THE EDUCATIONAL CYBERPLAYGROUND™
mission statement
Improving literacy through arts education and advocacy by providing collaborative and interdisciplinary resources for understanding world culture.
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. 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.
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.
BIOGRAPHY, 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 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.
