OWLET project overview

OpenWorld Learning

Mission Statement

OpenWorld Learning (OWL) supports children’s school success by tapping the power of digital technology and peer teaching to develop leadership and ignite a love of learning.

OWL Programs

• Elementary after-school programs
• Middle school elective classes

Partner:

In February 2016, after two years as a middle school technology instructor with OWL,

and recognizing similar struggles across all 3 schools,

I tried to learn as much as I could about my fellow middle school OWL teachers' experiences, and got everyone together to brainstorm what was working / how things could be improved.

There are so many facets to this -- behavior management, school culture, lack of resources and support structures, students' home lives, etc --

Motivation:

But one thing we do have some control over is the curriculum content and how we deliver it.*

And all of us had observed ways in which curriculum content & delivery (done right) could mitigate those other factors that lie outside of our control.

*Technology as a K-12 subject has managed to evade the overhead of Common Core Standards. We are all just figuring it out as we go. So, how can we apply & share our learnings?

Motivation (cont'd):

Owlet was born somewhere inside this question.

Page 1/18

We learned:
Format Matters

<= OWL curriculum (meant to be self-guided)

Kids are frustrated by this format.

Adults are frustrated by this format.

The teacher gets really good at explaining the instructions over & over again, instead of helping students build on it.

1. Students learn better when they can actually see someone do that thing on the computer
    
2. Most students (kids and adults alike) need to see/do that thing multiple times to understand it well
    
3. When students understand a thing well enough to use it for their own purposes, they are much more likely to engage with that thing

Learnings continued

OWLET aims to get them here,

by facilitating 1 & 2

A start:

http://owlet.codefordenver.org/#/activity/#!30nd3bcQvKySasUSQ6AyMY

Every teacher has a different style

Owlet aims to be this link - not the class website.

The goal of Owlet is to deliver really good content, really well.

Empower content creators

• owlet-ui (Re-frame/Clojurescript)
  • ​less + bootstrap
• owlet-api (Clojure)
• owlet-chat (Elixir)

External APIs

• Auth0 (handles login)
• Contentful (CMS)
• Firebase (user roles/assets)

OWLET Technology