#learning labs

Photo courtesy of Smithsonian Learning Labs

The Smithsonian’s distance-learning resources draw on content and expertise from across the Smithsonian’s 19 museums, nine research centers and 21 libraries. These activities are tied to national learning standards and can serve as a resource for teachers, students and parents across the country.

The Smithsonian will offer new distance-learning…

Week 216: Small Business Owners

When you only have one employee for your business, and that employee is 11 years only, you’ve got a truly small business.

A short video I was commissioned to make to showcase the talent and creativity of these Young Entrepreneurs learning the ropes of starting your own business. Here’s the link

More solar-powered Learning Labs to come online

In conjunction with a Think Tank discussing technology in education and classrooms of the future at Brescia House School, Dell has announced that it will expand its solar-powered Learning Labs across South Africa.This includes new sites in Cape Town, Johannesburg and Sedibeng that will be operational by March 2015. The expansion follows a successful pilot in 2013, and Dell will now have nine labs…

(Jen Humke, Victoria Wegener, Tene Gray): 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGRsPzscZDc

Digital (Open) Badges:

Make all learning visible

Connects in and out of school learning

Create learning pathways 

New tool, technology is still in development.  

Chicago Summer of Learning: 

December 2012 - Mayor approached MacArthur and asked how we could badge summer learning as a motivator for youth

MacArthur thought it was a great opportunity and partnered with Mozilla 

Developed Open Badger

Partnering with iRemix to develop Badge Kit (rolled out a DML - Someone should go to DML in early March!)

Doing something about summer learning loss, looking beyond testing, AND it's an opportunity for the kids

Summer was:

messy & difficult

incredibly successful

not as much outreach as wanted, but stuck toes in and got a taste of it (how's that for a mixed metaphor?)

Library was incredibly important - handed out by 20 fold the most badges - also have really broad reach

HIVE played a big part - they were already organized. Exposure to developing innovation. 

Backpack: open badge infrastructure from Mozilla, part of the badge kit. 

Organizations realized that there is fantastic programming from across the city.  They don't have to do this work on their own.  Lighting up pathways so that young people can see what's available in their city.  (Implications for Sprockets.  Is Eyenga on advisory board.)

Each badge contains data 

certain types of data:information about youth, program they participated in, info about artifacts, where the learning happened, what kind of learning it was (engineering? arts?), scaffolding/leveling up - did they continue to level up?, you can see pathways

it helps reveal gaps where we may need to fill.  

Outcomes for youth:

Showcase at the end of the summer. Any youth that participated could showcase what they created (performances, too). 

Teen owns backpack, and can decide to share with schools, employers, etc. 

Future of badges in Chicago:

looking at school credit - mapped badges to common core standards and next generation science standards (look at PASA and Billings, MT)

colleges for admissions

businesses for work experience

expanded to year-round

MacArthur decided to convene other cities (Saint Paul!)

Said, "Bring your libraries - they'll play an important role in what we're doing"

Offering workshops from January - May (who knows about this from Saint Paul?  Tene Gray was talking about it)

Creating a set of webinars (how will we be told about this?)

LA is piloting a train the trainers model

Align with systems that already exists - so it seems natural to the students

Today/Questions/bringing it home: 

Think about planning - beyond just your organization

Talking about implications on library staff: interaction with parents, privacy, how we are judging/assessing work and giving credit for it

Why would you do badges?

What are the existing initiatives that we can scale into?

How do we keep the integrity of badges if they grow too quickly?

1. Inclusive: Once/month programs for cognitive disabilities

2. Curriculum: HOMAGO sections, have a binder and can share PDF files via email.

3. International Partnerships: Korean government brought them in to teach STEAM curriculum. Korean teachers are coming to the ArtLab later this month.

4. Partnering with the Smithsonian of Natural History: Q?rius co-create programs together. Insect specialist bringing HOMAGO with bugs in Art Space (make buttons of dead insects, stop animation photos with dead bugs.) 

5 organizations working together:

Ohio State University: video production

Columbus Museum of Art (CMA): teen event council, drop-in nights (open studio) - ArtLab, use student intern to prep equipment for the day

COSI: designing a space - opening in Spring

Grant 300,000 for staffing for organizations, programming, promotions (branding - SURGE),  

Talking at DML - regarding software developing to track movement  of mentors and teens throughout the city. City Key.

SURGE network: programming committee - (don't want to plan traditional programs)