Projects and Activities

At the core of FreshBrain are Projects and Activities. As I share the FreshBrain concept with more and more people, I have realized that it is important to carefully explain these. We have done that for the Technology Area Community Managers that I described in an earlier post, but I have not shared that definition on my blog. So here goes ...

• Project - an extensive task undertaken by student(s) to take an idea and turn it into something substantial. A project can range from something that one person completes in a number of weeks to that which a team completes in a number of months. It will typically follow a fairly standard creation process which includes a number of phases. The complete experience usually involves going through a systematic process to simulate real business scenarios where projects are justified through some quantifiable metrics, including preparing a business plan and building the technical 'end product'.

• Activity - a reasonably simple, pre-designed task undertaken typically by a number of students independently to take an idea and create something useful. An activity would often be completed in a number of days to weeks. There are two categories of activities: Open and Sponsored. Open activities are always available to the students to complete. There are no deadlines and no rewards associated with their completion (other than maybe a certificate or similar). Sponsored activities are available for a limited duration with a deadline and rewards. They are most often sponsored by another company but can be sponsored by FreshBrain as well.

Students will likely go through a number of steps before they start a project or activity. Here is the complete flow. Some students will start at the top, others will enter further down, especially if they already know where their passion lies and may have an idea of what they want to do.

1. Interest
2. Explore
3. Investigate
4. Engage
5. Participate
6. Project / Activity

And of course the real learning takes place when they do one of these projects or activities, work through the process, use the tools and technologies and see their idea come to life!