Is a Learning Home possible?

Is a Learning Home possible? I am hopeful that it is in some form or another. If you think so as well, on Jan 27 2009 go to the Project10tothe100 and cast a vote for The Learning Home idea of if you just want to be reminded to take a look at all the ideas which have been submitted, look here.

As an fyi, here is what was submitted for The Learning Home:

Nickname: FutureSpot
Idea’s Name: The Learning Home

Summary:
Get there from here - seamlessly integrate tech, nature, edu, econ, culture and society in the first / best place…at home where your family lives.

Description:
As caregivers for children and adults, bringing technology into the home in safe and practical ways is not always as easy as it may sound or look and so this idea was created to help with those efforts.

The premise behind The Learning Home is that the home is the first and best place to start the process of exposing your family to a world where technology, nature, education, economics, culture and society are seamlessly integrated. By combining the old and the new via simple and elegant approaches in common household contexts, the intention is to give your family a more robust and well equipped foundation from which to start with and continually make use of during their participation in the world we live in.

In order for The Learning Home future spot to be achieved, it’s vital to be committed to…

1. Supporting a never ending process and environment for learning and fun.
2. Putting aside time to learn about new technologies so that each family member (especially parents and extended family) are willing and knowledgeable participants when using technology to augment teaching in the home.

It’s your family and your community and your world…equip the dirt and plant the seeds.

Problem space:
Caregivers become overwhelmed by the demands from those they care for and this is due to a combination of rapid changes in technology, values, economics and the balance between the earth and its inhabitants. We have two incredible opportunities when manifesting a healthy world and that is to invest in broadly equipping our children to thrive and remain balanced in a complex world and to invest in deep collaboration with our seniors to create the world we are aspiring to...these are the future spots we want to get to. The Learning Home is the where/when/how to begin this process with our children by creating a safe, creative, dynamic and balanced learning environment within the home from the very early ages and to continually evolve these environments to match the needs which are arising in the world around us.

Who would benefit:
Short term: Families would have more opportunities to interact and learn with each other in ways which are going in the “right” direction rather than just keeping up with what’s expected. Communities would become more local again and find more productive ways of combing online and offline environments. Institutions of Education would be provided higher quality starting points from which to lead/educate/enable from. Businesses would have new areas to expand into and responsibly provide solutions for.

Long term: The family and the community would once again become a valued collaborator/contributor/director of the life-cycle of earth citizenship. The education/faith and work/creation transition would find an effective cadence which made sense to the everyday worldwide person. And the larger society would once again have areas which are world-common, grounded, and reliable from which to launch the truly incredible world-endeavors which we need to be ready for.

Initial Plan:

1. Hone the message / value-proposition for the different demographics which need to be engaged
2. Utilize marketing/community/social networks to confirm that others see this as a good investment and enlist others who are equally committed to assist
3. Create a well-supported presence / rally-point for this effort which enables partners/ folks already providing solutions in this space (individuals / groups / institutions / companies / communities / etc) to plug into and add to the visual / verbal / feed momentum
4. Discover-and-make-visible actual holistic and point successes in this space and create prototype projects which show how it is currently done, how it can be done and what are the unmet opportunities to be worked on
5. Create and fund cross-segment programs (e.g. “challenges” which cross from home to school to work and back) which add to the “how-to” repository and create self-funding/supporting initiatives
6. Rinse-repeat

How to Measure Success:

• Utilizing “The Learning Home” funding program, fund / implement / complete community + school + business (or any combination of these) projects. X to be completed and documented as best practices in the first 1 month, then Y in the next etc.
• Utilizing “The Learning Home” funding program , fund / implement / deliver curriculums which transition from home ->school ->back, throughout a child’s entire education career.
• Utilizing “The Learning Home” design prototypes, any new / existing home owner can choose to have these designs integrated into the design of their home.
• “The Learning Home” design prototypes are part of Green / LEEDs / Universal Design certification
• Toys, games, websites / blogs, software and sports equipment are “The Learning Home” certified
• Raise the visibility of existing grass-roots successes in this space and these would also be metrics of success

Who could make this happen:
Google Education/University + PBSKids + Ed.gov + Dol.gov. The goal is to create a consortia representing home + school + business in order combine real-world projects with societal policy makers.

Regardless who wins, hopefully it does good somewhere...always be planting the seeds.