LSE has been awarded with the Campus Technology Teaching and Innovation Award (see pg30) for their innovative work on the Constitution UK project which ran in early 2015. Constitution UK was a collaborative project that aimed to crowdsource and hack the UK constitution within a free and open ‘learning’ environment. The project, led by LSE Professor Connor Gearty of the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) in partnership with Learning Technology and Innovation (LTI), invited individuals to share views and ideas on what should be part of a UK constitution in the 800th anniversary year of Magna Carta. The project generated over 1 million words, thousands of ideas and tens of thousands of votes and resulted in the writing of an 8000-word crowdsourced constitution for the UK.  Over 1500 community members took part in this large scale public policy and learning project, with 20 LSE students acting as moderators.

The project utilized innovative methods of engagement, used techniques such as ideation, crowdsourcing, informal learning and gamification conducted through an online platform (Crowdicity) in order to generate engagement and participation that increased over the duration of the 14 weeks of the project.  We engaged social media organisations and special interest groups to ensure successful integration of learning outcomes and the effective and representative engagement of the community in the platform.

It also employed an innovative approach to open on-line learning through social media, which addressed some of the debate around the suitability of social media to effectively support participatory citizen engagement and democratic debate.  You can read about this aspect of the project HERE .

This prestigious Teaching and Learning Innovator award by Campus Technology magazine (an industry leading magazine for online and blended learning professionals) recognises the project in that it ‘…delivered both a public policy success as well as a significant and innovative approach to online learning and engagement., with the awards, “…represent(ing) excellence in experimentation, design, collaboration and implementation, and the projects they recognize expand the possibilities for individual campuses and the field of higher education technology,” said Dr. John Hess, program chair, Campus Technology Conference.

“We are extremely proud to have been nominated and then selected for this prestigious award.  It recognises an incredibly innovative project that delivered far beyond our wildest dreams.  It also recognises the hard work and commitment of many academic and professional staff at the LSE” said Peter Bryant, Head of Learning Technology and Innovation.  “It remains the most remarkable project I have ever worked on.” noted Paul Sullivan, the Manager of the IPA.

We have produced  a short video that highlighted the learning technology aspects of the project that you can watch right HERE and if you want to read more, click HERE. 

 

Cheers

Peter

 

Peter Bryant
Head of Learning Technology and Innovation

London School of Economics and Political Science

ALD LG - Houghton Street London WC2A 2AE
Phone: +44 (0)20 7955 6008

Twitter: @peterbryantHE

LSE Experts: http://bit.ly/1hniikc