OYO stands for "Own Your Own".
OYOclass was created to give students, teachers and community mentors an effective method of bringing computer science, engineering and entrepreneurial leadership into every class experience with ease.
Unlike most technology-centric projects, OYOclass began with live instruction among people with varying skills and interests, all coming together to create learning opportunities that made complex subjects come to life in simple lessons using real world tools and skills.
While computer science and engineering can be challenging to engage for many people, OYOclass began by working with young learners (5+), and so devised methods and tools that allowed young people to progress based on their own skills and interests in many different directions, all culminating in real world outcomes.
Teaching computer science in schools has been getting a lot of attention lately, and while this is very important for the health of our global society, to empower informed citizenry, the reason for increasing student interest is found more in modern activities of play, rather than academic pursuits. Some people might frown upon this, but instead OYOclass believes that this is the way it should be, and allows for student-led innovation to emerge with real world skills based on finding a passion for playing with science and engineering concepts.
Our team of developers, software engineers, entrepreneurs, teachers and lifelong students have been building the resources discoverable within OYOclass incrementally, within live learning events led by our sister-effort at kidOYO.com. On University campuses, in K-12 classrooms, at National Labs, in local rural, urban, suburban communities and online, we have been testing and refining the tools and methods we use in OYOclass with great success for a number of years.
Instead of building our own branded community alone, which others may join, we have decided to release our unique learning platform for any classroom or community to leverage in bringing the experience of computer science and engineering education to all students. Leveraging our unique data structure, classes are empowered to collaborate while remaining secure and private in their own learning spaces, on their own web domain, free from being tracked or advertised to.
OYOclass is supported by the 501(c)(3) non-profit organization NoizIvy.org, and our goal is to build a tool that gives personal ownership of the resources and outcomes used in creating skills and real world results, to each and every person that uses OYOclass. We think this is of critical importance… so we put it in our name, because ‘OYO’ = own your own.
While we are early still in the development of our tools, and have many ideas and areas coming into being weekly, already OYOclass is a tool unlike anything else, empowering participation by Individual people in a future that each of us must stand up with skill and empathy in order for collaborative success to be possible.
We are excited to be supporting exemplar models of schools that are providing the opportunity for every child to learn computer science and engineering concepts, and we look forward to working with many more leaders in bringing personal power to students, teachers and communities.
~ OYOclass Team