WorkingExamples.org is a different kind of online community, a space built for the Reimaginers of Education – those of you who are using technology to make exciting changes, in spite of 'the system'.
The community bolsters innovation and the potential impact of your work. You share and improve your ideas through exposure to new perspectives from researchers, designers, educators and funders working across the field. We come together around 'examples' (ideas, work and projects) to explore new ideas, learn from each other, collaborate and impact the future of education. Come play with us!
These are our hopes and dreams for what the community will create here are:
Exploration.
Create a space where it is safe to explore, discover, share and take risks
Connections.
Link research and practice to create unexpected connections between people and ideas
Conversations.
Bring together our diverse perspectives and knowledge to provide mutual mentorship
Impact.
Make a real impact on the world by helping each other innovate and create positive change through our work
The WEx community was initially founded on two ideas:
1. the creation of a space that would help define an emerging field at the intersection of education and technology, and
2. the creation of a new form of academic publishing suitable for non-print media.
Defining an emerging field
Traditionally, worked examples are used in mathematics and science education to show techniques for solving problems. Worked Examples are demonstrations of what the author believes to be good ideas (Barab, Dodge, & Gee, 2009). We prefer to call them “working examples”, because most of our solutions are still being realized and figured out. Examples can be used to collaboratively define and develop the emerging field at the intersection of education and technology (Gee, 2010).
A new form of publishing
In addition, the WEx community addresses some of the challenges of academic publishing. Let’s face it - academic publishing is slow, inaccessible for non-academic audiences, biased toward the discussion of only successful results (discussion of failure is rare), and problematic for showing non-text-based work, such as video games (Jose, 2012; Nielsen, 2011); making important research difficult to apply to practice.
WEx is an example of green open access: an open repository allowing you to show your work at any stage of development, to any degree that you are comfortable, and invite the larger community to collaborate as you wish. Through posting examples and interacting on the site, we hope to collectively impact our world and shape the future of education and learning.
Check out what Jim Gee has to say about Working Examples…
Want to Know More?
For those of you who really like to read…
Barab, S., Tayler, D., & Gee, J. (2009). The Worked Example: Invitational Scholarship in Service of an Emerging Field.
Gee, J. P. (2010). New Digital Media and Learning as an Emerging Area and “Worked Examples” as One Way Forward. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Jose (2012). Academic papers today are not meant to be discussion forums. Academic Productivity. June 21, 2012.
Nielson, M. (2011). Reinventing Discovery: The New Era of Networked Science. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
WEx is currently in its 2nd phase. Want to know more about phase 1 and the beta site? Read on, my friend!
In 2009, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation funded WEx as part of its Digital Media & Learning (DML) initiative. Jim Gee (Arizona State University) and Drew Davidson (Carnegie Mellon University) were the principal investigators, and the Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon University was given the task of developing the site. Several meetings were held with MacArthur Foundation grantees to determine the future direction of the site. Three major metaphors for WEx came from these meetings.
First, a worked example was a “flag in the ground”.
Second, WEx would be a “Facebook of ideas”.
Third, working examples go through a “seed” (initial idea), “sprout” (idea development/implementation), and “bloom” (evaluation) cycle.
Also, “working example” emerged as an alternative to “worked example”. “Working example” better expresses this new interpretation of worked example that encourages people to show the development of what they believe is good work. Thus, Worked Examples became Working Examples. Two firms in Pittsburgh provided design (MAYA Design) and development (Deeplocal) services to create a beta site, which was released at the Digital Media and Learning Conference in 2011. The beta site was an attempt to translate the idea of working examples into a collaborative place for designers and researchers, to provide a place to find best practices, to share work in progress and resources, and to discuss the future of learning.
At the end of 2011, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation agreed to fund WEx for an additional three years. This second phase of the project funds a full-time team that is developing the community and creating a sustainable long-term revenue model. In February 2012, the team was hired, including a director and two post-doctoral students.
We spent 2012 hashing out our vision for the site and considered how the site could be redesigned to address community members’ needs. Based on community feedback, our priority became supporting interactions and conversations on the site. A big thanks to Local Projects (design) and Celerity Innovation (development) for translating our vision into the new site, which was launched in March 2013.
Explore. Collaborate. Impact.
We want you to share your ideas (no matter how raw or incomplete they are), explore others’ ideas, collaborate with people and make an impact. Working Examples is your community, so use it how you see fit. Learn more about the site by watching our introductory video.
Jump right in and set up your profile and then create your own example. If you want some help with this check out our tutorials.
Create Your Profile
Create an Example
Make the Most of Your Example: Updates, Phases and Workspace
What else can you do?
Explore some examples and browse people. If something or someone catches your fancy click on the follow button to keep up-to-date. Find ways to contribute to conversations – comment on someone’s example, join a group, or participate in a group discussion.
Working Examples are the ideas, work and projects you share with the community. They’re spaces for you to collaborate to solve problems, share progress (and missteps) and make exciting things happen. They’re illustrations of how we make sense of and work through solutions to problems.
Working examples is a term we’re adapting from science and mathematics, where worked examples are used to make thinking, practices, and values overt and public for newcomers. We find “working examples” to be more appropriate as most of our solutions are still being realized and figured out. Learn more about working examples by clicking on the history link in the left column.
Examples consist of basic information about your idea and your team, as well as, spaces to document your progress such as updates, workspace, and phases.
The main parts of an example are:
Title.
Be sure to make it interesting, jargon-free, and under 60 characters.
Media.
Share images and videos that help tell your project's story. They are your introduction to the world, so pick something eye-catching.
Summary.
This section is your abstract, a short introduction to your idea or project. Keep it short (under 600 characters), there are plenty of places in your Example to tell us more.
Visibility settings.
Here you can control whether or not your Example is visible to the world. Private means that just your Example's team members can see that it exists. We encourage you to make it public, but it can be private if you’re not quite ready to share it.
Categories.
Categories are standard with every example and serve a number of purposes. Mainly, they help others find your example through search filters and they feed into our site's recommendation engine that matches people with ideas that they might find interesting
.
Tags.
Tags function similar to categories within the site, but with some added flexibility. Use them to describe your idea. The more specific you are the about the work you're doing, the better the recommendations and search will be.
Team members.
Team members have access to your Example's inner workings. They fall into two categories 1) Authors, who can make edits to the content of the Example, and 2) Administrators who can make changes to the Example's settings (including team member's roles). The creator of an Example is automatically an Administrator and assigns the roles for the rest of the team.
Groups.
Groups are collections of related Examples. By adding your example to a group you can connect with others interested in the same idea. Check out the "How do groups work?" tab on this page for more info.
Inspiring Examples.
Salute any Examples that inspired, influenced or informed your example.
You can learn more about updates, phases, and workspace in "What do you want me to do on this site?" and "What's up with seed, sprout, bloom?". A quick explanation is:
Updates.
Think of these as blog posts where you log your progress, ideas and process.
Phases.
Seed, Sprout and Bloom help you tell the community about your idea and process. These are multimedia spaces, so use images, videos, presentation materials, charts, or storyboards to help tell your story.
Workspace.
A great feature of the workspace is the discussion forum that is only visible to your Example's team members. Here, your team can brainstorm, share ideas, or work on drafts.
Seed, sprout, and bloom are phases of an idea. All ideas start as seeds. As ideas develop they sprout and grow, eventually blooming into fully realized ideas and solutions. We ask you questions to help you think through and share your experience in all of these stages.
Seed. The seed questions help you lay out your vision, the problem you’re trying to solve and why it’s important.
Sprout. The sprout questions have you describe your goals and how you plan to implement your ideas.
Bloom. The bloom questions have you reflect on your methods, what you’ve learned, and any challenges you encountered.
You don’t need to answer all of the questions - at least not right away. Only answer questions that are appropriate for your idea and your stage in the process. You can always answer more later as your idea develops. Be sure to tell the community how they can help you with your idea – do you need feedback? An expert to collaborate with? Resources?
There is no right or wrong way to create an example, but we have a few pointers for making your example really awesome and getting the most from the WEx community.
-Remember you’re speaking to a broad audience. Use language that we’ll all get. Try to avoid copying and pasting from academic papers or proposals.
-Make it public! Share your idea so others can see what you’re up to, you can get some feedback, find collaborators, and have an impact on the community.
-Great images are an important way to invite users to your example. Make your image interesting, meaningful and descriptive. If you don’t have an image, consider adding a storyboard sketch, diagram, or a screen shot.
-Addressing your audience is key for making connections. Tell the community what you need and who might be able to help. For example, do you need playtesters, a funder, a developer, or someone with expertise on learning physics? Specifically, what can the community do to help?
-Use tags wisely and purposefully. Tags are how WEx makes recommendations to you.
Absolutely! Examples are not “complete” ideas or finished solutions to problems. They’re just ideas - some which may end up being great solutions and others that may totally tank (and that’s okay!).
Ideas that don’t work are just as important than those that do work. Failure is an important learning process, because it allows us to grow and learn together as a community and for ideas to evolve and strengthen. You learn, others learn from you, things are better the next time around. We encourage you to post ideas that don’t work. We even have a special space dedicated to mishaps and lessons learned called “Hall of Fail”.
Groups on WEx work a little differently than in other online communities. Here, ideas are grouped, rather than people. By adding an example to a group you are creating a collection of similar ideas. If your examples are added to groups, then you are indirectly associated with that group, as well. If you don’t have an example to add to a group, that’s okay, just follow the group to be kept informed of major happenings and discussions. You can also participate in the workspace of any public group.
There are three types of groups:
Public. Everyone can see the group, add examples to the group, and contribute to group discussions.
Private. Examples need to be approved by group administrators before they are added to the group and only affiliated group members can view all of the features and discussions in the group.
Organization. The group function can be used to create an organization. Just be patient with us as we need some time to confirm your affiliation with the organization. Once the WEx team has given you the thumbs up you can add examples that are affiliated with your organization and share information privately.
The site is primarily used by researchers, designers, educators, and funding organizations interested in education and technology.
You can control who sees your example by making it public or private. We encourage you to share your idea with the world and go public! If you’re not quite ready, share it with just your team for now by making it private.
You can upload lots of different media, but individual files must be smaller than 2MB.
Photos. The site likes .jpg, .giff., and .png files.
Videos. You can link to and embed videos from YouTube and Vimeo.
Documents. How about including your storyboards, presentations, diagrams, screen shots, and papers? The site likes .doc, .docx, .ppt, .pptx, or .pdf files.
You can customize examples by using original media (videos, images and documents) and text to share your idea. Be sure to use text formatting like bullets or bolding or underlining text, which makes it easier to read.
That depends. While we love the idea of students being on WEx we want to make sure that the community is focused on sharing innovative ideas related to education and technology. If students have ideas about learning with technology, including design or research, then by all means have them create working examples!
The short answer? Maybe. It always helps to get your ideas out there for others to see. Showing your thought process, connecting to experts, and vetting ideas in a public space is a good way to be heard and build credibility for you and your idea. Also, there are lots of organizations and funders on the site, and many of them have said they plan to use the site to find innovative projects. So it’s possible your example could lead to funding if they like your ideas.
We’re always looking for partnerships and voices to help spread the word. Here are a few ways you can get more involved:
-Submit something to be published on the WEx blog...The WEx Blog posts exciting happenings in the field. If you know of something that we should know, send it our way.
-Submit something to the Hall of Fail
-Use the site to launch a competition or call for proposals
-Tell us about interesting ideas you have for the site and community
To get more involved drop us an email at info@workingexamples.org or message one of the WEx team members directly through the site.
Feel free to drop us a line if you have a question, feedback or if you want to learn more about what we do. You can email the WEx team at info@workingexamples.org or message one of us directly through the site. If you find a bug on the site (you know, the kind that causes things not to work right) let us know at support@workingexamples.org.
BY USING THE WORKING EXAMPLES SERVICE, YOU ARE AGREEING TO THE TERMS OF THIS LICENSE AGREEMENT. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE WITH THESE TERMS, YOU MAY NOT USE THE WORKING EXAMPLES SERVICE.
This is a license agreement ("Agreement") between you (called "Licensee" or "you" in this Agreement) and Carnegie Mellon University (called "Licensor" in this Agreement). All rights not specifically granted to you in this Agreement are reserved to Licensor.
DESCRIPTION OF SERVICE: The Working Examples website and service (collectively, “Service”) allows users to interact with one another around or about projects generally involving or related to Digital Media and Learning, by posting information including text, graphics, documents and videos about those projects (“Content”); to add comments, annotations and responses and other information, including text, graphics and videos (“Comments”) to Content and Comments; and to post Content and Comments to third party websites, if and when enabled. Users can view information on the public area of the site and set up and/or belong to private discussions or groups that are organized around one or more items of Content or related to particular Content.
GRANT OF LICENSE: Licensor hereby grants to Licensee a non-exclusive, non-transferable, terminable license to use the Service without the right to sublicense, sell or otherwise transfer to any third party, pursuant to the terms and conditions of this Agreement.
PROPRIETARY; COPYRIGHT: Licensee acknowledges that the Service is proprietary to Licensor, and as such, Licensee agrees use the Service only in accordance with the terms of this Agreement. The Service is owned by Licensor and is protected by United States copyright laws and applicable international treaties and/or conventions.
TRADEMARKS: “Working Examples”, “Carnegie Mellon University” and all other trademarks, service marks, graphics and logos used in connection with the Service are trademarks or service marks of Licensor or their respective owners, and certain of them are registered with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Access and use of the Service does not grant or provide you with the right or license to reproduce or otherwise use the Licensor name or any trademarks, service marks, graphics or logos of it or any third party.
REGISTRATION AND MINIMUM AGE REQUIREMENT: In order to post Content or Comments, you must register for a Working Examples account and create a user profile. User profiles must represent a real person and associated email account. In creating your account and user profile, you must not provide any false personal information or create an account for anyone other than yourself without permission. Your user profile can be viewed by anyone using the Service. Licensor reserves the right to suspend your use of the Service and/or terminate your account at any time for any lawful reason, including no reason. You must be at least 13 years old to use the Service. If you are at least 13, but are still a minor (depending on where you live), you must have your parent or legal guardian’s permission to use the Service. Please have him or her read this Agreement with you. NOTICE TO PARENTS AND GUARDIANS: By granting your child permission to use the Service, you agree to the terms of this Agreement on behalf of your child. You are responsible for monitoring and supervising your child's use of the Service. If your child is using the Service and is either under 13 or does not have your permission, please contact us immediately so that we can disable his or her access.
YOUR REPRESENTATIONS AND WARRANTIES: You represent and warrant to Licensor that your use of the Service will be in accordance with the terms of this Agreement and with applicable laws, rules and regulations of the United States and any other relevant jurisdiction, including those regarding online conduct or acceptable content, and those regarding the transmission of data or information exported from the United States and/or the jurisdiction in which you reside.
FEEDBACK: Licensor is not obligated to implement any suggestions and/or feedback you might provide regarding the Service, but to the extent Licensor does so, you are not entitled to any compensation related thereto.
ADDING OR POSTING OF CONTENT OR COMMENTS: While logged in to the Service, you may add or post Content or Comments to the Service. You are solely responsible for the Content and Comments you post and/or add, and the consequences of doing so and/or publishing your Content and Comments on the Service. You affirm, represent and warrant that you own or have the necessary licenses, rights, consents and permissions to publish the Content and Comments that you post or add. You understand that since all Content and/or Comments added or posted may be viewed or accessed and used by third parties, you should not post or add Content and/or Comments that contain confidential or proprietary information of yours or other third parties. It is your responsibility to protect copyrighted and confidential information or potential commercial ideas. Licensor is not liable for any copyright infringement of posted Content.
INAPPROPRIATE OR ILLEGAL CONTENT OR COMMENTS: You agree that you will not add or post any Content or Comments that are libelous, defamatory, abusive, threatening, harassing, hateful, offensive or violate any law or right of any third party. Licensor reserves the right to remove any such content and/or comments that are deemed inappropriate, including graphic, video or text Content, or any other Content and/or Comments from the Service at any time for any reason.
GRANT OF LICENSES: By posting and/or adding Content and Comments, you irrevocably grant to (i) Licensor and its assignees and/or transferees a perpetual, non-terminable, non-exclusive, fully-paid, transferable, sublicenseable, world wide right and license to access and use such Content and Comments for use in connection with the Service and/or otherwise, including featuring your Content elsewhere on the Service, and (ii) if the Content and/or Comments were posted or added to public areas of the site, to all Users a perpetual, non-terminable, non-exclusive, fully-paid, transferable, sublicenseable, world wide right and license to access and use such Content and Comments for any lawful reason, or if the Content and/or Comments were posted or added to private areas of the site, to those Users of those private areas a perpetual, non-terminable, non-exclusive, fully-paid, transferable, sublicenseable, world wide right and license to access and use such Content and Comments for any lawful reason.
USES NOT PERMITTED: You may not sell, rent, lease, sublicense, lend, time-share or transfer, in whole or in part, or provide third parties access to, the Service. You will not use the Service to distribute “spam”, collect information about others, advertise to or solicit others to purchase any product or service, or harass any other person.
RELEASE AND INDEMNIFICATION OF LICENSOR: You release and agree to defend, indemnify and hold harmless Licensor and its trustees, officers, employees, attorneys, agents, TRANSFEREES, successors and assigns, from and against any and all losses, claims, causes of action, obligations, liabilities and damages whatsoever, including attorneys' fees, arising out of or relating to your access or use of or inability to access or use the Service and/or your breach of any of terms of this Agreement.
NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES: THE SERVICE (INCLUDING THE WEBSITE) AND ANY OTHER INFORMATION, PROPERTY AND RIGHTS GRANTED OR PROVIDED UNDER THIS AGREEMENT ARE PROVIDED ON AN “AS IS” BASIS. LICENSOR MAKES NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, AS TO ANY MATTER, AND ALL SUCH REPRESENTATIONS AND WARRANTIES, INCLUDING WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, ARE EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMED. WITHOUT LIMITING THE GENERALITY OF THE FOREGOING, LICENSOR DOES NOT MAKE ANY REPRESENTATION OR WARRANTY OF ANY KIND RELATING TO ACCURACY, SERVICE AVAILABILITY, COMPLETENESS, INFORMATIONAL CONTENT, ERROR-FREE OPERATION, RESULTS TO BE OBTAINED FROM USE, FREEDOM FROM PATENT, TRADEMARK AND COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT AND/OR FREEDOM FROM THEFT OF TRADE SECRETS. ACCESS AND USE OF THE SERVICE MAY BE UNAVAILABLE DURING PERIODS OF PEAK DEMAND, SYSTEM UPGRADES, MALFUNCTIONS OR SCHEDULED OR UNSCHEDULED MAINTENANCE OR FOR OTHER REASONS. SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OF IMPLIED WARRANTIES, SO THE ABOVE EXCLUSION MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU.
LIMITATION ON TYPES OF DAMAGES/LIMITATION OF LIABILITY: IN NO EVENT WILL LICENSOR BE LIABLE TO YOU OR ANY THIRD PARTY (WHETHER BASED IN CONTRACT, TORT, STRICT LIABILITY OR OTHER THEORY) FOR INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL OR EXEMPLARY DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THE USE OF, OR THE INABILITY TO USE, THE SERVICE OR ANY PORTION THEREOF (INCLUDING THE WEBSITE), INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OF USE, INACCURATE RESULTS, LOSS OF PROFITS, BUSINESS INTERRUPTION, DAMAGES STEMMING FROM LOSS OR CORRUPTION OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE, THE COST OF RECOVERING ANY DATA, THE COST OF SUBSTITUTE SERVICES AND/OR DAMAGE TO COMPUTERS, SOFTWARE, MODEMS, TELEPHONES OR OTHER PROPERTY, EVEN IF LICENSOR HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
EXPORT REGULATION: When using the Service, you agree to comply with any and all applicable U.S. export control laws, regulations, and/or other laws related to embargoes and sanction programs administered by the Office of Foreign Assets Control.
ASSIGNMENT: You may not assign this Agreement or any of your rights hereunder without the prior written consent of Licensor. Any attempted assignment without such consent shall be null and void. Licensor’s rights under this Agreement are freely assignable and/or transferable.
NO IMPLIED WAIVERS: No failure or delay by Licensor in enforcing any right or remedy under this Agreement shall be construed as a waiver of any future or other exercise of such right or remedy by Licensor.
GOVERNING LAW: This Agreement shall be construed and enforced in accordance with the laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania without reference to conflict of laws principles. Licensee hereby consents to the personal jurisdiction of the courts located in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania for any matter covered by and/or arising out of or relating to this Agreement, including any matter arising out of or relating to the Service, Content and/or Comments, and waives Licensee’s rights to venue outside of this county.
TERM: Your license under this Agreement automatically terminates without notice if you fail to comply with any provision of this Agreement. You may also terminate your license under this Agreement by ceasing to use the Service or deleting your account. Licensor may terminate the availability of the Service or this Agreement at any time. You agree that all provisions of this Agreement which operate to protect the rights of Licensor and/or its transferees and/or its assigns shall remain in force following and survive termination of your license and/or this Agreement.
SEVERABILITY: If any provision(s) of this Agreement shall be held to be invalid, illegal, or unenforceable by a court or other tribunal of competent jurisdiction, the validity, legality and enforceability of the remaining provisions shall not in any way be affected or impaired thereby.
CHANGES TO THE SERVICE OR THIS AGREEMENT: Licensor may, in its sole discretion and at any time, update, change, suspend, improve or discontinue any aspect of the Service, temporarily or permanently, or amend, update or change the terms of this Agreement. You will be bound by any such amendments, updates or changes, so you should periodically review this Agreement for amendments, updates or changes.
ENTIRE AGREEMENT: This Agreement constitutes the sole and entire agreement between Licensor and Licensee as to the matters covered by this Agreement, and supersedes any previous agreements, understandings and arrangements between Licensor and Licensee them relating thereto.
