CLIx Design Camp at MIT
Collaborating, sharing, and building were the key themes of the two week Design Camp that was held at MIT from August 3-10, 2015. Designed to be interactive, the Camp was structured to have a workshop format. CLIx participants from India worked with teams at MIT in a manner that truly reflected MIT’s spirit of Mens et Manus.
There were dynamic conversations and activities around a wide range of topics that included educational technology design processes, learning games, modules, tools, platforms, assessments and teacher professional development. The participants had opportunities to be a part of creative thinking activities and analyze design processes that included concepting, paper prototyping and user testing phases.
Prior to the Camp, participants took part in a SPOC (small private online course) that covered theories and methods involved in designing good educational technologies. This pre-exercise allowed for relevant activities and conversations to occur during the Camp, which in turn fostered constructive pathways towards next steps. One of the overarching goals was to facilitate team building amongst the working groups. The thoughtful design of the hands-on activities enabled a sense of community to germinate which has continued to develop after the conclusion of the Camp.
An exciting dimension of the Camp involved hearing from and interacting with invited experts who added valuable inputs in areas that were aligned with the scope of the project. The speakers covered a wide range of topics such as active learning, assessment, teacher professional development, cognitive psychology and its relevance to the learning experience. The featured speakers included Anant Agarwal, Melanie MacFarlane (edX), Chris Dede (Harvard University), Sanjay Sarma, John Gabrieli, Peter Dourmashkin, Justin Reich, Kathy Vandevier, Glenda Stump, Preeta Bansal, Jeff Merriman, Cole Shaw (MIT) and Sarita Pillai (Education Development Center). Their thoughts and ideas were well received and appreciated.
While the entire team worked very hard during the two weeks of the Design Camp, the participants also got to experience some sights and sounds in and around Boston. All in all, the Camp reflected how teams across countries can come together to learn and create in a positive manner. The face-to-face relationships that were built during the Camp will aid the project to move ahead in a cohesive and positive manner.
Here is a quick nod to some of the members who helped make the Design Camp a truly memorable experience: Vijay Kumar, Eric Klopfer, Brandon Muramatsu, Rita Sahu, Angie Tung, Judy Perry, Louisa Rosenheck, Jen Groff, Scot Osterweil, Caitlin Feeley, Ajay Sharma, Alpesh Mohan, Amit Dhakulkar, Anil Mammen Verghese, Anita Shroff, Anusha Ramanathan, Arindam Bose, Ashwin Nagappa, Bindu Ramdas Thirumalai, Binoy Vilakkathala Vijayan, Chandita Mukherjee, Deepak Verma, Himanshu Srivastava, Jennifer Thomas, Nagarjuna Gadiraju, Ramabrahmam Munjampally, Suchismita Srinivas, Uma Sudhir.
– Rita Sahu, MIT, CLIx team
Comments are closed.