We Are Building The World’s Second Greatest Learning Experience

You always know when you’ve entered an awesome learning environment because kids are buzzing with questions and actively working on projects together while an incredible teacher or mentor orchestrates from the wings. Unfortunately these types of classrooms aren’t yet the norm for all kids in all places. We’d like to change that.

While the world’s best learning experiences will always be face to face with an incredible teacher or mentor, at JAM we see the potential for a platform that makes great learning less scarce and more common for all kids. We’ve been exploring ways to transform screen time into learning time and we’ve discovered three remarkable ways to use technology to teach kids.

1. Technology as a tool to get kids interacting with the real world and their families.

As more and more kids have access to phones, tablets and computers, parents are concerned about the amount of time their kids are spending on devices. We worry that kids will waste their time watching useless videos or playing mindless games.

We’ve done something slightly radical at JAM. Rather than building an app that encourages screen addiction, we redirect kids’ attention offline. Kids participating in our online courses login to get ideas and brief instruction and then they turn off JAM, go into the real world and do their JAM projects. As kids work through our courses, they enlist the help of parents to record their videos, siblings to help build their projects, and friends to help them brainstorm. As a result, kids in our courses typically spend 10% of their time online and 90% offline when they are working on the course. They actually spend much more time interacting in real life with the people closest to them than they do on JAM. As a result, dinner table conversations become more animated as families discuss what kids have learned while doing JAM projects. The hum of energy that exists in the world’s best classrooms enters homes as kids invent machines made out of cardboard, improve their drawings, create their own animations, or cook their family a meal based on projects they’ve discovered at JAM. We are using technology as a tool to foster real life connections and get kids actively learning.

2. Curriculum to prepare kids for jobs of the future.

As change is accelerating and many of today’s jobs are being automated, parents are understandably worried about how to help set their kids up to succeed. In a time when careers are becoming increasingly unreliable over a lifetime, kids will need a new set of skills. Unfortunately a future-based curriculum isn’t yet available in all schools.

Since future jobs will all involve some hybridization of technology with a personal passion, we’ve decided to help kids fast-track their passions at JAM. As a result, our course topics don’t resemble anything you’ll find in most schools. Our courses are based on kids’ interests because we know that being passionate about anything will give kids a unique opportunity for the future.

Something fascinating happens when kids set out to learn a topic that they love: They pour themselves into their work and they have a lot of fun. Not only do kids create amazing things at JAM, but they demonstrate how the future of work doesn’t have to be unenjoyable. Instead, it involves laughter and the delight of experimentation alongside focus and determination. Their work starts to look a lot more like play. This is in stark contrast to how most adults feel about their jobs. According to Hired, 2 in 5 adults daydream monthly about leaving their job.

Finally, we’ve been exploring how to help build a few enduring traits that will give Jammers an extra advantage for their futures. Psychology Today reports that creativity is the number one skill for the 21st century. In addition to creativity, soft skills like confidence, imagination and independence will also be useful to any future career. We still have work to do on this front, but so far parents of kids in our courses are noticing a change in their kids on all of these fronts.

3. Technology as a tool to build supportive peer communities.

We’ve unlocked a few simple rules that help keep our online learning community safe and kind so that kids can support each other to learn and grow. First, we have a “don’t be a jerk” rule and we enforce it. We coach kids on how to give encouraging, useful feedback and if they don’t learn to honor this then we ban them from JAM. Second, the videos Jammers share with each other throughout our courses continuously reinforce what they are learning. As a result, when kids leave comments for each other they are either expressing appreciation, asking each other questions, or trading tips on how to level up their skills.

We’ve discovered that once you create a safe place for kids to practice they thoroughly enjoy the opportunity to both learn from and teach each other. One of our favorite examples of this is in our Invent Your Own Machines course where kids use cardboard and other household items to invent launchers, rockets, wind-powered vehicles and a variety of other Rube Goldberg machines. Because kids are building machines that depend on a series of chain reactions, often things don’t work on the first try. Kids are just as likely to share what didn’t work and how they fixed it in the videos they post in our courses as they are to share their successful inventions. In the process of sharing their projects they are simultaneously learning how to invent and generously teaching others what they discover along the way. This is the opposite of the experience so many of our kids have in the rest of their lives where their success is measured only by test scores and touchdowns. With peer support, kids have an opportunity to exchange ideas that help everyone to level up their skills and constantly keep improving.

Part of our responsibility as parents and educators is to lead kids to online experiences that will have a positive impact on their lives. While we readily admit that there are both good types and bad types of screen time, at JAM we’ve found a way to use technology to spread awesome learning to more and more kids, watch them becomes fearless to learn as a result, and to prepare them for a bright future.