Tom recognized that the eKnowledgebase would be a good way to teach advanced science classes. Sandra Cox, Lead Science Teacher at Red Bank (TN) High School, worked with Tom to pilot the concept in a Chemistry II class taught around forensics. The class was divided into Subject Matter Expert (SME) teams of 3 students. The students gathered information from the web, books and journals. All material was converted to the PDF format and the students evaluated the validity of the data. Customizing a template developed by Tom, the students populated the information and customized the template to reflect the subject. All students benefitted from the work of others by being able to search and read the material on the subject. The students put together a 1,000+ page searchable interactive eKnowledgebase on toxicology. The final for the class had the SME teams defending their work in front of a board of 3 PhDs. The students admitted that they had spent more time on this than normal class projects and learned both the subject matter and computer technology.

One of the students in the forensics class was smart but underperforming. The eKnowledgebase concept intrigued him. The next semester he took AP History and developed an American History eKnowledgebase on his own. He used his eKnowledgebase to help a group of fellow students study for the exam and all passed. This underperforming student has been admitted to the Honors program with freshman admission into the cyber security engineering program. Out-of-state tuition has been waived and scholarships granted.
Pat has developed a powerful eKnowledgebase template process that will follow a student from Algebra 1 through AP Calculus.  The student documents mathematical concepts and examples of usages at they learn them. By the time they are ready to take the AP Calculus Exam, they will have a searchable encyclopedia of mathematics that will prove invaluable. It will also help the students tie together the concepts as they progress through the courses.

The skill sets for the ePortfolio and eKnowledgebase are the same. An eportfolio is an organized collection and assessment of a students learning. An eKnowledebase is an organized collection of what is known on a subject.

We will work with a school system to implement these concepts.