Copyright

Steve

Summary

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

Description

Muyou is an online community that allows children to record, reflect upon, develop and share their informal learning experiences.

Users are presented with a daily log that can be filled in with the details of their informal learning. The definition of informal learning and the decision as to what can be entered into the log is left entirely up to the child. The child can define a learning category such as reading or cooking and assign an icon and colour to represent that category.

The page contains a summary of the child’s learning in a graphical chart, providing positive feedback and encouragement.

Other users and interested parties such as peers, family and educators can leave comments and feedback on a child’s log. They can also define challenges for the child and determine the reward for doing so. For example a parent could set a challenge for a child to read five books and when they achieve this goal they get a sticker to add to their page or a certificate to print out and stick on the wall.

Discussion and collaboration around shared learning objects can take place. For example if a child is reading a book they can discuss it with other members of the community. This could also be done with a museum visit or computer game for example.

How it might be used

A child would use muyou to record and share their informal learning by entering items into their learning ‘log’. The items entered and the regularity of the updates is completely up to the learner.

For example, a child is writing regular entries as they make their way through a book. They describe how long they have spent reading, how many pages they have read and give brief updates of the story. Because other users of the system have read the same book the learner can discuss it with them. People such as parents and friends leave comments on the log. The learner’s mum has set a challenge to reach five books in the learning chart in one week, if the learner can achieve this she will be presented with a special gold reading medal to display on her homepage.

Another learner adds an entry describing a visit to the science museum and what he learnt there. He gets lots of feedback from his friends who have also visited the site.
Yet another learner does regular updates describing what she is learning to do to help her care for her sick mum.

Contact

stevensprojects@yahoo.com