Chalksy imagine the virtual classroom

LONDON - April 26, 2013 - PRLog -- Armed and inspired with the idea of altering the educational hegemony from standardised, bureaucratic and high-priced, Chalksy have devised and are now set to launch a simple e-teaching and e-learning platform in May 2013.

Instead of red tape and examination halls Chalksy offer an open space for a community to interact, teach and learn with one another other.  Chalky’s proclivity for openness is a dualism in regard to the seemingly boundless amount of subjects and skills that can be taught and learnt onsite and to the ways in which learners and teachers regulate the quality of teaching and learning through the site’s feedback system.  Chalksy co-founder Adam Piotrowski points to the importance of de-cluttering education to the company’s vision:

‘Chalksy was in large, born out of the curtailment of autonomy facing teachers and students in compulsory, further and higher education settings.  The culture of constant reform, standardised lesson plans, uniform marking systems, performance assessments, league tables, national teaching schemes and, to top it all off an ominous testing regime, all sap the inventiveness and sparks of creativity that ought to ignite a classroom’.

Rather ironically it is plain that the aggregation of rule and regulation within education has had an inspiring effect upon the young entrepreneur, ‘I spent time studying for a PGCE in Primary Education and the stimulating and spontaneous, imaginative and inspirational time that should be spent devising original and challenging lessons that I could really envisage my students responding too was largely spent ticking off elephantine lists of standards and evidence’.    

Continuing with this notion of standing aside from conventional bricks and mortar education, Chalksy are also challenging the spatial and temporal restrictions that afflict teachers and students working within offline education.  ‘I think eBay demonstrated a fantastic and fascinating model’ says Adam.  ‘If we rewind 30 years ago and think about the entities that commonly traded goods, we discover that it was the businesses with capital to purchase large quantities of goods and in the possession of fixed locations that  sold to many individuals.  eBay was the antithesis to this’.

It seems the influence of eBay to give currency to the micro-level of trading has been inspirational to Chalksy as they aim to achieve something similar in world of teaching and learning.  Chalksy are providing the online marketplace for the inspired, the curious and the dedicated to meet, greet and exchange.  ‘We want to provide an alternative for those wanting to teach and learn’ reflects Adam, ‘and by removing the regulations and directives that govern on-campus education, Chalksy becomes a place for the inspired to connect with the aspiring’.

Chalksy’s full site launch is scheduled for May 2013, teachers and subscribers can register now at http://www.chalksy.com