Specs for learning platform

Objectives of the platform

  • To create empowerment through making things to improve ones environment
  • To encourage confidence and mastery in computational thinking
  • To give people a starting point in situations where they see the value but don’t know where to start

Essential

  • A route or routes through the available resources
  • Ability to upload or embed user generated content (UGC)
  • Log in system
  • Awarding of points for UGC
  • Visual progress indicators
  • Design that resonates with 11-16 year olds
  • Badges
  • OpenBadge compatible badges

Nice to have

  • Ability to export PDF progress reports
  • Ability to use the same IA for different computing platforms e.g. Arduino
  • Awarding of points for UGC on different services e.g. Stack Exchange, GitHub
  • Automatic updating of content as the official version is updated
Specs for learning platform

Assessment

  • Users are awarded points for doing tasks within a sequence
  • Encourage users to answer questions from other users, this can be one of the tasks that points get awarded for
  • Points = Badges

Tasks

  • Asking questions
  • Answering questions
  • Uploading photos of projects
  • Uploading code
  • Commenting on content
  • Commenting on other people’s content

Does it matter if it’s any good?

Mitra’s “method of the grandmother” was enough to increase scores of children learning in a self-directed way – i.e. Standing there and being encouraging.

“I said, “I’ll tell you what. Use the method of the grandmother.”

So she says, “What’s that?”

I said, “Stand behind them. Whenever they do anything, you just say, ‘Well, wow, I mean, how did you do that? What’s the next page? Gosh, when I was your age, I could have never done that.’ You know what grannies do.”

So she did that for two more months. The scores jumped to 50 percent. Kallikuppam had caught up with my control school in New Delhi, a rich private school with a trained biotechnology teacher. When I saw that graph I knew there is a way to level the playing field.”

The principle is rewarding the activities that lead to learning as learning doesn’t happen in a linear fashion and a defined time.

Assessment