(un)classes

Video: Dale Dougherty on A Smart Grid for Education

Wed, 07 Apr 2010 13:41:24 -0700

Video: Dale Dougherty on A Smart Grid for Education

Let's get that Seed On: Start Veggies from Seed w/ Vickie Tuite

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 19:19:00 -0800

With spring in the air, Bay Area gardeners are getting to work on their first plantings.

This past Saturday morning, Vicki Tuite hosted an unclass on starting plants from seed. Vicki is a Master Gardener trained in Oregon; she began gardening ‘recreational crops’ 30 years ago. ;)

We met Vicki at a park in Redwood City. She arrived with an arsenal of gardening materials: potting soil, a seed box with upwards of 300 seed varieties, and milk cartons and newspaper, both of which would soon be home to our seeds.

Vicki illustrated a truth that is at the heart of unclasses – the sharing of deep knowledge from a passionate person is the best way to learn. Wisdom poured out of her habits - from reusing milk cartons and newspaper to create planters to the way she opened a seed packet (just at one corner!). And even our most inane questions became fodder for a deeper lesson about gardening.

We left the unclass with cartons containing the starts of heirloom tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, padron peppers, bell peppers, mustard greens, broccoli, and enough sugar snap peas to throw a party - more than enough plantings to jumpstart our own gardens and the inspiration and knowledge to forge ahead.

Look out for follow up classes in the City soon!

"Conflict: In a society which emphasises teaching, children and students- and adults- become passive..."

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 14:14:10 -0800

“

Conflict: In a society which emphasises teaching, children and students- and adults- become passive and unable to think or act for themselves. Creative, active individuals can only grow up in a society which emphasizes learning instead of teaching.

Resolution: Instead of the lock-step of compulsory schooling in a fixed place, work in piecemeal ways to decentralise the process of learning and enrich it through contact with many places and people all over the city: workshops, teachers at home, professionals will to take on the young as helpers, older children, museums, youth groups, scholarly seminars, industrial workshops, old people, and so on. Conceive of all these situation as forming the backbone of the learning process; survey all these situations that comprise their “school” paying as they go with standard vouchers, raised by community tax. Build new educational facilities in a way which extends and enriches this network.

”

- A Pattern Language: Network of Learning

"Informal learning can at its best transform people’s lives. Whether it’s personal fulfilment,..."

Tue, 12 Jan 2010 11:29:22 -0800

““Informal learning can at its best transform people’s lives. Whether it’s personal fulfilment, keeping active and independent into old age, gaining increased confidence or opening a door to further opportunities, informal learning contributes hugely to the health and well-being of individuals and wider society.””

- School of Everything | Talking about a Learning Revolution

"Instead, continued brain development and a richer form of learning may require that you “bump up..."

Mon, 04 Jan 2010 12:34:15 -0800

“Instead, continued brain development and a richer form of learning may require that you “bump up against people and ideas” that are different. In a history class, that might mean reading multiple viewpoints, and then prying open brain networks by reflecting on how what was learned has changed your view of the world.”

- Adult Learning - Neuroscience - How to Train the Aging Brain - NYTimes.com

"People are good and trustworthy and generally just concerned with getting through the day,”..."

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 13:42:40 -0700

““People are good and trustworthy and generally just concerned with getting through the day,” Newmark says. If most people are good and their needs are simple, all you have to do to serve them well is build a minimal infrastructure allowing them to get together and work things out for themselves. Any additional features are almost certainly superfluous and could even be damaging.”

- Why Craigslist Is Such a Mess

"Unschooling, by contrast, starts with the realization that you ‘own’ your time, and have..."

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 01:03:56 -0700

“Unschooling, by contrast, starts with the realization that you ‘own’ your time, and have the opportunity and responsibility to use it in ways that are meaningful and stimulating for you. When you have this opportunity, you just naturally learn a great deal, about things you care about, things that will inevitably be useful to you in making a life and a living. Your learning environment is the whole world, and you learn what and when you want, undirected by curricula, textbooks, alarm clocks and school bells. You develop deep peer relationships around areas of common interest, once you’re allowed to explore and discover what those areas of interest are.”

- How to Save the World

Cooking with @steveray and unclasses

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 01:06:00 -0700

Hats off to Steve Raymond for teaching the first unclass in Los Angeles this weekend - ‘Cook More Often, Eat Better.’ The reviews have been off the hook and it looks like everyone had a fun afternoon learning about ways to bring great cooking into their lives while meeting a group of like-minded folks. On his blog, Steve shares his syllabi (reposted below) and experience as the teacher and organizer of the class. Also, check out Stephen Henault’s fantastic photos of the event.

Steve went out of his way to make this class happen and has the everlasting respect from all of us at unclasses. Awesome to have such committed, passionate, giving people involved in the community.

Rock on.

Cook More Often, Eat Better Part 1 - Free Legal Forms

Cook More Often Eat Better Part 2 - Free Legal Forms

Jellyfish FTW!!! - an (un)classes teacher featured in the NYTimes

Sun, 15 Mar 2009 14:30:00 -0700

Alex Andon’s Jellyfish Art Aquariums were featured in a NYTimes article recently. This talented, passionate dude is also the teacher of the popular upcoming “Sailing 101” (un)class.

(un)classes is all about giving people like Alex a way to share with others. Very excited to have him as an early member of our community and looking forward to the class!

Alex’s pitch:

I’ve got a lifetime of [sailing] experience. My first boat was a 7 ft. dinghy called Bru Ha Ha and I crewed on a 67 ft. luxury sailboat for a summer. If you want to travel the world by crewing, I’ll tell you who to talk to, where to sign up, and what seasickness drugs to get (all the good stuff is banned in the U.S.)

NYTimes: Tired of Looking for Work, Some Create Their Own

(un)class of the Day #3 - 'Host Events on the Cheap for Fun and Profit!'

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 02:47:00 -0700

Class Name: Host Events on the Cheap for Fun and Profit!

About the Class: How to go about creating and hosting social events for friends or business contacts in an affordable manner. Learn how to negotiate locations, talk to sponsors, and bring interesting people together for an unforgettable event.

Location: San Francisco, CA

Teacher: Tyler Willis

About the Teacher: My name is Tyler Willis, I’m 22; tylerwillis.net is an accurate representation of my life. I always write 3 sentence bios and like to include a random fact in everyone. I desperately wish Lykke Li and Radiohead would record an album together.

Hacking Education and the Power of the People

Sun, 08 Mar 2009 16:44:00 -0700

Fred Wilson and Albert Wegner of Union Square Ventures brought a group of leading thinkers, educators, and entrepreneurs together this past Friday to discuss the future of eductation. On his blog, Fred shared eleven key takeaways from the event and many of them speak to the core of what we’re working on at (un)classes.

2) Alternative forms of education (home schooling, charter schools, online learning, adult education/lifelong learning) are on the rise and we are just at the start of that trend.

3) Students will increasingly find themselves teaching as well. Peer production will move from just producing content to producing learning as well.

10) Spaces for learning (schools and libraries) will be re-evaluated. It was suggested that Starbucks is the new library. I don’t think that will be the case but the value of dedicated physical spaces for learning will decline. It has already happened in the world of professional education.

11) Learning is bottom up and education is top down. We’ll have more learning and less education in the future

Hacking Education (continued)

Teachers don’t need to be experts; they simply need a love for the subject and an excitement about sharing it with others. We think all of us are hard wired to enjoy learning and have a desire to share our learning and passions with others. ‘Regular People,’ teaching each other in coffee shops and extra conference rooms, are going to play a big role in the upcoming revolution in learning. And unclasses.com hopes to connect them.

Learning isn’t a destination, it’s an ongoing part of a fulfilled life.

(un)class of the Day #2 - 'How to Create The Greatest Rock Song of All Time'

Sat, 07 Mar 2009 20:48:00 -0800

Class Name: How to Create The Greatest Rock Song of All Time

About the Class: Using some basics of music theory, and principals of rock lyricism, structure, volume and overcoming fear of shitty sentimentality, I will teach you how to create the greatest rock music single in the history of the world. You will write it, and you will put it on heavy rotation in your car.

Location: Los Angeles, CA

Teacher: Joel Moss Levinson

About the Teacher: I win online video contests, and make my living with small scale music comedy.

A Video Introduction to (un)classes… (Okay, so it’s...

Wed, 04 Mar 2009 02:27:00 -0800

A Video Introduction to (un)classes… (Okay, so it’s a scene from the movie Accepted; but this is what it does.)

(via AcceptedMovie and @toddsampson)

Oops, we're global.

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 19:43:19 -0800

We’ve already had a couple requests to support locations outside the US & Canada. So, we decided to accidentally implement it. ;-)

It turns out the APIs we’re using to turn the value entered in the Zip field on the edit Class page into a metro area for our system to use as filters actually support post codes beyond the US & Canada. I’ve tested UK post codes, and they work perfectly. But, I haven’t tested other international post codes yet.

So, the bottom line is when you see the ‘Zip’ field, just project a ‘/Post Code’ on the end of that and (un)class to your heart’s content all over the world! :-)

[For those interested, the APIs in question are the Yahoo! Maps Geocoding API and the Upcoming API and you can check out a prototype version of the script we’re using here.]

(un)classes Lives!

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 15:10:00 -0800

*breathes* Wow! What an incredible ~100 hrs since Rahmin and I first started seriously talking about launching something for LaidOffCamp and 9:30am today when unclasses.com went live!

I’ll write a longer post later, but Rahmin and I just wanted to give a quick shout-out to the incredible team of passionate people who gave up their weekend (and Monday night) for nothing more than their excitement about this idea:

Tim Rosenblatt, without whom this probably would still be no more than two guys who don’t know how to code talking bullshit at eachother — Tim’s willingness to just jump in and put together the first prototype is what really got the ball rolling.
Michael Orr, who along with Corey hopped in to help take what Tim started across the finish line.
Corey Reece, the quiet guy who just makes it happen (fwiw, that’s the highest compliment in my book).
Marcus Harvey, our designer extraordinaire who gave up his dearly beloved Saturday night down the pub to turn my lifeless mock-ups into the vivid site you see today.
Todd Sampson, a real-life CTO who rolled up his sleeves and dusted off his CSS to make Marcus’s vision real.
John Sampson, another CTO who actually went as far as to slice up the PSDs to help Todd get the front-end done (because my attempts to do so were rife with fail ;-) )

FWIW, Tim, Michael, and Corey all work at Cloudspace when they’re not being roped into hair-brained side-projects by fast-talking city-slickers (enough hyphens for ya?), and will build you your very own kick-ass web app if you ask them nicely (with cash money, of course). I know, because I’m not just the Cloudspace fan club president, I’m also a client.

Ok, I’m gonna go back to work now. But, you should go learn something!

-jonathan

P.S. An honorary shout-out to Laurie for helping Rahmin and I with the DNS mess we created just in time for Russell to pimp us on his blog.

"Learning seems to occur when kids have to figure things out for themselves (or better yet, explain..."

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 02:21:56 -0800

“Learning seems to occur when kids have to figure things out for themselves (or better yet, explain them to others) and when there is a natural reason for doing so. Yet most schools today are organized around artificial problems and homework assignments and with everyone working on the same problems there is virtually no room for kids to learn from each other.”

- great post on education by my partner Albert (link below). My dad was a college professor and he would always make his students start class by “taking boards” and teaching each other. the greatest way to learn is by teaching.

Thinking about Education and Learning - Continuations

(via fred-wilson)

(un)class of the Day #1 - 'how to be a digital nomad'

Mon, 02 Mar 2009 16:39:00 -0800

We haven’t even launched the site yet, and we’re already getting some incredible ideas for things people want to teach and learn! Our deepest thanks to everyone who has chipped in to get us off to a great start.

This is the first in our (most likely quasi-) daily series highlighting our favorite submissions from the community. Here it is, numero uno:

Class Name: how to be a digital nomad

About the Class: a loose intro on how i became a digital nomad. what kind gear i use, how to decide where to live, etc etc.

Location: Vancouver, BC

Teacher: kareem mayan

About the Teacher: been living and working on the road since december 2007. lived and worked in vancouver, los angeles, cape town, buenos aires, and visited london, various cities in india, new york, toronto, uruguay, antarctica, and parts of india.

We’ll include a link to this class as soon as we launch. In the meantime, getting involved is as easy as telling us something you want to learn and/or something you want to teach!

Unconference Zen from LaidOffCamp

Sun, 01 Mar 2009 16:22:00 -0800

Open Space Principles and The Law of Mobility & Responsibility:

Principles:

Whoever comes is the right person
Whatever happens is the only thing that could have
Whenever it starts is the right time
When it’s over, it’s over

The Law of Mobility and Responsibility (aka The Law of Two Feet):

“If you are not learning or contributing where you are, find a place where you can learn or contribute.”

(via LaidOffCamp)

Rahmin Says: How might this apply to (un)classes?

Our first blog write-up (kinda)

Sun, 01 Mar 2009 16:17:32 -0800

Our first blog write-up (kinda):

Does it count if it is a direct result of me pestering Russell (as he discloses in his post)?Other than that, it’s actually a pretty nice write-up and will hopefully kick-start some buzz for us. Thanks Russell! :-)

And, don’t forget to submit classes you wanna learn or wanna teach to be included when we launch this week!

WTF is an (un)class? or On Diversified Living

Sun, 01 Mar 2009 09:52:17 -0800

WTF is an (un)class? or On Diversified Living:

A post on my personal blog explaining casual learning and why I’m so psyched for (un)classes.