Re: [Wikimedia Education] Fwd: New Service for Wikimedia?

Bill gave me permission to forward this email here. Anyone on this list who'd like to have a 1:1 conversation with him about whether his technology (it's a dedicated Perl/MySQL online learning platform which he built himself) might make sense in a Wikimedia context? He's open to the idea of open sourcing it. It's probably most relevant to Wikiversity and related efforts. Erik ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Bill Van Horne <billvh375 at gmail dot com> Date: Fri, Apr 13, 2012 at 9:23 AM Subject: New Service for Wikimedia? Mr Möller: I have worked for the past seven years programming a multilingual Adaptive Learning system, which is now ready for use.  I am wanting to find an organization that has a character that meshes with my own, with whom I can work to provide this as a service for the betterment of humanity. Your organization tops my list of those with which I would like to explore a working relationship. I am willing to provide this service completely free to everyone. Alternatively, Wikimedia could offer this as a sliding-fee-scale subscription service to educational institutions based upon their ability to pay.  In short, the profit motive is secondary to the educational aspect, but if the two can coexist, then I am open to achieving both goals. I would think that Wikimedia would like to find a business model that won't rely forever for its survival on donations from a public that can be unpredictable at times, combined with philanthropists that can also choose not to give.  Alternatively, if Wikimedia is content with its current funding model, then I would be happy to explore how this service could be integrated into Wikimedia's services, such that the maximum benefit is attained with no associated profitability. I am asking for 15 minutes of your time to show you how this system integrates concepts and facts, presented in standard browser compatible media, to create absolutely individualized teaching for students anywhere that the Internet is available (and even where it is NOT available). I believe that much of Wikipedia's current content could be accessed as is, with this system acting as a content delivery system that simply acts to hierarchize the concepts into relevant associations of educational material for a learner, which are presented while a live volunteer human observes an entire group of learners at the same time, and interacts when appropriate, to support each one's individual learning process. By SKYPE or phone I can walk you through the different user interfaces so you can evaluate what I am proposing, and see if you feel it merits further investigation as an adjunct to what you guys are already doing.  I developed and used this system while living in Peru, South America for many years, and there are math teachings in Spanish I can use to demo the system for you.  If you want a preview of the system before agreeing to meet with me, you can go to http://www.llearnersa.com Sincerely, Bill Van Horne -- Erik Möller VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate _______________________________________________ Education mailing list Education(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/education