Education in the open: Building a network for social action

This paper introduces Fast Food da Politica (FFDP) as a case study of a learning network designed to promote social action in a developing country. Our focus is on exploring FFDP design elements, such as those related to tools, tasks and social organization, and the connections between these elements and valued learning activity. FFDP cleverly (re)purposes popular (board) games as pedagogical tools, which are then customised for the teaching and learning of the mechanisms and functioning of Brazilian political structures. FFDP has taken their political games to game-playing sessions across the country in varied venues – including schools, government organisations, and open sessions at market-street events and public protests. Their games are shared as open learning resources through blueprints and manuals that explain the many ways a game can be played, and which are easily downloadable through their website. FFDP also encourages game users (educators and learners) to come up with and share their own game-playing ideas for reuse. As a result, FFDP has built a repository of games that is constantly evolving, as new ways of using their open resources are captured and packaged for sharing and reuse by others. As a not-for-profit organisation, FFDP has been successfully relying on social media and crowdsourced funding to survive. In this paper, we draw on the ACAD Wireframe to explore the alignment of this network’s design elements at the micro and meso levels, focusing on the ways FFDP combines a strategic educational vision deeply grounded on action for social change, with a curriculum that emphasizes gaming elements and promotes the physicality of materials in learning. At the micro level, the case study examines how the quality of materials support the development of educational innovation, while at the meso level this organization, driven by young women, is building-up a learning network for social action, empowering children, youth and adults to learn about the mechanisms of politics and their civil rights, within the Brazilian context. Overall, this paper offers an inspiring example of a productive learning network in action, where participation and co-creation are fostered through connections between a network of people, ideas, digital and material elements.