There's a lot of learning through the Hidden Door

Transforming public spaces  with the Hidden Door Festival in Edinburgh

The hidden door festival in Edinburgh explores how we use disused and abandoned public spaces.  There's a vibrant  and imaginative feel, with both daytime and evening events populated with art, music, cinema, food and drink.  It makes for an ideal learning environment, and shows what you can achieve with collaboration, and a vision.

It would great to know more about the process involved in finding the locations and transforming them into these places of discovery.  For more information on Hidden Doors check out their website: http://hiddendoorblog.org/

Office Surfing

Office Surfing 

Yesterday was not a normal working Thursday for me, I piloted the Emporium of Dangerous

Ideas – Office Surfing and surfed at a brewery!

A little background

Office surfing – the dangerous idea …

Spend some time in a different work environment, doing your work or work as a host, welcoming a surfer to experience your working environment.

The host – Drygate Brewery
 
Drygate brewery, the host for my surfing experience is the UK’s first experiential craft brewery. Brewing fearlessly to achieve the exceptional. Their strap line ‘Open Doors, Open Minds, Whatever it Takes’ alongside their incredible marketing and design throughout the brewery, web and social media generates a great buzz and energy.

My Experience
 
Hitting the waves a little later than anticipated (after hitting a ‘shark’ zone by getting lost) the lovely Katie Nimigon, Events Manager at Drygate Brewery welcomed me with open arms to her work space, settling me in with a cuppa from their marvelous coffee machine. 

The differences in working spaces are immediately clear to see. I have the typical workspace set up – desk, computer, telephone, files, calendars etc. At Drygate the office space is certainly not ‘typical’ – there is no office space! No computer, desk or telephone as they move from one space to another with only their laptop to hand. 

What they lack in materials they compensate with in flexibility, multiple work stations, plenty of inspirational images stimulating the mind and regular face-to-face communication.  

Delighted with my new working station I settle in for the morning and learn from Katie a little more about The Vintage at Drygate (the restaurant and hospitality side) and Drygate Brewery. With a small team of only 6 the brewery all pull together and each juggle several roles and long hours. A great example is John – he is the label designer, assistant in the brewery and delivery driver –Drygate staff have a great energy and enthusiasm to attempt new things. 

So, what drives them? – Shared passion for brewing!

How did it feel? – Great, I thoroughly enjoyed it! I was taken out of my comfort zone giving my senses a new experience. Smell, chefs cooking up yummy breakfast and a small tinge of beer. Sound, the humming of the brewery and to my delight Red Hot Chili Peppers drumming from the speakers. Taste, delicious coffee and staff are often treated to the kitchen’s treats. Sight, inspirational designs integrated throughout the brewery and positivity of staff. Touch, back to the basics, with very little gadgets to distract me.
 
Overall experience – it has given me so much creative inspiration in terms of marketing and design and proved to me that stripping back to the basics can allow for a productive and enjoyable working environment – I may be rethinking my love for stationary and gadgets. I believe I could adapt to the Drygate work environment, although for some this style of working could be a ‘wipe-out’. Drygate really does ‘open doors, open minds, whatever it takes.’

Your wave is waiting! Contact dawn.brooks@cdn.ac.uk to find out more.

Is our leadership wicked enough?

Are you familiar with 'wicked problems': ones that are difficult to solve because they are incomplete, contradictory complex and resistant to resolution?     They are often characterised by efforts to solve problems in one area, creating difficulties in another.  They require different approaches, thinking outside  traditional realms, and a willingness to work collaboratively across traditional boundaries.  For a short summary on wicked problems watch this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrWbicvDLPw

So, what are the wicked problems in education and what kind of leadership do we need?   Find out at our leadership event http://events.collegedevelopmentnetwork.ac.uk/events/show/5124

Failing In Education

As part of The Emporium of Dangerous Ideas , West Lothian Creative Learning Network and Hidden Giants invite you to  Failing in Education: a conversation, A one day event exploring risk and failure within the education system. The event will take place at  Howden Park Centre, Livingston on Friday 12^th June. Please pass on this email to any staff you feel may be interested and apologies for any cross posting.

 

The event will start with registration from 9.00am will run from 9.30am until 2.30pm, lunch will be provided.  This event is open to anyone who has an interest in today’s education system. Please see more information below and to book your FREE ticket please use the link below to go to Brown Paper Tickets:

 

http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/1557056

 

Failing in Education:  a conversation

A one day event exploring risk and failure within the education system

 

Failing is an essential part of learning but does our education system provide authentic learning environments that thrive on risk, experimentation and failure?

 

West Lothian Creative Learning Network and Hidden Giants invite you to spend a day exploring failure and how it manifests within our education system.   The day will bring together examples of prototype learning conceived by creative practitioners, teachers and classes from across West Lothian.  We will also hear from education specialist ‘The Real’ David Cameron.

 

Over the last 8 months West Lothian CLN and Hidden Giants have collaborated with the James Young High cluster to explore risk and failure within learning and teaching.  The schools have established dangerous partnerships with 4 creative practitioners to unsettle comfort zones, intensify risk taking behaviour, and disrupt the norm.

 

The four groups have created experiments exploring risk within their context:  a nursery, P3 class, P6 class and the CDT department in the secondary.  Through these experiments the schools explored their own ‘risk thresholds’ and are ready to share them.

 

If you’ve ever failed in education or feel that education is failing then we invite you to join us at Howden Park Centre on Friday 12th June.  It might fail, in fact, if it doesn’t, we’ll be disappointed.

 

West Lothian CLN and Hidden Giants

 

The Business of Brewing: A Dangerous Idea for Education?

  

Thursday 18 June 2015 

Drygate, Glasgow  

This exciting event will celebrate the art, science and technology of brewing.  Hear from industry experts, entrepreneurs , educators as well as two teams from the college sector who are taking on a brewing challenge this spring, about the wide variety of knowledge and skills that constitutes brewing, and how these relate to  education today.  Are we providing a craft experience in education for young people or do we take the mass production approach? This event will stimulate debate and discussion around the nature of education today.

Join Jamie Cooke, Sarah Drummond from Snook, Maklab, Heriot-Watt  and Paul Gorman at this Emporium of Dangerous Ideas event.

  

Why not join us for this dangerous event. Find out more information about our free events and book online here
  

Office Surfing- A Dangerous Idea for creativity at work

The Dangerous Idea ... Have you ever wondered what it would be like to work in a very different environment from your usual workplace?
Would you like to try it out and become an office surfer?
Would you like your organisation to Host an office surf? Would you like to meet people from other professions and sectors?
What? ... Spend some time in a different work environment, doing your work or work as a host, welcoming a surfer to experience your working environment.
Why? ... Two reasons (among many!):
1. To become more aware of the physical work environment, and the effect it has on your work. Does your workplace help you to be creative? How is the new environment different? What about it is helpful? Any ideas you could take back and implement in your own workplace?
2. To meet new people and have interesting conversations. The random coffee scheme that was organised by Education Scotland has put hundreds of people together for interesting conversations, and ideas have grown out of it. Benefits?
As a Surfer you get:
• the chance to see what working in a different environment feels like, and how it suits - or doesn't - your work and your style
• to benchmark your own work-space against the one you are visiting, and against best practice, and come away with ideas for improvement.
 As a Host you get:
 • feedback on your work environment from a fresh pairs of eyes, based on rigorous research rather than just personal preference
You both get and interesting and unexpected connection.
The Emporium of Dangerous Ideas gets:
• stories, photos and videos from surfers and hosts about their experiences
 • the assessment of what makes a creative environment
 • lots of great learning to share
Results of the office surf will be shown at the Emporium Finale in an exhibition of creative change. This will take place on Friday 19 June 2015 view programme and book online: http://events.collegedevelopmentnetwork.ac.uk/events/show/5200
.
If this sounds like a Dangerous Idea that you would like to be a part of, please contact Dawn Brooks dawn.brooks@cdn.ac.uk for more information on how to take part.
 Any responses should be in by Thursday 30 April 2015.

If you step on the green path you have to run!

That's the rule established by pupils who have designed their learning environment, not just in their classroom but throughout the whole school.  Any teacher, pupil, visitor to the school knows that once on the green path that winds it way through the school, they are obliged to run.  What a brilliant idea, and only one of many that comes from involving learners in creating a space in which they feel they can learn.

Professor Stephen Heppell  provided a very thought provoking lecture/conversation at last night's Creative Conversations hosted by City of Edinburgh's Creative Learning Network.  He gave amazing examples of  pupils and students of all ages creating and making their own learning spaces - both inside and outside.

Particularly ingenious was a permanent sign put up outside one classroom that read Classrooms of The Future - Under Construction, for of course they are ever evolving, and never permanent.

The finale fo this year's Emporium will be in the event spaces of CDN.  Last year we had the finale inside a Kelpie, so a bit of a difference.   But, the space is what we create it, and that's what will be asking educators to do - create a future creative  learning space, and exhibit examples of how they have taken risks, played with possibilities and shifted the axis in education.

Check out Stephen's website and be inspired: http://www.heppell.net/