Author: Tammy Lane • First Posted: Wednesday, February 09, 2011

Peyton Fouts, a 2006 graduate of the University of Kentucky, developed the OuiBox software. (Photo: Tammy L. Lane)

Fayette County Public Schools is now partnering with OuiBox, a software company whose applications could boost district coffers and help students with research papers.

OuiBox is the brainchild of Peyton Fouts, a 2006 graduate of the University of Kentucky who spent five years creating it with assistance from about 100 consultants, lawyers and programmers around the world. Fouts presented an overview to FCPS officials Wednesday at their regular leadership meeting.

“Peyton is an exceptional young man who, out of the spirit of ‘giving back’ to his community, reached out to our school district to present this no-cost opportunity for the benefit of our kids. You just have to applaud that level of support for our school system and for our community,” said Jack Hayes, director of Student Achievement Support.

The OuiShop application has unlimited fundraising potential. When parents and students visit a business’ website through OuiShop and make a purchase, a portion goes to FCPS. For every $100 spent, roughly $1 will be donated to the school district.

FCPS also is considering how district purchasing might benefit by flowing through OuiShop.

In the classroom, several middle and high school teachers have already introduced the OuiWrite app, which links Internet search engines to research papers as students write them.

For instance, type in “The Civil War started in” and the Genius function fills in the date and place, with sources cited at the bottom of the page. Click on a source, and it is automatically added to the paper’s bibliography.

Whether a student needs MLA, APA or Chicago formatting, OuiWrite takes care of details like margins and spacing. Document types include not only research papers but also essays, book reports, letters and resumes.

“The exciting thing about OuiWrite is that it lets kids focus on idea development in their writing instead of the mechanics of documenting,” said Marty Dixon, an FCPS language arts specialist, who noted the new state writing standards are heavy on research and essays.

With this app, students can also easily compare and contrast opposing points of view on topics such as the death penalty. Another handy feature is that it flags plagiarism.

“Education is the cornerstone to society. If you can improve the educational process and affect how people learn, then you can change society,” Fouts said. “Writing is just the beginning. I plan to launch new software later this year that should transform how people learn math and science and an all new automatic curriculum creation tool for teachers.”

OuiBox also could be popular with students because it brings together e-mail, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, plus its own social network, news, calendar, photo, music, video and blogging applications. 

For more details, visit www.ouibox.com/ or call Jessica Cornett at (859) 559-6157.