Name of the workshop.
Theories of Peer Learning

Goals for the workshop.

There are many models for peer learning, ranging from group work within the traditional classroom environment, to the peer-supported learning that takes place in distributed free/open source software projects and other forms of peer production.

This workshop is specifically designed to be useful to people who are organizing and theorizing peer learning experiences in these various contexts, as we explore new patterns for learning. Our hope is to encourage healthy growth and debate in the education field, and to discover some new techniques that we can apply in our work.

The goal of the workshop therefore is: to sketch the contours of viable theories of peer learning.

Names and addresses of the organisers.

• Joe Corneli, holtzermann17@gmail.com, Knowledge Media Institute, The Open University, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA, UK;

• Charles Jeffrey Danoff, danoff.charles@gmail.com, Mr Danoff’s Teaching Laboratory, http://mr.danoff.org/, Winnetka, IL, USA;

• Niels Sprong, nielssprong@gmail.com, Peer 2 Peer University.

Names of potential participants

PC (confirmed):
Marisa Ponti (University of Gothenburg)
Heather Ford (University of California, Berkeley),
Stian Haklev (University of Toronto and Peer 2 Peer University)
Michel Bauwens (The Foundation for P2P Alternatives)

Invitees: Note, most of these persons were found on via the webpage http://p2pfoundation.net/Category:Education, which is maintained by Michel Bauwens.

Bryan Alexander, Terry Anderson, Daniel Araya, Ernesto Arias, Richard Baraniuk, Robert B. Barr, Michel Bauwens, Yochai Benkler, Miles Berry, Tony Bingham, Leigh Blackall, Judy Breck, Marcia Conner, David Cormier, Dave Cormier, Alec Courosa, Robert Cringely, Paul D. Fernhout, Stephen Downes, Jon Dron, Steve Ediger, Bobby Elliott, John Evans, Karl Fisch, Terry Freedman,  David Theo Goldberg, Linda Harasim, Janet Hart, Bronwyn Hegarty, John Heron, Lucy Hooberman Toru Iiyoshi, Henry Jenkins, Kavita Jhunjhunwala, Anya Kamenetz, Josien Kapma, Richard Katz, Derek W. Keats, Alfie Kohn, M. S. Vijay Kumar, Shaheen E. Lakhan, Teemu Leinonen, Pierre Levy, Chris Lott, Robbie McClintock, Ewan McIntosh, Scott McLeod, Ulises Mejias, Cathy N. Davidson, Christopher Newfield, Jean-Francois Noubel, Michael A. Peters, Howard Pitler, Howard Rheingold, Will Richardson, Will Richardson, Sir Ken Robinson, Parker Rossman, Doc Searls, J. Philipp Schmidt, George Siemens, Chris Smith, Juha Suoranta, John Tagg, Astra Taylor, Mark C. Taylor, Tan Wooi Tong, Ilkka Tuomi, Tere Vad ?en, Tera Vaden, David Warlick, Pia Waugh, David Weinberger, Michael Wesch, Nancy White, David Wiley, John Willinsky, Esther Wojcicki, Clayton R. Wright, Neeru Paharia, Wouter Tebbens, James Paul Gee, Pippa Bucchanan.

Plans for call for participation

Our programme committee members will help us get the call circulated widely; we are also well-connected in three of the most active spaces in this field (Peer 2 Peer University (P2PU), Wikiversity, and OLnet); finally, we will make a coordinated announcement of the conference in relevant JISC mailing lists (e.g. the lists concerning networked learning, computer assisted learning, and evaluation of online learning).

Expected number of attendees

We aim to accommodate 6 presenters.

Planned length of the workshop

We plan to run one 90 minute sessions, so that we can accommodate 6 speakers, each with a 10 minute presentation and 5 minutes for comments.

Relevance to the main conference

We believe that peer learning, particularly online, but also offline, constitutes one of the most important developing areas in education today, with ramifications cutting across the various educational sub-disciplines. Although it touches on many fields of study, it is itself not well-theorized. We believe significant advances towards this end can be made in the course of an informal workshop bringing together practitioners and theorists working in this area.

Facts and figures would be nice to add here.  Intersection of peer production and peer learning.

Details of any previous workshops

N/A, but note related work this year at LAK’11 (https://tekri.athabascau.ca/analytics/) and Linked Learning 2011 (http://projects.kmi.open.ac.uk/meducator/linkedlearning/).

URL of the workshop web site
http://metameso.org/tpl/