Skip to main content

The 20% Project

A recent blog posted by Mr. J, an 11th grade English teacher, and how he was implementing the 20% project in his class.  In the education today, we are so focused on standards, assessment, and meeting mandates, but what about allowing students to expand their horizons for learning? 

Mr. J came up with the 20% project based off of Google's philosophy and policy.  Google's 20% Time was inspired by Sergey Brinn's and Larry Page's Montessori School experience, where a Google employee spends 20% of their time (the equivalent to a full work day each week) working on ideas and projects that interest the employee.  Google encourages this type of exploration and has shown results of 50% of Google's products come originate from this 20% free time, which includes Gmail.

I have read Daniel Pink's book Drive, just like Mr. J, and I do think people need more than just the extrinsic motivation for just doing their day-to-day job.  Based on Pink's book, there are three things that motivate people, other than money when it comes to a job.  They are autonomy, mastery, and purpose.  In the 20th century it was driven by how high you could climb the corporate later.  In the 21st century, people are in search for things that will stimulate and drive their intrinsic motivation for purpose, while mastering their skills and doing it in an independent work environment without having to be 'micromanaged'.

Maybe we can try and incorporate the 20% project to stimulate new ideas and allow for innovation to happen in each individual.  According to Pink, in many organizations this is stifled and innovation is stated, but it is not supported.

Comments

Liko said…
Great idea for the classroom and the office!

Popular posts from this blog

Schools of the Future: Acquiring and Representing Knowledge

This year's Schools of the Future conference was an information-rich event. When we think of the future, more than a few of us probably also think of technology. That association certainly carries over in the interpretation of the conference title Schools of the Future . Indeed, many topics besides educational technology were covered; however, the technological advances were a strong highlight at the conference in my view. As mentioned in one of Cassie's previous posts , there are online classes everywhere. The first few links on my list reference ways to learn on your own (i.e., ways to acquire knowledge). The second set of links refer to ways of representing knowledge. **Note:  All icons link to the affiliated website.  Academic Earth has hundreds of free online lectures from prominent university professors, including Carnegie Mellon, Stanford, The University of Houston, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, MIT, Michigan State, Princeton, Rice, UCLA, UCSF, and the list

Geotagging

A "wouldn't it be nice" idea that's been around a while is the ability to tag a map with images that are linked to more information about the site. Kelly C suggested it as a way for students to share knowledge about a cultural/historic site or the geographic area they live in with classmates. (right, no addresses!) There are now cameras and even storage media that embed latitude and longitude into images as they are shot. But you don't need fancy new toys to do this. I tried Flickr's geotagging map and it's fun and supereasy. Want to try it? Log in to Flickr http://www.flickr.com Sign in as " techedine " password " wist101 " yea, corny. Click the " You " tab then the " Your Photostream > Map " or Organize > Your Map links. Click the Satellite link in the upper right. Cool view! (you may need Google Satellite downloaded). Images along the bottom of the screen with colored dots have already been droppe

Papa Kuʻi ʻai a me Pohaku

As part of our huakaʻi last month to Papahana Kuaola and the opportunity to work in the loʻi, I wanted to continue that thought by sharing my experience of making a papa kuʻi 'ai (poi-pounding board). In 2008 with the encouragement from me and my co-worker, Pili Wong, Earl Kawaʻa offered to teach a papa kuʻi ʻai papa to those of us that were interested in learning what our kūpuna did as a daily way of life. For our kūpuna they had loʻi in their yards and grew their own kalo, the major source of starch in their diet. They steamed it and pounded poi or kept it whole and sliced it and ate it like bread with butter or condensed milk. Kawaʻa was very specific on our kuleana and the commitment he required of us. Our first task was to find an au koʻi (handle) for our koʻi (adze tool). I found myself suddenly looking up at every tree I saw looking for the right branch for my koʻi. My husband found mine at a jobsite from a Haole Koa tree otherwise known as the Leucaena Leucocephala tree