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design classstudents work together to solve real problems
There's no shortage of pressing needs that make daily life difficult for the poorest people all over the world. And there's no shortage of students eager to make a difference. Plenty of university courses--particularly for professional degrees--need to address real-world issues within the educational program. Why, then, don't student projects tackle real needs? In part, because it's difficult to arrange. We want to change that.

The benefits could be enormous. Students would have a real chance to make a difference. Interacting directly with a community provides meaning, context, and grounding for the students' work. Collaborating and learning by doing in an educational setting build invaluable skills and insights. In engaging with student teams, communities, and a wider set of stakeholders, teachers and faculty invigorate both teaching and research. Communities that share their needs benefit not only from the potential solutions, but also from participating in the process of investigating, inventing, and implementing. The impacts of successful projects could truly be global. We are learning more about what it will take to enable and support projects for humanity, beginning with pilot projects that draw on existing resources and connections.

Organizations, communities, and groups of all kinds wrestle with problems that could serve as learning laboratories that benefit both students and stakeholders. Projects teach students how to get things done, work with others, test ideas, and translate from the academic to the practical and vice versa. Students discover knowledge gaps, spurring future learning and generating new research ideas. Connecting one student’s experience with others’ further multiplies the learning. Yet, projects are underexploited in university education, likely because few appropriate tools and resources exist to support their use or share the learning that results.

schoolchildren in IndiaOur digital learning innovation, Collaborative Projects Learning Lab, enables students to learn as they work on real-world projects. We plan to create an online community that relies on state-of-the-art techniques to find, refine, sort, and collaborate on the projects, connecting people and ideas and building on information. projects for humanity could be one way in which we finally realize the promise of new technologies to create a connected world.

learning to do

learning about others

what's new: technology to connect and collaborate

our network: people, ideas, and existing models to draw on

projects for humanity can change the world

about us:

Helen Suh MacIntosh

http://ecohelper.blogspot.com
http://www.treehugger.com/authors/index.php?author=helen

Anjali Sastry

learning from action



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