The AORTA1 Digital Education Manifesto
From Project Inkwell
"Connecting educators and learners with the world of digitized knowledge."
An endorsement for the purpose of universal advancement in K-12 Education
Whereas,
All students and teachers will benefit from having Always-On Real Time Access to adequate bandwidth and the Internet;
Most of the world's knowledge has been digitized;
Even as students are falling further behind 20th century educational requirements, societies worldwide are demanding a revolution in 21st Century K12 education;
The most fundamental processes and infrastructure of that revolution are now clear, and have been sufficiently tested in real classrooms worldwide to have gained our support;
The implementation of these processes and infrastructure are now generally affordable and accessible, with ample products and support from the OER and vendor community;
Failing to implement this Initiative will cause continuing harm to students, society, and the domestic and global economy;
Therefore, we, the undersigned persons and groups, urge our leaders in education, at every level, to make all reasonable effort to implement this new educational platform without delay, so that our teachers and students may participate in the revolution in education and knowledge now under way.
Specifically, we recognize these processes and infrastructure, the AORTA Education Platform, as being critical in implementing this Initiative:
The AORTA1 Education Platform
Other external interests and goals notwithstanding, we are in agreement that the AORTA Education Platform describes the first step toward enabling our vision for education in this century:
- Provide adequate bandwidth and Internet access to all schools, calculated on a per - student basis. The last, in-class distribution of this bandwidth must be wireless.
- Provide access to Internet-connected computing devices of a minimum design requirement2 for all students.
- Provide adequate training and professional development for ALL teachers transitioning to this program, with the goals of integration into all facets of education throughout the school day and contributing to educators' professional growth.
- Provide sufficient instructional content, assessment, reference material, productivity tools, secure communication tools, delivery platforms and support for use of the Internet-connected computing devices, aligned to the local education standards to be a part of every minimum implementation.
- Provide schools with adequate technical support for device and system maintenance, and teachers with adequate informational support for online curriculum development assistance.
- Provide means-dependent-priced bandwidth at student homes to allow all students universal access to online systems during off-school hours.
- Include all relevant parties - the parental community, the students, the boards of education, and the administrative staff - in this conversion process, in order to ensure ongoing support from these critical constituencies.
Our goal is to make the technology "transparent" and to re-emphasize the aspects of teaching, pedagogy and learning which benefit from equally connecting all teachers and students with the world's knowledge base.
By our endorsement, we urge all policy makers and local and national leaders in education to adopt this program as an immediate top priority. Based on many years of study and observation, we believe that almost all other educational priorities will be addressed and advanced by implementing the points of this manifesto, and that execution of all six points will greatly enhance the success rate of implementation. The time for argument and divisive delay is over. Let us build the future classroom we all agree upon, so that we can move forward with new models in curricula, teaching, and learning.
1 AORTA: Always-On Real Time Access
2 Inkwell Minimum Design Requirements: http://www.projectinkwell.com/docs/Inkwell_Specs.pdf
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Date of this version: 6.20.12 For questions and information, please contact: |
Endorse the AORTA Digital Education Manifesto:
Endorsements:
| Name | Title | Affiliation | Date |
| Mark Anderson | CEO, Strategic News Service | Chairman, SNS Project Inkwell | January 4, 2012 |
| Frank Catalano | Principal | Intrinsic Strategy | January 6, 2012 |
| David Engle | Director of Operations | SNS Project Inkwell | January 6, 2012 |
| Scott Schramke | IT Director | Strategic News Service | April 27, 2012 |
| Tommy Wald | CEO | White Glove Technologies | May 23, 2012 |
| Peter Vitulli | President & CEO | DNA Diagnostics Center | May 30, 2012 |
| Dave Couture | Principal | Deloitte Consulting | May 30, 2012 |
| Jonathan Ewert | President | TransforMedia | May 31, 2012 |
| Story Tweedie-Yates | Miss | Thunderbird School of Global Management | May 31, 2012 |
| Jenny Lee | Executive Assistant to the CEO | Strategic News Service | June 1, 2012 |
| Nelson Heller | President | HellerResults Group | June 4, 2012 |
| David Vogt | CEO | CrowdTrust Technologies | June 5, 2012 |
| Doug Smith | CEO | WD Smith & Associates | June 7, 2012 |
| Andrew Wallis | CEO | Unseen | June 8, 2012 |
| Marco Spinner | Owner | Sigillum | June 8, 2012 |
| Swain Porter | CEO | SkyCHRON | June 9, 2012 |
| Jack Spain | President | Spain Technovative Solutions | June 12, 2012 |
| Diana Fox-Hopkins | Concerned Parent | Individual | June 24, 2012 |
| John Petote | CEO | CIO Solutions | June 25, 2012 |
| Chetan Sharma | President | Chetan Sharma Consulting | June 25, 2012 |
| Cynthia Klein | Director of Sales | Platform, an IBM Company | June 26, 2012 |
| Scott Gardner | Senior Analyst | The Linley Group | June 29, 2012 |
| TS Vreeland | Director | OpenVES | June 29, 2012 |
| Robert Iskander | CEO | EduTone | June 29, 2012 |
| Thomas Greaves | CEO | The Greaves Group, LLC | July 1, 2012 |
| Robert Hadley | Principal - Hadley Properties, LLC | Board Member - Westside School, Seattle | July 2, 2012 |
| Bruce Wilcox | Vice President | Carolina Science Online | July 2, 2012 |
| Tim DiScipio | Founder | ePals | July 2, 2012 |
| Matthew Greenfield | Managing Director | Rethink Education | July 27, 2012 |
| Patrick Hogan | World Wind Project Manager | NASA | July 27, 2012 |
| Adam Aronson | Co-Organizer | NYEdTech Meetup | July 30, 2012 |
| Art Bardige | CEO | Sustainablearning | August 2, 2012 |
| Tom Rabon | Chairman and Partner | New Kind | August 3, 2012 |
| Heather Gilchrist | Program Director | Socratic Labs | August 6, 2012 |
| Kathy Hurley | EVP Education Alliances | Pearson Foundation | August 30, 2012 |
| Philip Ronchetti | Founder | 3RPlus Corp | September 24, 2012 |
| Toby Welch | Independent educator | Independent Schools | December 16, 2012 |
| Kimberly Adams | Instructional Technology Coordinator | Virginia Beach City Public Schools | January 28, 2013 |