We need a kick starter for education.
You see I have recently experienced some rather severe discrimination and it has left me unemployed. My response to this situation is to start a tutoring business. The problem with this tutoring business is there are lots of people that need my services, but few who can pay me for it. I would love to help everyone for free, but I have to pay my rent. Enter social media. If there was a kick starter for education, I could pay my rent and offer educational services to my clients for free. This means I could afford to work in literacy and teach free classes in research skills. So, my question to my fellow students is this, what would you have to put in place to start a social media project like kick starter? What do you need to know? What kind of funds do you need find? How would you make it sustainable? I want to ask these questions. What is possible with cooperation? This could accomplish so much, more than just some literacy training. We could fund ethical research, offer free private schools and even make a functional and funded model for an open university. I have a disability. I cannot do this alone. Let’s use our research skills to find out what we would need to make an educational kick starter. The creative project would be a new use of information and the funding of ethical education.
I want you to see this video.
I know I could get docked points because this is short and not very research oriented, but I think it is worth it to ask for help sometimes.
SJSU SLIS 246 Spring 2013 
http://www.donorschoose.org/ – Crowdfunding for teachers/classrooms
https://www.microryza.com/ – Crowdfunding for research
For tutoring, you could try one of the various tutor sites. Some of them are free for students, because their school or their library is paying for it. But the site will stay pay you, the tutor.
Our library is currently using Brainfuse.
http://www.brainfuse.com/register/tutorPromo.asp
But there’s lots of others too.
This comment might get flagged for too many links. 🙂
Thank you. I will look into these.
These are good to know about. They are not right for my summer project, but kick starter is. I am going to create a blog.
I liked your post about Kickstarter, which is a service I’ve been fascinated with lately. I’m glad you posted the Amanda Palmer video – it made me cry the first time I saw it. I think it is so important for people to be able to support the art and services that they want to happen, especially when record labels or other funding sources wouldn’t otherwise give the artists a chance. I’ve personally donated to get local musicians albums and filmmakers projects made but there is on Kickstarter program I learned of recently that I find very interesting. It is for a new technology library in Ghana, called Librii. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/248645035/librii-new-model-library-in-africa
This project would create a technology based library in a developing area where access to broadband Internet and the information that comes with it is scarce. I like that even if you just give a $1 donation, you will get your name written on a wall of the new library when it is built. There is only about a week left, and they still need to raise about 8,000 for the project to happen, so I encourage people to spread the word and donate! This is a great way to Kickstart education!
Amazing presentation by Amanda Palmer – so touching – thank you for sharing!