About the EDLAB
The Mobile Learning Institute at the National Postal Museum (MLI-NPM) EDLAB is a collaborative space for educators and museum professionals to explore and establish best practices for the use of digital media within the museum learning environment. MLI-NPM is a space for a community of educators including classroom teachers, museum educators, students in teachers’ colleges, and graduate students in museum education. The practices being developed by these educators are youth-focused, but are not limited to a specific environment. The practices can be applied to a variety of spaces including museums, schools, communities, and virtual platforms. The learning model of MLI-NPM is inquiry-based and interest-driven, challenging educators to be collaborative and creative problem-solvers —and most importantly—to pass on this disposition to the young people they serve. The MLI-NPM is a place to test ideas, re-test them, implement them with young people inside and out of the classroom, then share them with the wider community of learners.
Summer 2011 Programs at the EDLAB
Mission Possible: Reimagining the 21st century Classroom
What does learning look like in the 21st century? How can classroom learning integrate 21st century change? In this one-week workshop, teachers work collaboratively to solve missions while using mobile technologies and digital media. Using the Smithsonian and the city of Washington, DC as their gameboard, they explore real-world learning and consider how an object or a place can be used as a springboard for larger ideas like citizenship, communication, and identity. By the week's end, each teacher develops a unique plan for incorporating museum resources, mobile technology and digital media into his/ her own 21st century classroom.
Fall 2011 Programs at the EDLAB
The Education Innovators
This diverse group of educators represents a variety of fields including classroom teaching and graduate students in museum education, museum studies, exhibit design and digital media. In an intense self-directed 10 week program, these educators explore and research the museum learning environment in order to develop best practices for the use of digital media in learning. In order to support this development process, participants work together in “feedback groups,” and also receive mentorship from EDLAB staff and experts in the field. Participants are required to test their practice with a variety of audiences, refining and fine-tuning their ideas as they work. These practices are presented to a summit of education leaders, before being widely shared in a public social network space.
Workshop 2.0
As the needs of the classroom change, so must the teacher professional development experience. Workshop 2.0 is an one-day workshop that gets teachers outside of the classroom to experience active and collaborative problem-solving. These one-day experiences focus on specific issues or problems related to teaching in the 21st century, such as authentic problems, civic engagement, and 21st century literacy.