Informal Learning Ideas

In January 2008 Futurelab asked for submissions to its Ideas Incubator on the use of new technologies to showcase and support young people’s informal learning. As part of a series of activities designed to spark discussion about the themes emerging from the submissions, some of the ideas have been posted here on Flux (by kind permission of their originators) for review and comment.

For further information, including details about the three ideas selected for further exploration, please go to www.futurelab.org.uk/projects/informal_learning_ideas.

Index of Ideas

Digital and audio media

Multimodal Communications Lab

A web resource for non-professional creators of digital texts which provides interactive, dynamic displays of the range of communication modes available (eg text, typography, images, colour) as well as simple rules of thumb for effective communication.

Snap

Snap is a children's animation, creativity and sharing site.

The Young Person's Guide to East London

An interactive online guide to be produced by young East Londoners initially for visitors to the 2012 Games, and beyond that as an ongoing resource for local use.

RISE Radio

RISE enables children and young people to create and publish their own audio content. It allows the user to create simple podcasts within a ‘Virtual Studio’ and share them with their peers.

Future Film Archive (FFA)

FFA will help budding filmmakers develop and improve their skills by exploring the creative potential of archive film material and original content using online editing tools within a social learning network environment.

Audio Alchemy

For youngsters to download audio samples from a website in order to create their own music masterpieces and then upload them back onto the site for entry into a competition and ultimately, if chosen, to remain on the website as part of a visual audio 'map'.

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e-Portfolios

Me - My Future - My Space

Allows young people to combine interactive quizzes regarding themselves and their future, with recording their learning/skills/achievements electronically, to assist them in making their next steps into their future.

Muyou

Muyou is a place for children to record, share and reflect upon their informal learning.

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English and languages

Spelltube

Spelltube is an e-learning website providing a video-word library of 3,500 words, used to teach English spelling strategies; through short video clips of children portraying fictional characters, who represent spelling rules.

Dotty Rhino E-Books

Interactive publishing software that allows young children to personalise, edit and design an online wildlife book which can be e-mailed to family, ‘read aloud online’ or professionally published.

Speaky: showcasing languages

A tool to support and showcase the informal language skills of children who speak languages other than English, using a handheld device to capture out-of-school experiences that can then be shared.

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Games

The GOT Game

A multi-platform project and learning resource that employs an Alternate Reality Game where students enter an online world to become investigators, researchers and code breakers.

7 Step Project Builder

Using an interactive game to meet exam board pass criteria in art and design projects.

Sages & Oracles

An online fantasy world, where young people are rewarded for sharing their life skills and knowledge.

Planet Village

A 3D action-adventure, role-play computer game with online interactive educators’ tutorial, where participants contribute to game design, are empowered with self-knowledge tools that enable life changes, raise self-esteem, increase confidence, and improve communication skills.

The Big Hunt!

Using online gaming and GPS to encourage kids to share knowledge and promote informal peer-to-peer learning.

Real Life

Real Life is an immersive virtual city and massive multiplayer online game that allows young people to test drive their lives and careers, providing them with the knowledge and experience to make the right decisions.

i-Mind

A device to convert the mental process of concentration into a tangible feedback signal that can be used to control a game, an instrument or a process, as an aid to a positive learning experience.

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Humanities

New Pompeii

Our aim is to create a realistic, immersive, interactive simulation to place students in the role of managers in a natural disaster scenario.

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Life skills

Heroes iStore

Technologies utilised at innovative Careers Preparation Event (themed 'Heroes') enabling young people to build a personal career log (iStore) recording future aims and ambitions in a reflective central web-based resource.

Do It Now

Learners who want to be a marine biologist, animator, engineer, presenter, etc can start on a clear route that opens up access to experts, peer assessment, peer support and inspiration if they stick at it.

Emo

A resource designed to allow children and young adults to quantify and develop their emotional intelligence through game play.

LALASA (Language Learning through Avatar Signing Application)

An application to help deaf children develop and improve English and British Sign Language (BSL) skills through a signing avatar e-learning website.

Don't Bully Me - mate

To help children use digital technology they are at ease with out of and in school to help them gain confidence in their learning, a sense of security and emotional intelligence in dealing with bullying.

E-InsightPlus

An interactive programme which leverages and maximises the transferable value of key skills learned informally during voluntary activities, leisure or part-time work, increasing employability and self-confidence.

Entrepreneurship and Dyslexia

To develop enterprise, and reduce the proportion of failed small enterprises, by helping potential entrepreneurs who experience dyslexia to develop entrepreneurship/enterprise skills in informal settings, using the SimVenture digital trading game as a learning medium.

UFOOD

A multi-platform tool to help students make healthy eating choices, and understand/adopt healthy nutritional habits they will take with them after they no longer use the tool.

Learning Machines - DNA

Working with young people exploring how they can reflect on their day-by-day experiences, take and own the learning from them; and transfer learning outcomes to ‘Web-based Credit Bank' via a New Form PDA.

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Mobile learning

eee-Learning 'Free For All'

What happens if you give all students in Year 7 in a school a free mini-laptop PC with open source software, for use at home?

Mobile Digital Domes

To popularise the use of brand new, inexpensive mobile dome immersive video technology by clubs and community groups, as a means of supporting learning outside school.

ReacTickles Global

ReacTickles Global uses mobile technologies to encourage socialisation for children who may be otherwise socially excluded, through playful experimentation with visual phenomena, created on the device by the child and shared via an online gallery.

Dream Catcher

A magic PSP that can capture young children's dreams by recording their creative play and imaginary worlds, opening up powerful channels of shared communication and learning with parents, other children, and early years professionals.

Bluetooth application development

I would like to experiment with currently available software developers to use content by Bluetooth on phones

Help-me-out

Two students, at home, discuss a school topic using a video mobile phone, with text-based suggestions appearing moment-by-moment (like subtitles) to help with understanding of the other person and the topic being discussed.

e-Aliens (Enquiring Aliens)

On mobile phones, the pupils nurture twin aliens from egg to adulthood, caring for their physical and mental needs by teaching it about the world, sharing their informal learning from enquiry.

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Science and engineering

Minty Science

I am developing a computer-based 3D virtual environment which models the laws of nature with sufficient accuracy that the laws of behaviour can be relaxed.

science.TV

science.TV is a video-sharing community which opens up science to all, which encourages young people to think for themselves and to get involved. It's about exchanging ideas and engaging in what science is really about - exploration and discovery.

Abstract Science

This project idea is a course for young people to utilise sound capture and manipulation from imaginative recorded sources to produce mind-boggling musical masterpieces, creating compositions and developing live acts with sound textures.

SpimeDesign

Hardware and software to allow the designing and making of electronic products with 21st century capabilities including programmability, identity, embedded control, location awareness, spatial awareness, environmental awareness and a wide range of communication capabilities.

Greenpower Hub School

To further enhance the Greenpower Electric Car Racing experience for pupils from Year 5 to Year 13 by designing, building and testing a range of vehicles and using both new and old technologies to enhance performance.

Podcasting University Lectures Science Education (PULSE)

Our goal is to provide science-based lectures and podcasts to foster discussion between scientists and the general public to allow the public to engage with science.

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Social networking

Curriculus

Design and share your own curriculum and find suitable learning materials to support it.

World Choir

Create a World Choir based on social networks - managed and created by young people outside of school, utilising digital social networking sites/mobile technology.

ShoutBox!

A mobile/web crossover tool to collate and publish informal learning based content which provides structural themes and categories to aid their recognition.

StepUp

StepUp is an online social media application that supports children and young people's learning outside of school through helping them develop and share skills and knowledge.

Digital Explorer

Build a digital media hosting and blogging service designed specifically for pupils and teachers to record fieldwork and overseas expeditions and projects - meaning that other pupils can join virtually and participants can share and reflect.

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Virtual and online learning

MyPlanet

An online virtual world which is interactive, rewarding, relevant, unique, innovative, exciting and fun.

MyNews

An open source web part for learning platforms that provides a log of informal extra-curricular learning for students to share, and educators to access in order to support the activities and inform learning in school.

HHS TV

An online TV station that provides access to video and audio media which reflects all projects within curriculum areas to support student learning, encourage personalised learning and to act as a teaching and learning resource.

The Outside Inside

A virtual forest that grows as children add their wildlife experiences to it - with faces as the buds of the trees, these faces are portals to the experiences of the visitors to Folly Farm.

The Alchemy Project

To establish a state-of-the-art teaching and learning resource that will employ a unique blend of techniques and practices borrowed from the digital arts, cinematography and traditional theatre to fashion an environment that nurtures a commitment to, and an enthusiasm for learning.

Vialogue – virtual dialogue

Vialogue is the fusion of existing internet-based video chat technology and the methodology of philosophical dialogue to create a platform for structured, facilitated interaction with groups of young people who share common interests.

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