Project Ideas

Host competitions - example: http://www.desire2learn.com/edgechallenge/


Background

Aim of this section is to set the stage for the strategy discussion. Tried to pull together early discussions and articulate in a way that broadly resonates.

Problem we are solving

• The problem -> not enough minds are set on fire
• Its cause -> the university has lost its way. instead of creating a global culture of learning it has commoditized learning and knowledge.

(Problem we are NOT solving)

• Not enough people can get "degrees"

What could we be great at (what evidence can we collect?)

• (a) Offer learning opportunities that help people succeed in their lives, or ..
• (b) Build a community of people who are like us and experiment / promote / build new ways of learning?
• Combine research, practice, ....
• Finding the right people and drawing them in
• Offering alternative learning opportunities outside of institutional walls
• Inspiring a global community 
• Offering education that is not provided by the mainstream system (long-tail, alternative models)
• Modeling what learning online can look like (are we really?)

What do we stand for?

• Not just imagining what is possible, but building it
• Learning by doing and iterating
• Community
• Open as a mechanism for participation
• Peer learning

Questions

• How do we think of impact?
  • Direct -> millions learn and teach on our learning platform
  • Indirect -> our work inspires others, together we create a culture of learning that reaches millions
• Who is the customer?
  • End-user who needs education or education innovators who reach the end-users?
  • Discussion in Berlin: P2PU is all about "community" and about giving anyone the opportunity to find their passion and pursue it. Can we be the lab that moves the system in this direction, but we won't reach everyone ourselves? Does that feel right?
  • How about: "anyone who wants to create new models, tools, or prototypes which don't yet have a home in institutions or p2pu.org"?  For those who are
    • Creating new courses that don't "fit" in the p2pu.org platform
    • Creating courses using other tools (e.g. a MOOC run on wordpress)
• P2PU as a lab is a series of experiments, with or without partners
• The community participates in applied research
• Experimentation is the engine of innovation
  • Increases our understanding of how to improve social learning online
  • Drives development of the platform
  • Drives development of other tools
• Success of P2PU is not 100% tied to product (Lernanta)
  • Harder to measure impact, e.g. what's our impact on badges?
• Lab framing feels like a natural fit for existing P2PU identity / community
  • Alignment around values and a desire to innovate education, not around the use of a particular platform
• Some experimentation takes place outside of p2pu.org - how do we feel about that? 

What we need to fix in order to change higher education (Lab focus areas)

• Re-imagine online learning / How do courses work? - Moving from courses to learning challenges, mentoring
• Assessments that work like the web - Badges pilot, learning challenges, badges
• New credentials - Badges
• Blended learning - SoSI
• Break the dichotomy of teacher and learner... all need to participate in designing and running their educations
• Technology and tools
  • "The Wire" blog aggregator
  • Pilot site / model - wiki & mailing lists
  • Drupal based learning management system
  • Lernanta social learning platform
  • Django OBI integration

How would this impact the role of our platform (Lernanta)?

• Starting point:
  • A page to list "labs projects"
  • An option in the "create a course" page to just create a "course" which is just is a link to a course run on an external site.  Give those course icons a special marker that shows they're run externally.
• Allows others to extend / expand / experiment
• Accomodates different approaches, models
• P2PU needs to feel more hackable (like a wiki - allowing users to make their own in ways that we may not have imagined)
• Do we need a two platform approach (production and lab.p2pu.org) - or do we make production more experimental (unstable)
  • Platform for experimentation
  • Social learning product that evolves through experimentation

How would we move in this direction?

• Run more hackathons to experiment with new ideas
  • Bring together developers and education folks to build prototypes
• Beef up metrics, research, data expertise
  • Data sharing policy (and defined processes) to enable research partnerships
• Focus onboarding process on reaching innovators and bringing them into the community
• Technology implications:
  • Support experiments on other platforms 
  • Make Lernanta hackable (define interfaces so Lernanta can link to other tools, offer an API, encourage and support extension of our code)
  • Give equal attention to a lab/experimentation space and a production space
  • Support clear process that moves results from lab into production 

The Pitch

 are/is the university built by everyone. 
 are/is an open lab for social online learning. 
 are operated by a grassroots community of education innovators.
 host hundreds of courses that are free and open. 
 build on existing educational content available on the web and help people connect with each other. 
 organize learning outside of institutional walls.
 give learners recognition for their achievements.
 build tools and foster communities
 foster community
 prototype new models and scale ideas that work
 share everything we learn with the world
 invite the world to build the future of education together with us. 
 unlock ... the power of peer learning. 
 operate an online learning platform
 hosts hundreds of courses with tens of thousands of users
 test ideas
 build prototypes
 scale things that work
 develop tools
 ask questions
 find answers
 learn