SelfDesign Global Community
The heart and soul of SelfDesign is the SelfDesign Global Community where learners and families come to share ideas, collaborate on projects, and support each other on this amazing life-learning journey. After enrolling, parents and learners can access the Community either via web browser login or via FirstClass® client login. See our connection instructions for details.
Desktop
When a learner, parent, learning consultant or mentor logs into the SelfDesign Global Community, we find ourselves at our desk. Here we have our personal email and can access any of the conferences that we are working on as projects. When you finish your work at your desk and want to talk other parents, learners, learning consultants and mentors then you can go to the door and click on it to come out onto the balcony.
Village
From the balcony you can see the entire village. Each building holds different sets of conversations about various topics. If you are a parent you can click on the home in the bottom left hand corner and you can then talk openly with other parents in the village about ideas and challenges to the home learning parent. If you want to share ideas with others about learning you can go to any of the other buildings to find topics relevant to your ideas. There are hundreds of parents, learners and consultants participating in the village on a regular basis and we are linked to other home learning communities around the world and share ideas with them as well.
Overview
Most 'DL' or Distributed Learning programs use the internet to simulate a classroom and conventional schooling. This is akin to using a broadcast method like television and radio to send lecture information to a student and then use testing software to determine what a student remembers and understands. If we drew a picture of the broadcast method it would look something like this:
Our program offers a different kind of experience. We understand that we exist in conversation and relationship and that we therefore need a learning environment that brings people together to engage them in open ended discussion and collaboration, much as the villages of yesteryear provided; e.g. Leonardo da Vinci was identified by his village of origin, Vinci, in Italy. In the same way that Leonardo apprenticed with skilled sculptors and painters, our online SelfDesign Global Community offers mentors and draws people from all over the world to share common interests and understanding. Our model for learning looks more like this:
SelfDesign is an individual experience and, ultimately, an individual responsibility. However, we all learn in relationship and the quality of these relationships are significant in shaping our growth and understanding.
The SelfDesign Global Community is an opportunity for participation. The collective efforts of our learners, parents, Learning Consultants and mentors brings the learning community to life.
