WatchKnowLearn
Encyclopedia
WatchKnowLearn is a free, non-profit, K-12
repository of educational videos. The website aggregates and organizes videos found on existing websites, as well as inviting users to upload original content. The vision of the company is for the community to organize into one, super directory, the plethora of education videos already available on the Internet, and to invite teachers, instructors, and educators to review, approve, and assign videos into appropriate categories suitable for children between the ages of 1-18.
businessman and philanthropist who began conversations with Pittman, having meet him through the Foundation, and having a desire to fund research into using technology to help students learn better. Pittman and the aforementioned philanthropist then sought out the expertise of Dr. Larry Sanger
, co-founder of Wikipedia
and founder of the Citizendium
to act as the project's Executive Director. In November 2007, WatchKnow.org began development with the intention of having a fully functional website by fall 2008.
The philanthropist's original idea was an "American Idol
for teachers", however Sanger felt the project should be pursued online since there was already educational videos that just needed to be organized and made findable.
Early planning of WatchKnowLearn stressed its uniqueness from YouTube
and TeacherTube
in that, (1) the topics are assigned in advance, (2) the goal of completely covering the American K-12 curriculum, (3) offering cash prizes for top-rated videos, and (4) videos will be rated in part by experts, not just by the general public. This original planning also did not come to fruition. Topics were never assigned and the role of teachers became predominate in the rating system, with the most distinguishing feature being the development of the wiki-edited directory. Cash prizes for incentive also proved to be unsuccessful.
In mid-2009, many teachers, and some librarians, were hired to add videos and edit the directory. By spring 2010, WatchKnowLearn.org boasted over 15,000 hand-selected videos, with hand-edited information, in over 3,000 categories.
At the 2010 Delta Tech Summit, Dr. Larry Sanger stated: "How many educational videos are online?... I gradually discovered anyway, as we started building up our database, that my estimate was off by a few orders of magnitude, probably over a million videos, probably several million, and a huge number of new videos, hours and hours, thousands of hours of new videos are coming online everyday... and what percentage of those are educational? - a fair bit."
Sanger further states: "You can think of this repository as a repository of pre-packaged lecturing, of not just any old lecturing, but the very best lecturing, which then frees up the teacher to act as a tutor and guide, allowing the student to work at his own pace."
In the summer of 2010, with the design and development of the original concept of WatchKnowLearn complete, Dr. Sanger stepped aside as Executive Director to begin development of several special projects.
K-12
K–12 is a designation for the sum of primary and secondary education. It is used in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand where P–12 is also commonly used...
repository of educational videos. The website aggregates and organizes videos found on existing websites, as well as inviting users to upload original content. The vision of the company is for the community to organize into one, super directory, the plethora of education videos already available on the Internet, and to invite teachers, instructors, and educators to review, approve, and assign videos into appropriate categories suitable for children between the ages of 1-18.
Early Development (2006-07)
WatchKnowLearn was founded in 2006 by Tom Pittman, president of the Community Foundation of Northwest Mississippi. Funding for the project came from a retired Memphis, TennesseeMemphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....
businessman and philanthropist who began conversations with Pittman, having meet him through the Foundation, and having a desire to fund research into using technology to help students learn better. Pittman and the aforementioned philanthropist then sought out the expertise of Dr. Larry Sanger
Larry Sanger
Lawrence Mark "Larry" Sanger is an American philosopher, co-founder of Wikipedia, and the founder of Citizendium....
, co-founder of Wikipedia
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 20 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site,...
and founder of the Citizendium
Citizendium
Citizendium is an English-language wiki-based free encyclopedia project launched by Larry Sanger, who co-founded Wikipedia in 2001....
to act as the project's Executive Director. In November 2007, WatchKnow.org began development with the intention of having a fully functional website by fall 2008.
The philanthropist's original idea was an "American Idol
American Idol
American Idol, titled American Idol: The Search for a Superstar for the first season, is a reality television singing competition created by Simon Fuller and produced by FremantleMedia North America and 19 Entertainment...
for teachers", however Sanger felt the project should be pursued online since there was already educational videos that just needed to be organized and made findable.
WatchKnow (2008-10)
Originally named WatchKnow, in the fall of 2008 initial coding of the project was complete, and there was a quiet "beta launch". This version of the system underwent a very rigorous evaluation, but they decided to defer launching the site until more testing was finished. The beta project had initially been planned to consist of 500 topics, allowing contributors to sign up and submit videos under any of those topics, and where anyone could rate videos according to how well it corresponded to the content. As it turned out, this limitation on topics wasn't necessary and the system developed into what exists today.Early planning of WatchKnowLearn stressed its uniqueness from YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
and TeacherTube
TeacherTube
TeacherTube is a video sharing website similar to, and based on, YouTube. It is designed to allow those in the educational industry, particularly teachers, to share educational resources such as video, audio, documents, photos, groups and blogs. The site contains a mixture of classroom teaching...
in that, (1) the topics are assigned in advance, (2) the goal of completely covering the American K-12 curriculum, (3) offering cash prizes for top-rated videos, and (4) videos will be rated in part by experts, not just by the general public. This original planning also did not come to fruition. Topics were never assigned and the role of teachers became predominate in the rating system, with the most distinguishing feature being the development of the wiki-edited directory. Cash prizes for incentive also proved to be unsuccessful.
In mid-2009, many teachers, and some librarians, were hired to add videos and edit the directory. By spring 2010, WatchKnowLearn.org boasted over 15,000 hand-selected videos, with hand-edited information, in over 3,000 categories.
WatchKnowLearn (2010-2011)
WatchKnowLearn reorganized to meet its growth and business needs, inviting Joe Thomas, Ph.D. to head the organization as its new CEO. By the fall of 2010, WatchKnowLearn had exceeded 20,000 videos in its directory, and had partnered with and added 300 additional volunteers from the Digital Opportunity Trust organization, and had hired four additional, part-time editors.At the 2010 Delta Tech Summit, Dr. Larry Sanger stated: "How many educational videos are online?... I gradually discovered anyway, as we started building up our database, that my estimate was off by a few orders of magnitude, probably over a million videos, probably several million, and a huge number of new videos, hours and hours, thousands of hours of new videos are coming online everyday... and what percentage of those are educational? - a fair bit."
Sanger further states: "You can think of this repository as a repository of pre-packaged lecturing, of not just any old lecturing, but the very best lecturing, which then frees up the teacher to act as a tutor and guide, allowing the student to work at his own pace."
In the summer of 2010, with the design and development of the original concept of WatchKnowLearn complete, Dr. Sanger stepped aside as Executive Director to begin development of several special projects.