Friday 26 July 2013

To do:

It's officially Summer here (the teacher's definition - school has finished!) so I've finally got some time to get things done with fewer children around to throw tangents into my thought processes. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy wandering along the tangents that children find - it's called child-led learning and often ends in wonderful discoveries and interesting things. I'm really looking forward to seeing what the almost 300 children I'll be working with in September make of my outdoor classrooms!

But I've got a few weeks where I can take a break from thinking about school and activities that suit the weather, so I'm going to try to get lots more work done on the project. My to do list is stretching every time I visit it, more things spring to mind in order to get the site accessible to all. For the moment, I'm going to focus upon making the site work for English speaking children aged 7-11 (the ones I have most experience working with). While I'm working on that, other members of the team around the world are working on versions in their native languages - sourcing websites with useful information and making them into links in our explore directory.

Another team member is currently working on an interactive game based around the concept of exploring to find information - I have a feeling it may be a while before it's ready to trial, but the bits I've seen look like they're going to be lots of fun! There is talk of making the game programmable by children so that they can create their own "room" of their local area for people around the world to explore - can't wait to see how that pans out!

If the trial is successful, we're hoping to rewrite information in multiple levels so that it is more accessible to younger children and those with learning difficulties but also so it can offer learning opportunities for children at the other end of the spectrum without the need to trawl through pages of information written for adults - a fairly monumental job! If you'd like to practice explaining things to younger audiences, drop us an email at contact@explorablestory.org

Well,  I've officially done task one on my list; write a (long overdue) blog entry. It's now time to begin task two!