more info on this topic let me refer you to Dr's. John Rickford and John Baugh who are experts in the field of Linguistics , and familiar with my work. I consider this a problem of epidemic proportions, and consequently puts the nations health at risk. Policy makers would be advised to treat this as a public health issue. This web site has direct involvement with all the school districts in America. Online Curriculum is available in the Cul De Sac Area

National Children's Folksong Repository ™
The public folklore project built by the nations' children will result in an electronic library database, a national archive, that will be searchable by state, name of song and grade level. This online project will integrate Music, Technology and Literacy in the classroom and provide cross cultural exchanges. Homeschooled, classroom students, after school and summer school programs will be able to participate, everyone is welcomed. The Repository will link to the Library of Congress Folklore Archive leaving a legacy to the nation. GET STARTED

Indigenous Folksong Reading Curriculum ™
A thematic reading curriculum that will focus on raising the reading levels of the urban population of the nation. It is designed to raise reading levels from 1-2 years in just a few short months. This proven method will allow all children to bring their playground poetry (indigenous music) into the classroom for a thematic reading and language arts based module that will produce material that will be entered online to this web site. It will build a bridge from the dialect spoken in the home language, to Standard English.

United States Virgin Islands Caribbean Curriculum ™
Focus is to provide the historical facts concerning the largest African American community living in the United States and how this area, people and culture have influenced our mainland culture since the 1600's. There were many firsts that happened here that have never been formally taught in the curriculum.

THE ARTS AND EDUCATION PROGRAM PHILOSOPHY
Unites Experts from the Playing Fields of Life

An Interdisciplinary Virtual Playground For TEACHERS * ARTISTS * RESEARCHERS and EVERYONE INTERESTED IN LEARNING

University Professors/Scholars
Different disciplines will overlap in the playground. Using an interdisciplinary approach through the study of indigenous children's folksongs , teachers of language arts, music, visual arts, technology, and linguistics can engage students in cultural awareness through a neutral, non judgmental process and learn to read and write in Standard English. Everyone is aware that music makes you smarter, it is the perfect vehicle to teach reading .

Teachers and Technology
Classroom, Music, Reading Teachers, Media Specialists, and Librarians, need to learn how to use technology so that they can reach the 60% of inner city children in every "Great City School District" who are at risk. These are the children in all US urban cities who come to school speaking a home language that is a vernacular of Standard English English. The first goal is to teach children to speak Standard English so that they can learn to read and write. This should be every schools first function.

Music Teachers
The music teachers can rhythmically and melodically notate all the material and coordinate and help to upload material to web site. They can use the material gathered from the Classroom teacher and reinforce the tactile learning process with body work, and ear training with follow up work leading to writing skills, for both English and Music literacy skills.

High School Children
Mentoring by high school students who are in the audio visual department, and computer technology classes via service learning projects -- work study. They can bring the video camera to the elementary schools and record real-time examples of the songs and chants as well as live sound field recordings which they then learn to upload onto this web site. This should foster webmastering skills, connect them to other webmaster mentors, and supply opportunities for future employment.

Artists
The "CyberPlayground" will have a place for real live Artists. These famous musicians and their companies will have a public platform for promoting these ideas:
The arts need to stay funded and kept in the K-12 curriculum -
Interdisciplinary, constuctivist, project oriented technology use will empower youth and make them literate and graduate from high school.

PROGRAM RESULTS AND IMPACT:
This is the culmination of a multicultural Language Arts program involving an interdisciplinary approach - to drive the curriculum toward multicultural education and appreciation for folksongs of various American cultures through the arts. It can engage students in appropriate inquiry of cultural and artistic issues, while raising their self esteem. This site will me a model of systemic change and an example of creative problem solving. I am looking to fund this project to impact and lead to societal, and institutional change. I want to help ameliorate an unjust or destructive situation by empowering constituents, and address the root causes of illiteracy.

EVALUATION
Develop the students own personal Folksong Book during the Language Arts Curriculum. Illustrate all material and be tested on all content for spelling, raise reading scores. Build the " The National Children's Folksong Repository ". Join with other participating classrooms on the internet to swap each others songs and to compare and contrast the diversity or similarity of the work.

READ COPYRIGHT

PERMISSION to use material from the Educational CyberPlayGround ® website for profit or non-profit print publication is reserved, restricted, and requires prior arrangements and approval. Other legal restrictions may apply even though unstated.

CITE Permission is limited to nonprofit use of this material provided the source is cited credited, the original material is not changed, and this notice is included or linked.
Use for profit or print publication is reserved, restricted, and requires prior arrangements and approval. Other legal restrictions may apply even though unstated. Pirating web pages from The Educational CyberPlayGround ® and putting them on another site or submitting them to search engines is stealing and copyright infringement. Information provided at this web site is provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind, either express or implied, including but not limited to the implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and freedom from infringement.