Pardon the shaky camera as you tour the amazing Bucketworks in Milwaukee. Then hear from founder, James Carlson. The clip is a bit over 8 minutes.
Year: 2012
Make Your Own Schoolhouse
From The New York Times: “ON a recent Monday night, a gaggle of 20-somethings crammed into a former Curves fitness center along the industrial edge of Carroll Gardens in Brooklyn. The storefront gym had been carved into two classrooms. In one, a rugged blond man, Brandon LeNoir, was teaching a class called “Let There Be Light.” A dozen students, huddled at long butcher-block tables littered with wires and scissors, learned how to make a simple lamp. “Don’t worry about neutral and live wires,” said Mr. LeNoir, 34, an interior designer by day. “It doesn’t matter for us.”…It was just another school night at the Brooklyn Brainery, a hipster schoolhouse started by a pair of underemployed polymaths, where students can learn abstruse subjects like the secret lives of bacteria, taught by teachers with few teaching credentials. Tuition is $5 to $30, enrollment takes place online and PayPal is accepted.”
Maker Spaces – Re-doing Education (and Democracy)
Watch this ten minute video and you will get the what and why of The CivcLab. We are part of something very cool, very important and very much needed. The speaker is James Carlson, the founder of Milwaukee based BucketWorks and the director of the School Factory.
Take Brief Online Survey On Civic Activities
Got three minutes? Take our quick online survey about your civic engagement activities and help us understand how people get involved in public life and why. We’re trying to make participation in civic engagement activities easier and more compelling.
Go to http://tinyurl.com/CivicLabSurvey or scan this QCode: 
CivicLab @ Occupy Midwest
CivicLab founder Tom Tresser will be at the Occupy The Midwest Regional Conference on March 16 and 17. He’ll be presenting two workshops on Saturday – one on the No Games Chicago campaign, and one on “Community Organizing 101.” You can view both these presentations here. He will be conducting a survey of participants and asking them to complete a short online survey about their civic engagement activities. The results will be posted here.