This weekend I was working in Hacker Dojo, a shared workspace in Mountain view and I found that I was surrounded by a Hackathon. I had heard of Hackathons, but since I am not a hacker, I never went to one. The idea is that in a weekend teams create an app or a program. This Hackathon was hosted by Flir One, a thermal camera that connects to an iphone.
Sitting in the midst of this group, I found myself thinking about project based learning, choice-based learning, game based learning. We have so many models we use to try to prepare kids for life after school. This can be challenging because as teachers we spend most of our time in school, for us all of life has been school. Now I sit in this giant workspace watching teams developing and refining an idea.
As an educator I notice some things.
- Everyone participating choose to participate.
- There is a real goal with a real reward. The top 4 ideas get cash prizes (5k for first place)
- The organizer supplied a list of starter ideas
- Most of the teams formed at the event, some changed during the event
- There is food
- There is a rubric
- Everyone has to present
What do you see in this that resonates with you as an educator? What doesn't fit into your model of learning?
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