Skillsharing game

→ for congresses, meetings, workshops.
→ to inspire people about skillsharing and make them talk about their skills.
→ needs: paper, pens and about half an hour to an hours time.¶

• let people draw their own two hands on a piece of paper.
• give them about 10 minutes and make them write one thing in each finger: one hand is for the things they want to learn, and one for the things they can teach. They can add their name (and maybe contact possibility like phone number etc).
• then split the people into groups of 4 or 5 and let them talk for a few minutes about what they have written. Everyone should tell to the others what they can teach and what they want to learn.
• Mix the groups up one or two times, the best would be of course if everyone gets to talk to everyone, but it depends how awake and concentrated people are.
• put all the hands on a wall and ask people about their experiences in the game and if there is any concrete agreements about workshops now or if somebody wishes to make some.

Skillsharing book or wall

→ for groups who live or work together.
→ to get to know about all the skills and interests of the group, their resources, information about the people themselves, and to inspire people to do more skillsharing.
→ needs: a book or wall, paper, pens, a place to keep it in so that it is available for the group (form sheet).¶

• the best is for you to make a formsheet to hand out to people
• give them some time to fill in all their skills and interests that they have, that is: things that they can teach and that they want to learn about; encourage them to take some time to really remember everything they learned in their life (it may take people one or two hours to fill out such a form!). This is a good way of making them more conscious about themselves too.
• a paper should contain:
  • skills and interests evaluated with stars (1* star to 5* stars to show how good somebody can do something already),
  • resources people have (like books, materials, …),
  • the name and a way to contact the persons,
  • maybe a photo, if possible (in bigger groups)
• collect all the papers in a book or on a wall that is accessible to anybody of the group.
• You can also make visitors fill out a formsheet and create a bigger network.
• You can add a pinboard near to it, so as to inform the group about the workshops that will take place. Maybe a skillsharing area will be created.

Skillsharing camps

→ inspire people to do some skillsharing for a few days.¶

• organise a meeting for people to come together and share their skills.
• Anyone can do a workshop about anything.
• there can be a pinboard where people can inform others about workshops they do and search for people who know about something, and/or regular meetings where people can announce their workshops and wishes.
• workshops can be, for example:
  • skillsharing circles to find out about peoples interests (e.g. playing the skillsharing game),
  • knowledge exchange sessions about one topic (one person opens the space for a topic and everyone tells what he/she knows about it; everybody is teacher and student at the same time),
  • working together on a practical thing,
  • “normal lesson”: somebody telling about something he/she knows a lot about (one person is the teacher),
  • discussions about a topic
• you can look someone up who knows a lot about how to structure workshops/meetings and who can do a workshop about it. This can empower people to do better workshops.
• you can print out a list with methods for meetings and workshops. There are some good ones at…

Skillsharing area

→ at camps and congresses; or, a fixed skillsharing area in a communal place…
→ an area to centralize all information related to skillsharing, a meeting point or place to use for skillsharing sessions.¶

• A skillsharing area is a central place to make people meet each other in another way than in normal life (or on camps&congresses: than in other events happening there). It is a place where people get to know about each other and find out about each other on a deeper personal level.
• A skillsharing area can be really small: it can be a cupboard or the corner of a room (or in a camp, it can be a message board only!), but it can also be a whole room ( tent/wagon/hut…) for everyone to learn there together.
• It should contain:
  • a skillsharing book or skillsharing wall to collect peoples skills and ressources and make them transparent to others,
  • a pinboard for messages related to skillsharing like workshops taking place, etc,
  • (a calendar with events related to learning),
  • (materials, e.g. a book about how to do a good workshop).
• It can contain:
  • a communal library and/or bookcrossing station,
  • some space for workshops with all the things you need like a blackboard, posters and markers, etc …
  • a couch, some tables, …
  • a coffee machine and some tea …
  • a computer, a beamer (ie. Projector),
  • Whatever you need to have a good and comfortable learning atmosphere!
• You can have regular meetings in the skillsharing area to exchange about peoples skills and ressources, about interesting contacts and events.

Learning groups

→ exchange regularly about a common interest
→ give each other advice about how to learn about a topic.
→ (give lectures to each other/teach each other).

• people in learning groups support each other in their learning processes. This is quite normal among students, but not so known outside of schools/universities.
• people in learning groups are interested in the same or similar topics and improve their learning by exchanging with others.
• the main reasons to join or begin a learning group (outside of schools) is to exchange about interesting contacts, events, resources like books, about learning methods, or also about learning priorities ( “you should learn this before you can understand this”/ “this is the order that I learned about it” ). So, about all the things that are told you by the teacher/professor/… normally and that are hard to find out alone .
• learning groups can also be good to make sure you understand things right; having somebody you can ask questions to instead of wasting time with thinking in wrong directions.
• learning groups can also have common financial funds, example: “Let us buy this book together and share it”.
• people in learning groups can also teach each other about the things they learn, which is also good for improving your own learning process (many people learn better when they explain things to others). You could, for example, give each other an overview about the contents of books that you read and tell the others the most important facts from the books. This can save you a lot of time and deepen your understanding of the topics.

Learning excursions:

→ have fun together while learning something new.

• get a group of people together and visit a farm, a forest, a company, a museum, ect…
• if everyone prepares a short lecture about something related to the topic, you learn even more!

IMPORTANT for all methods:

If necessary, motivate people to believe in their own skills. There might be some X people in your groups who believe they are bad in everything and know nothing! The way of learning we experience in school and working life is mostly like that: people tell you you are doing things wrong and put you under pressure. That is why people do not believe in their own abilities any more. In that case try to get the group to honour the persons skills. Everyone knows something and being able to cook well or listen to people well is just as worthy a skill as any other!!