I-Corps: Digital Loft: A Learning Platform for Instructors and Trainers

气候变化、贫困和文盲等社会问题只能通过社会创新者来解决--这些人了解社会挑战的背景，设计新技术，并能与不同的利益相关者合作。要成为社会创新者，学习者必须获得解决复杂，结构不良的设计挑战的经验，这些挑战不容易由一个人在固定的时间框架内解决。这使得创新很难传授：个人指导是有效的，但昂贵;课外环境提供灵活性，但指导不足;课堂教学过于僵化，解决复杂的公共问题的时间限制。社会创新者可以通过社会创新网络更好地发展-学习者社区合作解决现实问题。社会创新网络：a）教会学习者设计解决真实的问题的方法，B）由学习者领导，并得到教师和专业专家的支持，c）通过地方中心网络在全国范围内推广，d）具有亲社会的使命。不幸的是，这种网络很难协调：协调员必须协调许多具有不同专业知识水平的项目团队，并解决不同的问题，以满足社区客户不可预测的需求。该项目将验证数字工作室可以通过教学启示帮助社会创新网络培养创新者的设计论点，这些启示可以创建支持学习者驱动项目的网络教学中心。该I-Corps项目将了解社会创新网络中固有的客户需求，并开发可持续的商业模式，将拟议的Loft平台商业化。对创新网络中数字工作室的分析将包括访谈、观察、调查和基于经验的设计原则。它将基于新的见解构建新的系统，并通过软件部署评估开发的工具和方法。该团队的研究人员，设计师和来自西北大学西格尔设计研究所，教育社会政策学院和行业的程序员在网络学习，创新教育，同行生产，网络开发和扩展教育计划方面拥有专业知识。作为一种新的网络学习类型，拟议中的阁楼数字工作室有可能从根本上改变谁创新和人们如何创新。开发设计成功的数字工作室创新教育的核心原则将有助于网络学习的研究领域，包括徽章，同行生产，学习的情况下，设计为基础的学习和在线学习社区。

Societal problems, such as climate change, poverty, and illiteracy, can only be solved with social innovators - people who understand societal challenges in context, design new technologies, and can work with diverse stakeholders. To become social innovators, learners must gain experience tackling complex, illstructured design challenges that are not easily solved by a single individual within a fixed time frame. This makes innovation difficult to teach: individual mentoring is effective but expensive; extra-curricular environments provide flexibility but insufficient guidance; and classroom instruction is too rigid and timebound for solving complex public problems. Social innovators can better be developed via social innovation networks - learner communities collaborating to solve real-world problems. Social innovation networks: a) teach learners to design solutions to real problems, b) are led by learners and supported by faculty and professional experts, c) extend nationally through a network of local hubs and d) have pro-social missions. Unfortunately, such networks are difficult to orchestrate: facilitators must coordinate many project teams with varying levels of expertise and work on different problems to address unpredictable needs of community clients. This project will test the design argument that digital studios can help social innovation networks develop innovators through pedagogical affordances that create networked teaching hubs in support of learner-driven projects.This I-Corps project will develop an understanding of the customer needs inherent in social innovation networks and develop sustainable business model to commercialize the proposed Loft platform. Analysis of digital studios in innovation networks will include interviews, observation, and surveys and empirically grounded design principles. It will build novel systems based on new insights and evaluate developed tools and methods through software deployments. The team's researchers, designers, and programmers from Northwestern University's Segal Design Institute, School of Education & Social Policy, and industry have expertise in cyberlearning, innovation education, peer production, web development, and scaling educational initiatives. As a new cyberlearning genre, the proposed Loft digital studio has the potential to radically change who innovates and how people innovate. Developing core principles for designing successful digital studios for innovating education will contribute to cyberlearning research areas, including badging, peer production, learning-by-cases, design-based learning, and online learning communities.