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Originally Posted by folkypoet  Moominmamma, do you have a link or address for this? It sounds intriguing!
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SelfDesign.org
It's a pretty unique program. At the beginning of each school year, you help your child create a "mind map" -- basically an open-ended inventory of learning interests. From there you brainstorm ways of developing those interests and come up with a SelfDesigned Learning Plan, freely modifiable as the year goes on. It's just a bunch of ideas about how those learning interests might be developed.
Parents and/or learners contribute weekly "Observing for Learning" reports, which are anecdotal reflective accounts of what has been particularly meaningful about the learning and experiences that have occurred that week. The family's "Learning Consultant" engages in some supportive dialogue concerning the weekly reports and collates the reports into a school record for governmental purposes. And parents, learning consultants and learners alike participate in the vibrant "Village of Conversations", a graphical value-added website-type set of forums, documents, chat features, virtual chautaquas, resource links and the like. It's a very safe, social place that my kids love.
We also get $1000 Cdn per year to fund learning-related expenses. "Learning" is very broadly defined at SelfDesign
The program is government funded and is therefore available only to families resident in BC, Canada, but I understand there's a similar program planning to pilot in Denver, CO in 2007-8.
Miranda
