Dave M

I'm working with language teachers who are interested in getting their students outside, learning from the languages actually being used in New Haven, and hopefully finding a way to give back to the community. Seeing local historical sites turned into pokestops in the Pokémon GO rush this summer was a real inspiration, but making those kinds of random discoveries in game environments into educational experiences seems like it would take a lot of work.

I've actually been wondering how SeeClickFix itself would be as an educational platform, for kids and adults learning from and talking about their everyday environments (in my case, for learning English and other languages)--and then, hopefully, wanting to get more involved. But then I also feel like encouraging a large number of students to start documenting signs, billboards, and neighborhoods where they're learning language in the community might become "spammy" here.

A couple of days ago i also discovered this place-based educational app called Siftr (siftr.org) from the University of Wisconsin Madison, and made up a fake activity to check it out in my own neighborhood in downtown NHV: record some of the things you like, things you don't like, and things you don't understand in your neighborhood. And then talk about it with others. This is what I've come up with so far...if anyone here wants to try it out too, please do: http://siftr.org/stuff-in-my-neighorhood-NHV

I guess the larger question is, is this a good space, and are there others, for just exploring, discovering, and learning about what's already there in our community, and what it could look like in the future? Without the assumption that those things are necessarily "problems" needing to be fixed? I only ask this here on SCF since it's already such an awesome platform for bringing people together to talk about what matters in New Haven.