December 2011
1 post
CommuniTeach Through the Ages
In celebration of the launch of our slick new CommuniTeach 2.0 website, we decided it was time to do a retrospective of The Webpages of CommuniTeach Past.
Round 1: Beta
This little gem dug up from the archives documents CommuniTeach’s very first breath on the interwebs.
As you examine this relic, please note the ironic tension between the high-art realism of the gilded frames and the...
October 2011
3 posts
2 tags
Maximize your Impact: Volunteer your Skills
Sharing your skills benefits you and helps those with whom you share, but what if there was something more?
What if sharing your skills meant that you made a significant social impact affecting tens or hundreds of people and helping empower them to reach their own goals, or the goals of their community?
Rest assured, there is a way: volunteering. Often people think of volunteering as simply...
1 tag
Sharing for Grown-Ups: 5 Ways Skill Sharing Helps...
to share: (v.) to use, participate in, enjoy, receive, etc., jointly
We have (hopefully) been taught to share since legos, play-doh, and our toes – in that order- were the most desirable things to put in our mouths. Now that we are more or less grown-ups with more sophisticated tastes (omelets, asparagus, someone else’s toes), where does this childhood concept of sharing fit into our adult...
CommuniSmackdown: Which city will prevail?
At a recent meeting, the members of the CommuniTeam challenged each other to a weekend CommuniSmackdown to see who could recruit more new members for CommuniTeach in their city.
Rules: 1) Members must sign up between 12:00am Friday–12:00am Sunday, CST 2) No hair pulling
Prizes: 1) Eternal Glory 2) The losers each send the winner a book of their choice
A mere 48 hours after the competition...
September 2011
3 posts
2 tags
What is a National LearnIt? And what does it have...
Here at CommuniTeach we aren’t just interested in getting a group of people in a room together to learn interesting things from their neighbors for free. Oh no. Our aims are much higher than that.
To appropriate a visual from the inside of Fearless CommuniFounder Ben’s head:
Imagine a warm, cozy coffee house where people are gathered to learn and share skills. Zoom out. Imagine many cozy coffee...
3 tags
CommuniQuiz - Meet the founders!
After months of research in the CommuniTeach brain lab, we have developed a highly scientific quiz designed to let you get to know the people here at CommuniTeach.
Consider this a formal introduction and feel free to comment on blog posts, chat with us at LearnIts, follow us on Twitter, etc. Don’t be shy! We want to meet you too!
Below are the CommuniQuiz profiles of our Fearless...
First National LearnIt - Come meet us!
Hi friends,
Now that we have been blogging for about two years, you may be wondering, ‘Who is this elusive CommuniTeam? How do we know they are who they say they are? Are they even human??’ Yes, the internet can be a scary and dangerous place. We don’t blame you for your suspicions. In fact, we have even decided that we have reached the point in our relationship with you that we should reveal...
May 2011
1 post
Learnapalooza - Call for Teachers!
Are you passionate about free learning? Do you want to share your book binding or composting skills with your community? Do you want to show off your expertise in SEO and boost your resume by teaching a community workshop? Then sign up to be a teacher at Learnapalooza — Chicago’s free learning festival happening in Wicker Park on June 25th and organized by CommuniTeach and a team of great...
April 2011
1 post
4 tags
One Amazing CommuniWeek
Just wanted to let my fellow Chicagoans know that in the next week there are five (yes FIVE) awesome free LearnIts to your city. How cool is that? This cool *spreads hands very very wide indeed*. If were to plan one full week of awesomessness for you, this is what I’d recommend:
Tomorrow, you should head to Wicker Park at 5pm to learn how to play pool at the Flat Iron from Alex.
Then,...
February 2011
1 post
3 upcoming Pittsburgh LearnIts: Metal Guitar,...
Hey Pittsburghers!
Three excellent LearnIts are coming up, and we want you to know about them! RSVP with the links below.
Teach an instrument, learn an instrument…and then we all play Metallica Saturday, February 19, 2-4pm Lili Coffee*Shop, Polish Hill, 3138 Dobson St. Pittsburgh, PA Musicians, come learn a new instrument and learn “Enter Sandman” by Metallica in the process! A...
January 2011
1 post
Upcoming free social innovation workshops
Are you looking to make a difference in your community and the world? Are you interested in developing the skills necessary to do so? Citizen Circles is a movement of friends, classmates, and colleagues who set out to improve the world by designing classes to improve their own knowledge, confidence, skills, and competencies for change-making and meeting in person to discuss these pressing issues...
October 2010
2 posts
Pittsburgh Coffee-Tasting and Short-Story Writing...
Last night, about 15-20 Pittsburghers came in from the chilly fall weather to partake in nice, warm, free coffee at Cannon Coffee in Brookline. Cannon Coffee owners Nathan Mallory and Ben Haake spent the evening demonstrating all the ins and outs of creating a precisely brewed cup of java (and other coffee-based drinks).
CommuniTeachers Nathan and Ben stressed the...
Salsa and Margarita Making LearnIt
Last Thursday, CommuniTeach members came together at the StartUptown Building in Pittsburgh to learn several killer recipes for salsa and margaritas. Four local CommuniTeachers shared their expertise with about 15-20 eager learners. Two teachers demonstrated their personal style for making salsa while two more teachers showed how to shake up a batch of freshly...
August 2010
3 posts
My Quest to win Ideablob
As some of you know, CommuniTeach is currently a finalist for the Ideablob competition. Whoever has the most votes by tonight at 12:59 CST will receive $10,000 to fund their idea. We are currently in third place, and every vote counts. Please spend thirty seconds voting for us at http://www.ideablob.com/ideas/6091-CommuniTeach-learning-platform
Below is our journey so far…it’s full...
Three great community-building sites
Here at CommuniTeach, we are all about finding new ways for people to connect with their neighbors. Our favorite way to do so is by creating opportunities for people to teach and learn from each other for free, but we wanted to take a moment to recognize a few other great websites with similar goals.
1) A Space Apart - This cool Chicago based startup enables people to communicate with both the...
3 tags
Learn to knit, crochet, and cook...for free
Hi Pittsburgh CommuniTeachers!We have some great Social LearnIts in the works! Click to RSVP for these free classes from your neighbors:
Knitting & Crocheting for Beginners on Sunday, August 8, 3-5pm, at South Hills Village Mall Food Court (South Hills), taught by Kim
Cooking basics 101 on Sunday, August 15, 3-6pm, at St. Pius X Church (South Hills), taught by Alyssa —- with free...
July 2010
1 post
One year of CommuniTeach
In the past 12 months, CommuniTeach…
…was awarded a Sprout Fund grant to help improve the lives of young people in Pittsburgh
…teamed up with a fantastic group of Chicagoans to organize Learnapalooza, an amazing festival with 77 free community classes and over 350 participants
…was featured on TV! Jared Hoffa extolled CommuniTeach’s virtues and demonstrated how to...
August 2009
1 post
Want to help plan a Chicago Learnapalooza? First...
Last week, I had a great conversation with Rosalyn Lemieux, social entrepreneur extraordinaire, about her work founding and running LearnapaloozaDC. A Learnapalooza is, as you can perhaps guess, is an all day learning event where community members attend to a variety of community taught classes, learn cool stuff, and have a great time while doing so. Rosalyn and her volunteer team organized two...
July 2009
6 posts
Good Capital: A little return, a lot of good
Life as a social venture start-up like CommuniTeach can be tricky, particularly when you’re contemplating your need for capital while in a non-profit/L3C/for-profit identity crisis. On the non-profit side, traditional grants and foundations don’t exactly jive with your social entrepreneurship sensibilities and desire for unique models of revenue generation and financial...
Cocktail-Mixing Group LearnIt this Saturday at...
Ever wanted to learn how to mix a killer cocktail?
This Saturday, July 18, at 9:00pm, is your chance, at the first ever Pittsburgh CommuniTeach event! It will be a Group LearnIt on how to mix alcoholic beverages, with instruction from a real live retired bartender, Aarthi!
You can also learn some rock piano from Ben Paul. It will be a rocking time.
$5 donation is suggested to cover alcohol...
1 tag
Five tips for traveling on a budget
Several people on CommuniTeach have expressed an interest in learning how to travel cheaply. Traveling on the cheap happens to be one of my specialties, and I’m happy to share a few of my tricks.
1. Before you go anywhere, join that city’s Couchsurfing network. Couchsurfing is an incredible network of travelers all around the world that are happy to show you around the city, make...
2 tags
Cooking Breakfast Foods Group LearnIt this Sunday...
Know how to cook french toast? Interested in mastering the glory that is quiche? Just want to have a great time and perhaps a mimosa on a Sunday afternoon?
Well, you’re in luck. This weekend, CommuniTeach will be having our first Group LearnIt for Cooking Breakfast Foods! The Cooking Breakfast Foods LearnIt will be this Sunday, July 12th, at 1:30pm. It will be at a private house in River...
MIT World shares all lectures with the public....
I just come across this great website that shares all major presentations and speeches at MIT with the masses. According to the site, “These free, on-demand videos, available 24/7 to viewers worldwide, reflect and extend MIT’s educational mission—to provide the best education in science, technology, and related fields—to engaged learners anytime, anywhere”. Topics range from...
2 tags
The Extraordinaries...transformative...
NPR had an interesting article yesterday about The Extraordinaries, a new social entrepreneurship start-up that enables people to micro-volunteer through their mobile phones. I go back and forth about this concept, in part because it collides with many pre-concieved notions about my favorite types of social ventures.
1. I think that volunteering should be about building lasting relationships...
June 2009
8 posts
Portrait of a Social Entrepreneur
I suppose I throw around the phrase “social entrepreneur” an awful lot without actually explaining what it means. The Skoll Foundation is better at defining things than I am, and they recently made a neat little video profiling a few social entrepreneurs and summarizing the field as a whole. Plus its only 9 minutes, which is hot. So check it out.
How good is AllForGood?
One of the hot topics in nonprofit land this month is the launch of AllForGood, a new site that pulls volunteer opportunities from various nonprofit websites and aggregates them to make it easier for everyone to volunteer. Techcrunch does a nice job summarizing them. They’re a big deal, with lots of press, people calling them a “craigslist of service”, etc etc.
But there also...
1 tag
Craigslist Foundation Non-Profit Boot Camp =...
This weekend, I ventured west with fellow CommuniFounder Ben to San Francisco for the Craigslist Foundation Non-Profit Boot Camp.
It was pretty rockin’, to say the least. Around 1000 people were there to listen to attended to listen to the keynote speakers like Arianna Huffington and Craig Newark, attend breakout sessions, and just generally network and chat excitably about their...
Groupon, The Point, romance, etc
CommuniTeach has a serious crush on Groupon, this crazy awesome website that offers one super deal each day from a local business. From cheap spa packages to restaurant gift certificates to Cubs rooftop games (!!) Groupon is great.
Interestingly, the Groupon parent site is The Point, a website designed to encourage people to become social activists that protest, volunteer, and organize once they...
Calling all web designers!
It has always been the secret evil plan of one of the CommuniFounders to create a website called CommuniTeach, have it become the greatest website of our time, and use it to find a super amazing computer programmer person to teach her how to create a website called CommuniTeach, and then naturally shut the website down entirely and open up a delicious and affordably priced noodle shop.
But, alack,...
CommuniTeach loves TEDTalks (and crows)
Now, while it’s abundantly clear to me that the best way to learn something is to sign into your CommuniTeach account and request a learnit from a fellow CommuniTeacher, there are times when that is not possible. Like when you’re in your house by yourself in the middle of a hurricane or something. During those times, I like to watch cool videos that teach things that will amaze and...
Welcome to CommuniBlog
I suppose it’s meta-post time for CommuniBlog, the bloggy arm of the greatest website of our time. We’re here to keep you informed and engaged in everything related to Communiteach and all other interesting bits of knowledge and goodness in the world.
For now, we’ll be populating this thing with CommuniTeach fun-facts, random ramblings on social entrepreneurship and other...
The CEO of Ashoka on Harvard Business IdeaCast
Our first post!
So usually, your first blog post is about… well, your blog; a meta-post, if you will. But I’m feeling impatient and I heard this podcast that made me think of CommuniTeach. So I thought I’d share:
I like to listen to the HBR IdeaCast - Harvard Business’ short(er) audio sampling of their monthly publication. (Note: for a business publication that...