About The BrightZone^sm Institute

The BrightZone Institute, Inc., a Florida based non-profit education technology research and development organization, is developing a consortium of education, technology, and telecommunication related private sector firms working in conjunction with its selected university and other concerned non-profit organization partners to eliminate our countrys Digital Learning Apartheid. Our mission is to enable our country's poorest English and Spanish speaking middle and secondary school have-not learners to experience equal access to at-home safe digital learning resources and to fully participate in networked educational collaborative platforms.

This consortium will apply its collective knowledge and experience in developing, deploying, and testing a unique safe digital learning deployment strategy that will leverage the cellular, WiFi, VOWiFi, and/or WiMax wireless technologies found within those targeted communities who now possess or will soon be instituting municipal WiFi and/or WiMax initiatives.

This deployment strategy will deliver to the have-not learners engaging safe digital eduBlogCasts containing BrightBytes (digital math learning snippets) that will focus upon concepts of mathematical reasoning, problem-solving, and communications concepts. This strategy will properly align the formalized learning environment of the schools with the informal learning environments (Personal Learning Environments) of these targeted have-not learners.

The primary educational benefit to the selected pilot communities will be a virtual eContent Mastery Tutoring System developed by the BrightZone Institute in partnership with a consortium member. This solution will extend safe digital math learning opportunities to targeted have-not learners via the system's Personal Virtual Tutor that is supported virtually by community volunteer mentors. The system's customized math eContent developed by our university partner will be aligned to the applicable state education standards for the targeted pilot project communities.

The unique eContent delivery device used will be a handheld educational specific multimedia computer device possessing multi-modal connectivity capabilities (cellular wireless, WiFi, VoWiFi, Bluetooth, and ultimately, WiMax). These devices will be managed by the BrightZone Institute's proprietary iGZMO device management technologies and will also be empowered by client applications designed specifically for the US public school education market for grades 6-14.

The research and development pilot projects will be conducted under the review of the applicable state departments of education and the US Department of Education in order to determine scientifically this deployment strategy's impact upon the improvement of have-not learners' math achievement. The primary outcome of this project will be an integrated solution that can ultimately become sustainable by commercial deployment utilizing current and potential future federal, private foundation, and community funding sources.