What is DISQO?

DISQO is an interactive, education showcase and community for teaching, collaborating and learning. In a nutshell, it is a non-profit, online, open-source curriculum database that encourages teachers from all over the world to upload their best lessons, lesson plans, lectures, worksheets, interactives and other educational resources with the aim to create free to use, modern, cutting edge curricula that can be taken anywhere, and used by anyone.

DISQO (Database of Internet Schooling and Qualifying Organisations) is a means for organising the overwhelming volume and often contradictory educational content on the Internet into an easy to use system.

Or, as our mission statement claims, it is "Learning for Everyone".

What is our mission?

Our goal is to give everyone access to a first rate education. We dream of an era of 100% literacy worldwide.

In the meantime we hope DISQO will be helpful for:

• Providing a study aid. Is there a concept you can't quite grasp? Look it up on DISQO. There may be a teacher who delivers with a method that reaches you.
• Taking the time with slower learners. DISQO will never be the equal of a great teacher who can devote their time one on one until you master a concept. However, in their absence, DISQO gives you a tool to practise at your own pace. Often, students who fall behind the class in one area can never catch up because the particular concept they either missed or didn't fully grasp is essential to all further learning in that subject. Without decisive intervention, the student falls further behind as subsequent concepts are also misunderstood. A class cannot take the time to review each missed concept with each student until every student is a master of every concept, but, DISQO can because everyone learns at their own pace.
• Accelerating faster learners. Just the same, students who naturally excel in a subject are often left to wallow in boredom because the class must move at a more sedate rate. DISQO gives faster learners the opportunity to explore subjects they enjoy in more depth, at their own pace.
• Pushing the pedagogical envelope in breadth and depth. It is our hope that simply by using DISQO, pro-active teachers will be able to easily develop their professional, practical teaching skills. Furthermore, we have structured DISQO in such a way as to foster rapid dissemination of cutting edge pedagogical theories and high tech educational tools. In addition DISQO provides a platform for the scientific testing, modelling and design of teaching and learning tools. Essentially, it provides a significant forum for putting pedagogy theory into practice.
• Providing cash and kudos for charismatic and outstanding teachers. While the incredible contributions of generous amateurs and professionals alike have brought about the remarkable success and value of open source websites such as wikipedia (our personal favourite) we would like to see financial rewards given to the teachers who put the effort into creating outstanding content that we all can share. We have also set up DISQO so it naturally recognises exceptional learning content and the teachers who created it.
• Broadening horizons. We ask the rhetorical question: why should a student's future be limited because of the community they live in or the school they go (or don't go) to?
• Fostering life-long learning. We believe learning is an inevitable part of our human existence, much like eating, breathing and dancing and thus something that should be as enjoyable as possible. We believe that with nurturing, our learning skills improve and learning itself becomes more enjoyable as we age. Furthermore, learning new things (and relearning things we've forgotten) as we age keeps our minds sharp and helps defend against degenerative diseases. It's just one part of DISQO as a forum for all generations and all cultures to spread their knowledge and engage with everybody else's.
• Giving students leaving high-school a taste of what's to come in higher education. It can be difficult for many students to know what they wish to do after high-school. We hope DISQO may offer students an insight into possible further study and the capability to make a more informed decision.
• Encouraging students to become part of the teaching process. Everyone knows something they can teach to someone else. We encourage students to create their own lessons once they have mastered a subject. Even if few people use the lesson, teaching is cathartic and one of the best tests of understanding. Teaching reinforces your own knowledge, problem solving and communication skills.
• Building a path for fighting for peace, justice, tolerance and understanding.

Our hope, with your help, is to build an organic curriculum that we can donate to existing schools and use as a base for small start up schools in developing and under-privledged communities around the world giving everyone of all backgrounds access to an education.

According to UNESCO, 75 million children still receive no schooling at all. Together, we can help make it easier to both broaden the reach of education, and improve its quality.

How can you help DISQO?

Below, in no particular order, are some of the ways you can help us make a better world, one lesson at a time:

• Use DISQO and learn something new (or something you had forgotten).
• Contribute a lesson, organise a course, or if you're feeling really energetic, a whole curriculum to share with the world.
• Spread the word.
• Find ways to improve DISQO and the lessons, courses, and curricula it hosts.
• Translate.
• Donate.
• Sponsor a specific teacher or organisation.
•  Be excellent to each other.

 "Every failure of humanity is a failure of imagination" - Stephen Fry