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Mozilla School of Webcraft at P2PU

Web developer training that’s free, open and globally accessible.

Mozilla and Peer 2 Peer University are creating the P2PU School of Webcraft, a new way to teach and learn web developer skills. Our classes are globally accessible, 100% free, and powered by learners, mentors and contributors like you. Our goal is to provide a free pathway to skills and certification to help people build careers on open web technology.

Existing developer training is expensive, out of touch, and out of reach. We leverage peer learning powered by mentors and learners like you and self-organized study groups. We use existing open and free learning materials.

In this sixty minute session we’ll briefly cover the inception of the Peer 2 Peer University along with details and success stories from the first three cycles of courses. We’ll then dive into more detail about our collaboration with Mozilla Drumbeat including Mozilla’s mission to engage the next million Mozillians. We’ll present the P2PU School of Webcraft, and a case study of courses offered so far, including the first course, ‘Mashing Up the Open Web.’ Additionally, we’ll introduce our plans to separate learning from assessment and our community driven credentialing system.

At the end of the session we will invite the audience, and all of SXSW, to join a course on open web skills to be offered during the week of the event. Read more: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Drumbeat/p2pu/one_pager

The Peer 2 Peer University is gearing up to launch its third cycle of courses this coming September, and we’re looking for new faces to join the community. Do you have an idea for a six week course? Whether it’s Physics 101 or Poker and Strategic Thinking, all ideas are welcome. You can propose a course at http://wiki.p2pu.org/Create-a-Course (deadline is August 6, 2010).

Full post at http://blogs.p2pu.org/blog/2010/07/23/p2pu-call-for-courses/

The workshop wiki is online and we would love to get feedback and comments for improvement. Some participants already asked us to run the event in their universities and we are planning to build a workshop blueprint/model that others can use as well.

The Open Courseware Consortium is the largest global network of universities that publish open educational resources. It was originally established at MIT, but with a clear mission to become an independent entity that represents institutions from all over the world, increase the amount of open courseware that is shared and developed, and increase its reach and impact. Over the past year, some members have worked very hard to develop the necessary governance documents and processes, which led to the election of the first Open Courseware Consortium board and the OCWC will shortly be incorporated as a non-profit organisation. From the perspective of our work at UWC, we were very happy to be voted onto the first board of the Open Courseware Consortium for the next two years. Three other institutions are represented for two years (the MIT, the Open University UK, and Keio University in Tokyo) and four others will participate for one year initially (TU Delft Netherlands, University of Korea, Tecnologico de Monterrey Mexico, and University Juan Carlos III Spain) to ensure sufficient board turn-over. Affiliate board members are the Utah State Universities Center for Open and Sustainable Learning and CORE, the Chine Open Resources for Education project.

The fact that an open courseware project from a small, previously disadvantaged institution in South Africa was asked to help shape the work of this global university network, is both indicator for the consortium members’ commitment to increasing reach and impact, and comes with a big responsibility for us to represent the needs and perspectives of institutions in developing countries. As every business consultant will say – a great challenge, and a tremendous opportunity!

Over the past few years, I have been commenting on the imbalance between the OER movement’s statements about supporting developing nations and the allocation of funding, which went almost entirely to well established and resourced institutions in developed countries. During the meeting I spoke to many of the participants from the developed countries about this issue and get the sense that there is a real interest and willingness to engage in order to find solutions together – but that there also seems to be a lack of strategies that are effectively put forward by developing country institutions. Of course, that is related to lack of capacity and awareness, but that creates a dilemma – as the South does not want to patronised and “developed” by the North, yet the North does not understand how it can effectively engage and collaborate. This is definitely an area that I will put some of my energy into in the next 2 years.

I also want to thank the Shuttleworth Foundation for providing a last minute travel grant to support my attendance at the meeting and hereby enabling African representation at the first board meeting.

Finally returned to Cape Town on the weekend and am jumping in late to the discussions. I read the Tomasevski papers on the plane, and have not had a chance to look at the discussions so far. So hopefully I am not repeating too much what others might have said already.

Yes, education is (or should be) a human right, but will that change anything?

I cannot argue with Tomasevski’s main argument that education should be acknowledged as a basic human right, but I don’t share her enthusiasm for the impact that this will have on the quality of education globally. For example, looking at the list of existing human rights treaties that include education and the large number of countries that has already ratified them (this is covered mostly in Primer 2) makes it clear that more is needed to address the big challenges facing education, especially in many developing countries. Tomasevski seems to say that somehow labeling education a human right would force the donor community to make available the funds that are needed, make governments design good education policies and implement them, increase the quality of teaching and learning, etc.

With regards to “real” solutions to the problems, which she lists, her key statement on how to start improving the current situation remains sadly focused on our ability to find the financial means necessary,

“The identification and elimination of obstacles – especially financial – to the realization of the right to education is the key to progress” (Page 9)

even though she also quotes Amartyias Sen’s perceptive comment that,

“If one has any sense of priority, to say that India does not have the money is absolute, utter, unmitigated nonsense.” (Page 21)

Tomasevski argues that corollary rights would make it possible to hold governments and international organisations accountable, but in light of other international rights that are frequently violated (notably not only by developing countries) this merely presents a starting point and the real work of fixing education still remains to be done. She points to Primer No. 3 as containing more detail and examples where governments were held to deliver on fundamental responsibilities related to education and I should probably read that as well.

Finally, I was confused by her statements on higher education. On page 42 she rallies against high spending on higher education,

“Without human rights correctives, resource allocation in education looks pretty much the same worldwide. Most money goes to universities, whose learners are the most expensive to school, the fewest in number, and the most likely to pertain to the country’s elite.” (Page 42)

yet three pages earlier she pointed out that there is not enough focus on tertiary education,

“The current international priority for basic education has led to a halt in financial support for post-basic education. This fares ill against findings that the foundation necessary to enable individuals ‘to build up their human capital’ is upper-secondary education. Moreover, without secondary and university education, what education will teachers have so as to be able to teach children?” (Page 39)

I think the case of Korea shows that a focus on higher education only makes no sense, but if we think of socio-economic development as a process, then funding for education needs to take into account that skills needs shift towards more technology-oriented fields over time.