What if Collexion ran a school?

[Todd Willey]

Lets brainstorm it.  Think about what the life of a student (K-12) could be like in a school with a reasonable amount of capital that was run with the philosophy of hacking and experimentation.  If we didn't have to handle administration and worry about funding, what could we offer?

I'm happy to keep this on the list, but I hope that other people that are interested in this topic can be available sometime for a meeting, maybe Wednesday, or maybe Sunday?

I'll start:

More peer collaboration and less toil in isolation. The reason businesses start in dorm rooms instead of high school classrooms is that college is the first chance the founders have had to work as a team on a project of any size.

[Derek Eggers]

Great topic Todd.  It would be exciting to expand Collexion experiences for K-12 age. High scool is a great age to start a business.  ....especially if parents are still paying rent and buying food.  Mine even let me draw plans for thing on the wall of my bedroom.  

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[Janine Hempy]

Would the cafeteria serve square pizza every day? If so, I'm in.

I think a lot about educational style these days, as my kids are approaching the age where pre-school choices become important. Out of all the choices available, low teacher-to-student ratios are the most important to me. I want my kids to have easy access to mentors. 

On Mon, Mar 11, 2013 at 4:57 PM, Todd Willey <to...@rubidine.com> wrote:

--

[Warren Myers]

• haptic learning is generally good for any learner (not merely tactile ones)
  
• follows the mentor/mentee route | apprenticeship method (as propounded in Mastery (http://antipaucity.com/2013/01/28/mastery-by-robert-greene/#.UT5HqRxeby0))
• pushes personal responsibility earlier

On Mon, Mar 11, 2013 at 4:57 PM, Todd Willey <to...@rubidine.com> wrote:

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[Dave Hempy]

I’m in.  I think this kind of thinking could well be the greatest possible potential for a group like Collexion. 

 

I am kinda busy this week.  Which, in the general case, could well be the greatest possible liability for a group like Collexion.

 

Ditto the group project idea. 

 

Add in professional mentors  experienced partners and a little bit of resources that are difficult for younger folks to come by.  

 

Connections with schools, scouts, LASC, Tubby’s Playhouse, parent orgs, STLP....

Contests/self-contained events, such as (but not limited to) coding contests, 24 hour marathons...

 

Not restricted to programming, although that’s certainly a fine place to establish. 

 

Us old geezers shouldn’t decide what we’ll help kids learn and do.  We need to engage them in the planning.  As we learned at Idea Fest last week, “When kids grow kale, kids eat kale.”

 

-dave “eat yer greens” hempy

--

[Janine Hempy]

Are you thinking of a supplement to a traditional school or replacement for it? 

On Mon, Mar 11, 2013 at 4:57 PM, Todd Willey <to...@rubidine.com> wrote:

--

[michael culp]

This is exactly the tact we want to take with kre8now and in the other project i'm involved in Digital Fabber Magazine.  It's the educational side that's missing.  That's part of the reason why we want  more of a makerspace than a hackerspace and run it as a business with regularly scheduled classes and events.  The shop space is just the "Lab" for the training given in the classroom environment.  

We have planned several outreach programs with the schools and scouts already as well as working with some of the other crafts and shop training companies like LASC, Newton's attic, and Mudworks.

We'd really like for all of us to work together on a number of projects along these lines.

***********************************************************************

Michael Culp

http://www.digitalfabber.com/

http://www.dragonworksstudio.com/

The past is now part of my future, the present way out of control.

***********************************************************************

[ben jeffries]

There is a lot of theory about primary school education.  I'm not sure I'm qualified to speak about how to educate an elementary age child.  I'm not sure how to apply the principles you've outlined below in a way that very young children can learn fundamentals from.

 

Another aspect to consider is that in college, to a certain degree, you get to determine what you study and focus on.  I think that has a lot of merit. 

 

 

Finding out what students are interested in, and pairing them with like minded students should be a role of this school.   Mixed age mentoring within these groups to promote a flow of knowledge from the older students to the younger students.   "the best way to learn something is to teach it to someone else".  obviously those sessions would be heavily supervised, to make sure the correct information is getting propagated.

 

If i'm trying to learn something I want to learn about I Often find myself needing periphery information in related fields, and hence end uplearning about those.  I think that kind of relational learning could be useful.  It keeps people interested in what they are focusing on.   Like in school you learn everything in tandem; but on my own I tend to learn a silo of one type of knowledge then I get to a point where I need to move on to something else that is related to it.  There might be something to that.

 

 

Its an interesting concept.  In general I think hands on, interest driven, group oriented and objective focused curriculum might yield better results.  

 

 

On Mon, Mar 11, 2013 at 4:57 PM, Todd Willey <to...@rubidine.com> wrote:

--

[Todd Willey]

A replacement.  Nick and I had a great meeting with a principal and some teachers interested in doing exactly this.

[Dave]

--- On Mon, 3/11/13, Todd Willey <to...@rubidine.com> wrote:

> From: Todd Willey <to...@rubidine.com>
> Subject: What if Collexion ran a school?

> To: "Collexion" <coll...@googlegroups.com>
> Date: Monday, March 11, 2013, 4:57 PM
>
> Lets brainstorm it.  Think about what the life of a student (K-12)
> could be like in a school with a reasonable amount of capital that
> was run with the philosophy of hacking and experimentation.  If
> we didn't have to handle administration and worry about funding,
> what could we offer?

I'll start throwing the cold water now. One of the primary concerns
would be liability. Kids, being kids, tend to do Real Dumb things.
As such, they need constant supervision, else they do something
Real Dumb, lose a finger, etc., and the lawyers start appearing [1].

[1] Is Collexion incorporated, such that it could use the corporation
as a liability shield? Or, would the lawyers go after individual
members (or both)?

Don't forget that the public school system, along with UK, etc., have
somewhat of a limitation on liability via the concept of "Sovereign
Immunity". Somewhat.

Are there any rules regarding accreditation or certification that
that the group would have to comply with? I don't think that's the
case in Kentucky, although there are other states which have made
such obnoxious rules. But, someone should verify this.

Would parents have to attend with their kids? Or, would the group
be termed a "day care" with all of the rules associated with that?

What kinds of things would/could we teach? Would there be any
moral/ethical obligations? What if a kid wants to learn how to
formulate explosives? Agriculture (as in "grow-op")? Computer
programming (as in hacking)?

Ok, I'll turn the cold water off (for now).

> I'm happy to keep this on the list, but I hope that other people
> that are interested in this topic can be available sometime for a
> meeting, maybe Wednesday, or maybe Sunday?
>
> I'll start:
>
> More peer collaboration and less toil in isolation. The reason
> businesses start in dorm rooms instead of high school classrooms
> is that college is the first chance the founders have had to work
> as a team on a project of any size.

Would it be desirable to form a team to do something big and
ambitious?

One group that I was somewhat familiar with was up in Indianapolis [1],
which launched high altitude Helium balloons, with some rather complex
electronic payloads [2]. The kicker was they they collaborated with
the local high schools, as part of their science/aerospace programs,
and had the kids do all of the actual work, all the way from filling
the latex weather balloons with Helium, to launching it, to tracking
it, and even to recovering it (with adequate adult supervision of
all phases, of course). Sadly, that group is now defunct [3], but
there's another group that does similar things.

[1] Somewhat surprisingly, Indianapolis seems to have quite an active
scientific community, much more so than most other cities in this
region.

[2] Well, complex electronic payloads for 17 years ago, since they
were active in the mid-1990s. The payloads usually consisted of a
live television camera feed, GPS position reporting, temperature
monitoring (and altitude monitoring, too), as well as several other
environmental pieces of data.

[3] Rumor has it that they ran afoul of some of the FAA regulations,
since they didn't want to fly a radar retro-reflector as part of the
payload, and the FAA took a rather dim view of this (See 14CRF101:

<http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?c=ecfr&sid=8b5584c0cf53c0a4f4a5615491e1be66&rgn=div5&view=text&node=14:2.0.1.3.15&idno=14#14:2.0.1.3.15.1.9.1>

.).

--

Dave

[Todd Willey]

On Mon, Mar 11, 2013 at 5:10 PM, Dave Hempy <DHe...@ket.org> wrote:

I’m in.  I think this kind of thinking could well be the greatest possible potential for a group like Collexion. 

 

To make sure we're all on the same page, The first part of our Articles of Incorporation spell out our purposes, the top of which are:

(1) Inform and educate the general public, with particular emphasis to our youth, through workshops, special events, and general meetings, about technology, do-it-yourself culture, art, and craft

(2)  Network students, hobbists, professionals, educators, and business leaders to promote the formation of new associations and raise the visibility of the innovative culture of Lexington

(3) Promote the formation, relocation, and retention of innovative local businesses

(4) Attract students to the universities located in Lexington, and integrate those students in the local workforce after graduation

(5) Provide networking and mentoring for students and involve them in collaborative projects

 

I am kinda busy this week.  Which, in the general case, could well be the greatest possible liability for a group like Collexion.

Agreed.  But we *do* live in the age of teleconferencing and Google hangout.  We discussed briefly the possibility of "online office hours" for an hour a week where experts/mentors would be available for video chats, as opposed to always travelling to school.

[Todd Willey]

On Mon, Mar 11, 2013 at 5:44 PM, Dave <wa4...@yahoo.com> wrote:

--- On Mon, 3/11/13, Todd Willey <to...@rubidine.com> wrote:

> From: Todd Willey <to...@rubidine.com>

> Subject: What if Collexion ran a school?

> To: "Collexion" <coll...@googlegroups.com>
> Date: Monday, March 11, 2013, 4:57 PM

>
> Lets brainstorm it.  Think about what the life of a student (K-12)
> could be like in a school with a reasonable amount of capital that
> was run with the philosophy of hacking and experimentation.  If
> we didn't have to handle administration and worry about funding,
> what could we offer?

I'll start throwing the cold water now.  One of the primary concerns
would be liability.  Kids, being kids, tend to do Real Dumb things.
As such, they need constant supervision, else they do something
Real Dumb, lose a finger, etc., and the lawyers start appearing [1].

[1] Is Collexion incorporated, such that it could use the corporation
as a liability shield?  Or, would the lawyers go after individual
members (or both)?

We are incorporated and have a general liability policy on our garage.  We do not have D&O insurance for directors, but that is easily resolved and inexpensive.

 

Don't forget that the public school system, along with UK, etc., have
somewhat of a limitation on liability via the concept of "Sovereign
Immunity".  Somewhat.

Are there any rules regarding accreditation or certification that
that the group would have to comply with?  I don't think that's the
case in Kentucky, although there are other states which have made
such obnoxious rules.  But, someone should verify this.

I don't think we have to worry about this. We have some administrators that are in our corner and will fight the political battles for their kids.

 

Would parents have to attend with their kids?  Or, would the group
be termed a "day care" with all of the rules associated with that?

We could actually set up at school and provide programs as part of their daily classes. There is the desire to get the students engaged outside of school, so we'd like to offer them continuing opportunities with our club as well so they can continue to experiment and get feedback.

This doesn't mean we have to be in their class each day.  We can plan a curriculum where we kick off and do a couple of demonstrations and leave them with wikipedia and adafruit, then just make oursevles available to mentor them when they get stuck.

 

What kinds of things would/could we teach?  Would there be any
moral/ethical obligations?  What if a kid wants to learn how to
formulate explosives?  Agriculture (as in "grow-op")?  Computer
programming (as in hacking)?

Pretty much anything.  I'd stop shy of lockpicking, which is something we can do at our space, but shouldn't take into school. The class we saw had aquaponics (with grow lights) already. I think there is an opportunity to do whatever we want as long as we do it in good faith (including crypto).

 

Ok, I'll turn the cold water off (for now).

> I'm happy to keep this on the list, but I hope that other people
> that are interested in this topic can be available sometime for a
> meeting, maybe Wednesday, or maybe Sunday?
>
> I'll start:
>
> More peer collaboration and less toil in isolation. The reason
> businesses start in dorm rooms instead of high school classrooms
> is that college is the first chance the founders have had to work
> as a team on a project of any size.

Would it be desirable to form a team to do something big and
ambitious?

One group that I was somewhat familiar with was up in Indianapolis [1],
which launched high altitude Helium balloons, with some rather complex
electronic payloads [2].  The kicker was they they collaborated with
the local high schools, as part of their science/aerospace programs,
and had the kids do all of the actual work, all the way from filling
the latex weather balloons with Helium, to launching it, to tracking
it, and even to recovering it (with adequate adult supervision of
all phases, of course).  Sadly, that group is now defunct [3], but
there's another group that does similar things.

This sounds awesome.  They currently have a lot of cool projects (including SumoBots). I think building a solar car or concrete canoe isn't out of the question. Space stuff is great, with balloons or cubesats is in play as well, and we have a good relationship with KSTC and Ky Space to make that happen.

 

[1] Somewhat surprisingly, Indianapolis seems to have quite an active
scientific community, much more so than most other cities in this
region.

[2] Well, complex electronic payloads for 17 years ago, since they
were active in the mid-1990s.  The payloads usually consisted of a
live television camera feed, GPS position reporting, temperature
monitoring (and altitude monitoring, too), as well as several other
environmental pieces of data.

[3] Rumor has it that they ran afoul of some of the FAA regulations,
since they didn't want to fly a radar retro-reflector as part of the
payload, and the FAA took a rather dim view of this (See 14CRF101:

<http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?c=ecfr&sid=8b5584c0cf53c0a4f4a5615491e1be66&rgn=div5&view=text&node=14:2.0.1.3.15&idno=14#14:2.0.1.3.15.1.9.1>

.).

--

Dave

[Kent Lewis]

This is an awesome conversation. Currently out an about but will comment on this a later time. Brad and I have been discussing this and is one f the sole reasons why we started IF Kids. The creativity and like-minded learning could be awesome. Newtons Attic falls into this as well. 

If we could combine forces, the potential could be explosive. 

-Kent

Typed by my thumbs.

[michael culp]

There's also a collaborative school in the works to be built on UK's campus.  It's a high school that will be run jointly by both Fayette County and UK. http://www.kentucky.com/2012/09/10/2331580/fayette-schools-university-of.html  

***********************************************************************

Michael Culp

http://www.kre8now.com

http://www.digitalfabber.com/

http://www.dragonworksstudio.com/

The past is now part of my future, the present way out of control.

***********************************************************************

[Thomas D'Andrea Jr.]

2 years ago a UK professor was going to put together a NFP to provide math tutoring at the libraries, and I was collaborating with him to set it up, and all of a sudden all communication stopped.

[Kent Lewis]

Have you heard of this school?? I was thinking how cool it would be to build one here. 

Tinkering School: Think, Make,Tinker!

www.tinkeringschool.com/

Don't forget that Brightworks is hosting Tinkering School: Day Camp all summer long.

-Kent

Typed by my thumbs.

[Ashley Greer Wilson]

There's a great set of people in UK's instructional design department who are doing just that... studying how to teach kids about programming. It be good to contact them for some advise or even partnership. Let me know if you want the info.

-Ashley

[Christopher Yeager]

Fun thread.  Been thinking about this some time...
Liability aside, sumo robots and solar cars are great projects, could even make great classes, but fundamentals are critical.
Mathematics, Reading, Writing ... not to mention ...

History, World Culture, Music, Art, Political Science, Foreign Languages, Geography, Chemistry, Biology, Physics...

And don't forget one needs to train the body just as much the mind...

baseball, soccer, basketball, football, archery, gymnastics, dancing, fencing, wrestling, volleyball, track & field,...

But you could take a different approach on things with classes like:  **maybe schools offer these kinds of classes now, but they didn't when I went. :) **

Food Science & Culture: (Baking bread, pasteurization, making cheese, collecting honey, butchering meat, food toxicity, raising chickens, why foods became prevalent in certain geographies)   

Early Situated Computing: **Blend of programming / biology / philosophy of mind / electronics** (Computing based on environmental conditions and stimuli, mobile robotics, space probes, spiders & insects, ...)

Physics of the 18th and 19th Century (Early Transitional Physics, Electrostatics, Thermodynamics, Mechanics, Electricity, radio...the arguments, the experiments, the people)

Biologically Inspired Engineering: Drawing engineering principles and designs from the world around us.  Topics include materials, mechanics, construction, assembly, camouflage, communication, security, computing.

-Yeager

[Dave Hempy]

Finally got their website to load this morning.  Here’s a four-minute TED talk about their school worth watching: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/gever_tulley_s_tinkering_school_in_action.html

 

-dave

[Charlie Campbell]

I don't know folks.

As others have pointed out, there are a myriad of educational institutions whose entire mission is to offer channels for educators to bring things like this to students.

The concept is that they providing the expertise and support in running an educational organization (and sometimes pay for teachers, offer free classes for students, etc.). They deal with the liabilities and logistics.

When this sort of structure works well, the teachers are able to focus on their sharing their expertise - while folks with certifications, degrees, and established careers in education provide them with support and guidance. 

To be fair, I can see the appeal of organizing courses yourself - but most of the organizations I mention allow and encourage this of their teachers.

I just wanted to reiterate that there are entire non-profit entities (very good ones) with established track records of supporting talented teachers who want to bring this sort of thing to students.

Granted, coding isn't supported well in our community - that's the golden opportunity for an amazing group such as Collexion.

Full disclosure: I'm married to the arts education coordinator of the Living Arts & Science Center.

--

Charlie Campbell

charliecampbell.net

facebook.com/hellocharlie

(cell) 859.539.5978

[Charlie Campbell]

Boy... riddling a statement like this with grammatical errors sure hurts an argument. :-)

--

Charlie Campbell

charliecampbell.net

facebook.com/hellocharlie

(cell) 859.539.5978

[Dave Hempy]

Thanks for sharing some good info, Charlie. 

 

Perhaps partnering with these established orgs (skilled at running a robust educational environment) to share our particular technogeekist skillset and perspective on things is a good starting ground.  Getting this Arduino class going with LASC is a great move.  We’d be well off to demonstrate success at a single course before creating our own school.  And maybe we’ll find that’s a better fit than creating our own structure. 

 

I’ve looked at LASC’s web site a few months ago, but beyond that I know little-to-nothing about it.  Maybe we could invite ourselves to a one-hour meeting to tour the facility, learn what makes it tick, and explore what Collexion could give to the kids at LASC?

 

Beyond LASC, what are the other organizations are you refering to, Charlie? 

 

-dave

[Dave Hempy]

I love the Tinker Camp rules, especially #3:

 

Rules Of Tinkering School:
#1 Don't hurt yourself, or anyone else.
#2 If you see a piece of fruit, and you want it, you must eat it.
#3 If two people want the same item, the dispute is resolved by ro-sham-bo.
#4 If you willfully hit someone else with the intent to hurt them, you will be expelled.

(Ref:  http://www.tinkeringschool.com/about/what_is_tinkeringschool.php )

 

 

...although I question the compatibility of #3 and #4...

[Janine Hempy]

#2 could be renamed "The Pac-Man Principle."

What is the correct spelling of rochambeaux?

[Charlie Campbell]

The most prominent in Lexington are:

The Carnegie Center

The Living Arts & Science Center

The Explorium

I'll bet I'm forgetting more. Todd and Nick have met with at least one of these organizations already.

I won't advocate for one over the other but they have various levels of access to technology resources. Some have nice, full computer labs, others have a handful of laptops.

I hear from my MST student friends and some librarians that the public library is exploring the idea of a hackerspace as well. 

--

Charlie Campbell

charliecampbell.net

facebook.com/hellocharlie

(cell) 859.539.5978

On Tue, Mar 12, 2013 at 9:22 AM, Dave Hempy <DHe...@ket.org> wrote:

[Janine Hempy]

I'm not familiar with any of these organizations, so thanks for listing them. Do we have contacts there already?

I think it would be interesting to see a matrix of local organizations already doing something similar to the idea Todd tossed out for discussion, what ages they target, what resources they provide, and what resources they lack. Maybe we could find a niche that suits Collexion well if we consider those last two columns.

[Todd Willey]

Right.  The program we toured and got interested in in is in no way collexion-only, but I did want to brainstorm it that way so that we could get a feel for what we offer and how we fit into the whole.

[Todd Willey]

On Tue, Mar 12, 2013 at 8:29 AM, Christopher Yeager <christophe...@gmail.com> wrote:

Fun thread.  Been thinking about this some time...
Liability aside, sumo robots and solar cars are great projects, could even make great classes, but fundamentals are critical.
Mathematics, Reading, Writing ... not to mention ...

History, World Culture, Music, Art, Political Science, Foreign Languages, Geography, Chemistry, Biology, Physics...

Does Lojban count as a foreign language? I would have been all over it in highschool, and I wish I could devote time to it now.

[Kent Lewis]

Couple of things:

We need to make sure we understand the rules & logistics around dealing with K - 12.  There are so many underlying rules & regulations that we found out during IF Youth even up to the photography so just need to make sure we keep that in mind.  

Also - I am 100% in on the idea - need to make sure we coordinate with the current schools, that we are not trying to oust them but more educate our students for the real world. We are also not killing their creativity, so if they want to do spoken poetry or build a fire breathing dragon, then they can do it and learn math, physics, engineering, marketing, presentation skills, etc. in the process.    

I would love to work on getting progressive companies like Lego, Salesforce, Google involved to sponsor some of the learning and creation ideas.

This has the potential to be AMAZING!!!!  

Todd, 

Can we add Brad Clark to this conversation?

Thanks, 

Kent

[Christopher Cprek]

Hey Collexion,

Chris from LVL1 here. I'm a finalist in Louisville's 55,000 Degrees
Innovation in Education prize, with a proposal to create Makerspaces
in schools as after-school programs. There's really too much
information to relay without hitting you with an essay of text, so
I'll keep it brief. Currently, KCD school is developing a Makerspace
in their school / curriculum and have already gotten 3D printers and
laser cutters coming in. A couple of other schools are in motion and
going through the process of bootstrapping Makerspaces. And I've been
mentoring middle school girls in the west end of Louisville with 3D
printing curriculum.

I've started a MakerEd meeting group that meets every month at LVL1
for educators interested in Maker education. This is a great way to
pull in educators and show them directly the benefits of a Makerspace.
They can also talk about what works for them and the challenges of
creating Maker curriculum. I'd highly encourage you form a Lexington
MakerEd group. From my experience, a regular group meeting like this
is the best way to start coordinating with educators directly.

Needless to say, I'd be interested in collaborating with anyone here
if this project gets legs. Feel free to reach out to me.

You guys should definitely reach out to Newton's Attic. And I know
Fayette County Public Schools is opening a small STEAM high school
next year. The principals name is Tina Stevenson and I'm sure she'd be
delighted to know Collexion is a resource in Lexington.

Warmest regards,
Chris

[Charlie Campbell]

This is awesome, Chris. Thanks for sharing.

--

Charlie Campbell

charliecampbell.net

facebook.com/hellocharlie

(cell) 859.539.5978

[Todd Willey]

Just CC him in.  I don't have his email yet :(

[Todd Willey]

Good luck in netting the prize. I absolutely would love to have a open sourced curriculum that we can all embrace and modify for our own programs. We'll be working to develop better connections over  the next couple of months, but any introductions you can make would be great!

-todd[1]

On Tue, Mar 12, 2013 at 12:55 PM, Christopher Cprek <paxti...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Paul Eberhart]

Ooh! Education policy!  I usually just get weird looks when I start talking about education policy, and y'all are 30-some content-heavy messages deep, and almost entirely avoiding any of the "special schools to more effectively separate the educational haves and have nots" and "tracking kids into career paths while they are still in diapers" messes that unfortunately tend to appear when exceptional people start talking about education.  I am down for more of this.

Also, if change could be effected so I don't get functionally illiterate college students completely devoid of intellectual curiosity on a regular basis, that would be excellent...

Paul Selegue Eberhart (PAPPP) - http://www.pappp.net/
Messages from this account may be in regard to PAPP...@gmail.com, pse...@uky.edu or pse...@engr.uky.edu.

[Kent Lewis]

CC'ing Brad Clark.  Gifted Education teacher for Woodford Co. Schools and Co-Curator of IF Lexington.

Welcome Brad.  

Kent

[Nick Such]

I had a talk with Kris Kimel (KSTC/Idea Festival), Twyman Clements (Kentucky Space), and a few others on a similar topic last week. Passed this thread along to them, they may join in the discussion here.

Let me know how I can help! If there's a good way to start with a 1-day/weekend-long version of whatever this might become, glad to open up the space at Awesome Inc if that would be useful.

Also, the upcoming KidTech Summit (March 23rd, in the Louisville area) might be a good event to interact with kids interested in this type of stuff.

-Nick

[Kent Lewis]

Good work.  Not to be selfish but with the momentum coming off of the IF Lexington Youth Day, I think this is something we could play off of really well.  We have a meeting w/Kris and team this afternoon to discuss future and next steps.  There is definitely a huge potential for something special.  Maybe we launch something in the fall or particular a pilot.  We need to make sure we are truly looking at a school, a one day event is a good start but is it really enough time to be immersed.  For IF Lexington it works because it is more of inspiration and networking where for this, it is educational.  We need a space, a collaborative beautiful space that kids are drawn to do something amazing.  In turn, core subjects are taught along with the creativity they deserve.  

[Janine Hempy]

Back to the question of committing to a certain amount of time to help mentor the shorties...what would be the minimum we needed to cover to be effective? There's a big difference between 2 hours a week and 20.

And are we thinking this would follow a traditional school year, be an on-demand offering, or something in between? 

On Monday, March 11, 2013, Todd Willey wrote:

Lets brainstorm it.  Think about what the life of a student (K-12) could be like in a school with a reasonable amount of capital that was run with the philosophy of hacking and experimentation.  If we didn't have to handle administration and worry about funding, what could we offer?

I'm happy to keep this on the list, but I hope that other people that are interested in this topic can be available sometime for a meeting, maybe Wednesday, or maybe Sunday?

I'll start:

More peer collaboration and less toil in isolation. The reason businesses start in dorm rooms instead of high school classrooms is that college is the first chance the founders have had to work as a team on a project of any size.

--

[Todd Willey]

On Wed, Mar 13, 2013 at 9:46 PM, Janine Hempy <jhe...@gmail.com> wrote:

Back to the question of committing to a certain amount of time to help mentor the shorties...what would be the minimum we needed to cover to be effective? There's a big difference between 2 hours a week and 20.

Given that they'll still have teachers and peer support I don't think we have to be available anywhere near 20 hours, much closer to the 2.

 

And are we thinking this would follow a traditional school year, be an on-demand offering, or something in between? 

We should see what opportunities we can create, and how we can best plug into existing programs.  My guess is that in the 2013-2014 year we can do a couple of summer programs (LASC and/or elsewhere), and lead 4 weeks of courses in the schools, and have mentors continuously available throughout the year for a few hours a week.

At least, I'm happy to start with that as a goal and see how we can actually get the cards to fall.

[John F, Gorman]

I just ran across this web site. You might be interested -> http://www.h3xl.com/

John F. Gorman
143 Chenault Road
Lexington, KY 40502

Voice 859-269-3573
Fax 859-269-3500