The Open Education Disc

Hi I'm Peter Kemp. Welcome to my Teach First School Project entry, the Open Education Disc.

With ICT becoming ubiquitous within British education and it being recognised along with Literacy and Numeracy as a key skill, it is essential that children are allowed every opportunity to develop their skills. However access to the tools they need outside school are limited. Restrictive and expensive software licence agreements lead to a disparity in access for children growing up in different economic environments. Unable to access the tools they need, many children choose piracy, inferior software or just doing without. This can lead to lower achievement amongst students from poorer families.  I'm sure many of you have noticed these problems and this project aims to tackle them head on.

My project is studying the effects resulting from the disparity of access to ICT for children outside school. I am producing a CD of free software products so children can access the curriculum at home and inspire them to build skills in ICT without being disadvantaged by their economic situation.

The CD is adapted from the open disc, with a specific focus on education. The official website is at: www.theopendisc.com/education.  Check out what the CD looks like by clicking:

Test version

To get your hands on the working CD please visit the Get IT page

I've been working on this project for nearly two years now and need a little help to take it further, I need people:

• to help write the navigation pages of the website
• to proof read what we are writing and make it kid and EAL friendly
• to test out the software and give feedback
• to use the software on the CD and recommend new additions to it
• to distribute the CD in their school
• to help conduct the research that is driving this CD, at their own schools, more info on the research page

If you can help in any way mentioned above, or have any ideas or suggestions please drop me an email to misterkemp@gmail.com

Thanks!