A milestone event of the visionary phase of the C2Learn participatory process in EA was a full day cumulative workshop held on March 27, 2013.
In the morning we held an expert focus group session and in the afternoon we brought together the experts with the EA teachers for a joint brainstorming and co-design session.
The expert focus group comprised seven professionals and researchers in the areas of learning, games and youth creativity together with six C2Learn researchers (two from EA, three from NSRC-D, and one from UEDIN). The expert focus group session was semi-structured. A list of themes, prepared and sent to the participants in advance, were used to organize the discussion, with enough flexibility to allow substantive threads to be pursued.
The afternoon session brought together the expert group with the EA teacher group. The focus of this session was in two areas of interest: first, fostering creativity in education; and second, the C2Learn computational tools for supporting creative thinking, which were introduced to participating teacher in this cumulative visionary workshop by the NSRC-D researchers. Creativity in the classroom was addressed through an individual brainstorming activity using the completion of stems formulated on theoretical ideas from the C2Learn framework. Participants recorded their responses in the corresponding space of the workbook provided. The C2Learn computational tools were the focus of a design activity with paper prototypes, orchestrated by the researchers from NSRC-D. Participants in groups of three, mixed expert and teacher, were engaged in exploring computational aids that foster divergent thinking by developing designs to answer the question: “What could be done with such tools in a learning context?”
This workshop provided valuable information that is pertinent to the design of the C2Learn digital environment. In addition, it served as an inaugural event for the C2Learn community in Greece.