How it works
Out of Eden Learn is a free online program for students aged 3-19. The program groups students of similar ages from diverse geographical and socioeconomic settings together for collective learning experiences.
Out of Eden Learn currently offers several 8-12-week long learning experiences, or “learning journeys,” designed around three broad learning goals. All of the journeys combine offline activities with online interaction and invite young people to:
- slow down to observe the world carefully and listen attentively to others
- exchange stories and perspectives with one another; and
- make connections between their own lives and bigger human stories.
Below you’ll find step-by-step details on how the Out of Eden Learn program works. We also encourage you to explore our Educator Guide and FAQ page, which may help answer any questions you have.
1. Educators, register an account
Educators, create a free account on our learning platform. If a student is not participating in school, parents and guardians have the option to register an account and their children can sign up individually.
2. Add your class or classes
Once you register an educator account, go to your "educator dashboard."
From your dashboard, you will be prompted to “add a class.” You can register as many classes as you like. A class can be as small as one student (for example, a home-schooled student) and as large as 40 students. Please note that our community is only open to school-aged children.
3. Have your students sign up
When you register a class, a passcode will appear for that class on your Dashboard. If you have multiple classes, you will get a unique passcode for each class.
Share the class passcode with your students. Students choose the orange “students register” button at the top right hand corner of the screen on our home page (learn.outofedenwalk.com). Educators, you must be signed out in order for students to see this orange button.
Students sign up using the class code and they will automatically be added to the corresponding class on our platform and will appear on that class’ roster. Important note: educators of students younger than 10 will skip this step. Students will not register individual accounts on our platform. Rather, educators post on behalf of the whole class for students age nine and younger (generally 3rd grade and below).
Students register their user accounts at any time so if your “walking party” (i.e. learning group) launches before students sign up, this is not a problem. They can register at any time.
4. Slow down...we will be in touch
It’s important to note that we generally launch walking parties around late September, late October, late January, and sometimes late March (depending on how many classes have signed up). If you sign up before or around the time of any of these launches, you can expect to hear from us via email. We will send a confirmation survey that you must complete in full in order to confirm your participation. If you do not hear from us and you have signed up close to a launch date, please write to us at learn@outofedenwalk.com. If you sign up your class between launches, we will be in touch with you to join our upcoming launch.
Once we receive your confirmation survey, we spend some time (a week or two) grouping the classes together to make the most diverse walking parties possible. Walking parties typically consist of five to ten classes from different geographic locations and socioeconomic backgrounds.
5. Your learning journey begins!
You will receive two emails from us when your walking party launches, one with some details on the other classes in your walking party and the other is an e-introduction to the other educators in your group. We strongly encourage you to connect with the other educators in your walking party before you get started. You may find that it’s helpful to be in communication with one another throughout the learning journey.
As a research project, we cannot facilitate video chats between classes (for privacy reasons). However, we encourage you all to coordinate classroom-classroom Skype sessions so that students may get to know one another more closely and feel more connected as they move through the program.
“Footsteps,” or activities, will be posted for your walking party every two weeks. Each footstep invites young people to (1) Get Inspired by exploring some specific resources, (2) Do an Activity, and (3) interact with Your Walking Partners. You will get email notifications and instructions when a new footstep has been posted.