Released on: December 19, 2007, 1:16 pm

Press Release Author: Universal Admedia Limited

Industry: Education

Press Release Summary: A startup has opened its doors to teachers, allowing them to
test a novel technology dubbed \"potentially revolutionary\" by Oxford University\'s
Saïd Business School. Didactum.org allows teachers to publish and profit from online
classes, while educating students worldwide for free. With just a mouse-pen and
webcam, a teacher can walk students through hard-to-grasp concepts online just as
effectively as on paper. When students view recorded classes, the teacher earns
revenue from Didactum\'s sponsors. Today, the startup invited teachers to join its
Teach the WorldT initiative, a program designed to test the technology and its
ability to produce a \"globally knowledge complete video library\" by 2013. Nii Moi
Addo, a Chicago-based Didactum technologist, shared his thoughts in an online
interview.

Press Release Body:
UAL: What is Teach the World and how is that related to Oxford?
Nii Moi: Teach the World is one of our new initiatives; it allows us to meet our
primary objective by giving away hundreds of free accounts to our system. We expect
abrupt and exponential class submissions, which will jumpstart learning all over the
world. We share the passion for education and knowledge management with Oxford and
recently submitted our thinking to their 21st Century Challenge; we are pleased to
have received distinction in their social and environmental impact category.

UAL: What is your \'primary objective\'?
Nii Moi: Democratizing access to education; for too long, parents and politicians
have talked about education with unclear results. We sat down and decided to tackle
the very obvious causes - poorly paid teachers, unmotivated students, evolving
lifestyles and so on. What Didactum offers is a solution to each of these problems.

UAL: How does Didactum motivate a student?
Nii Moi: At the heart of the learning problem is an interested student and Didactum
is especially good at defining interest. When a student is distracted in a classroom
we usually fail to ask \'what distracted the student?\' The answer to that question is
interest. and in Didactum, interest is synonymous with distraction, since both are
side-effects of creativity. Teach the World is the first part of the motivation
equation where in the near future, teachers will be urging students to compliment
classes with their increasingly creative online publications. This is a motivator
for most students, whose lifestyles are already online.

UAL: How is Didactum different from Google\'s Knol?
Nii Moi: For one thing, we operate in the video space while Wikipedia et al.
operate in a mostly text space. The video space presents a different class of
problem - motion, speech and handwriting recognition become relevant within that
context. However, our critical distinction arises in our commitment to democratizing
access to education. This sweeps well beyond aggregated encyclopedias.

UAL: How can teachers join the initiative?
Nii Moi: We are asking teachers to help us with this huge undertaking. During this
testing period, we will award teachers who sign up with a 1 year teaching pass to
the platform. This is similar to One Laptop per Child\'s give one get one campaign,
except this time the phrase is more like \'Teach One Teach All\'. Our goal is to
create a free and globally knowledge complete video library by the end of 2012. This
test phase will help us understand the nature and impact of this library.

Teachers can register a free account at Didactum.org today. For a limited time,
registered members can also receive a one year teaching pass. The teaching pass
allows members on the site to begin to record classes either by creating them with
Didactum\'s teaching tools or with a camcorder. Interested teachers can email
Didactum with contact@didactum.org.

Source: Universal Admedia Limited


Web Site: http://didactum.org

Contact Details: 653 N Kingsbury,Unit 1501, Chicago, IL, 60610
Tel: 917-664-9111
Email: contact@uadmedia.com