Embarking on Learning Adventures

Here at Hyperlink we're packing bags, buying provisions, setting up base camp — getting ready for an experimental expedition:

Learning Adventures.

Do you have a personal learning project you'd love to complete this year?

Often the hardest part about learning outside of a full time institutional environment (read: school) isn't deciding what you want to learn — but the motivation to actually do it, and a support network to help keep you focused and accountable.

We're experimenting with Learning Adventures as a peer-driven learning club on Hyperlink.

• Independent learning — with a community of peers.
• Your own project and goals — with social accountability.

We think this will be a lot of fun — a great way to take a project to the next level, give it more shape and momentum, and generate concrete, shareable artifacts based on what you learn.

Our first cohort starts Monday, Feb 1. To join, propose an adventure by Wednesday, Jan 27. Details below.

What Kinds of Adventures?

You might be working on an ambitious project — writing a book, doing a long-term research project, building experimental software. For example:

• Nadia's research on open source communities, leading to her book Working in Public
• Andy's work creating tools for thought and experimenting with long-form writing and spaced repetition

You might be taking a creative practice to the next level — your own version of something like NaNoWriMo or the 100 Day Project. For example:

• Jinjin's 2+ year series of 100 self-portraits inserted into classic works from art history
• Malavika's month-long project practicing animation techniques by emulating favorite artists

You might be doing focused reading or study — going deep on a challenging text, open source curriculum, or self-created reading list. For example:

• Brendan wants to understand the foundations of library and information science, so he plans to go through an introductory textbook
• Malavika wants to learn new 3D animation software by completing a series of online tutorials and exercises

One other category of adventure we're very interested in: projects that explore ideas you're interested in teaching.

Any of the above adventures could be done with an eye towards building a curriculum to teach others. We want to encourage this, and open the possibility of using Learning Adventures as a kind of pre-Meta Course process to seed ideas for future teaching. To encourage this:

If you turn your project into a Hyperlink course or club in the next six months, we'll refund the cost of this adventure cohort.

Agenda

Here's what each participant will do in our month-long cohort:

• Create a learning plan
• Share our progress in group show and tells
• Check in 1:1 with accountability partners
• Join optional group co-working sessions
• Create final artifacts to share what we learn

Details & Logistics

• Brendan will facilitate this beta cohort, starting February 1
• This cohort will meet on Mondays at noon EST — let us know when you apply if you'd like to join for February, or a future cohort
• Beta pricing is $25 for the month (in the future it will likely be $50+)
• Commit for one month at a time; join again in a future cohort to continue with a longer project
• To get the most out of this, we suggest applying with a fairly well-defined project that you've already started to explore, taking it from initial "discovery phase" to a focused and structured "build phase"

How to Join

Propose an adventure here

• Please submit by Wednesday, Jan 27 (rolling deadline)
• We'll get back to you by Friday Jan 29 and invite you to enroll before our first call on Monday, Feb 1
• You can view the cohort details and full schedule here: Learning Adventure Cohort 1

Please let us know if you have any questions, or ideas for things we should try in this cohort! This is very much an experiment and we plan to iterate and improve as we go; we'd love to hear suggestions.