P2PULearningChallenges/ProjectPlan

FINAL SCOPE

January 16 is roll out (what is in scope)

• badges in tasks
• iframe solution from Atul
• grouping of challenges (sets of challenges)
• everything on Challenge Fixes 1.0 Trello Board
• Hackasaurus Challenges in the platform

Additional things in scope for January 16:

• Add a prominent call out on the learn page to challenges (block of featured challenges at the top)
• Agree on one URL to use in all promotion / communication

Additional things in scope by end of January:

• Guidelines / how-to materials for challenge creation
• Notes: Get more feedback on how they work for different audiences, Current version skews young, Test with webcraft list as well
• SoW Homepage banner redesign (Laura) - nice to have, but need to get it "right", representing/talking to more ages - point goes for all of the communication surrounding challenges. Chloe's illustrations are great, but they are directed at a specific audience.

PROJECT PLAN

Project Team
Project Lead: Laura (Mozilla), Chloe (P2PU)
Working closely with: Steph, Jess, Atul, Philipp, Zuzel

Trello: https://trello.com/board/challenges-101/4ecb53f6514c7a000000ed22

https://trello.com/board/challenge-fixes-1-0/4ea1b6d5147920a55e037013

Big picture goals

• Make a UX/functional improvements to support Moz challenges
• Content focus on Hackasaurus, first trial content
• Define evaluation metrics and goals
• Run a series of kick-ass challenges

Timeline

COMPLETED & APPROVED BY DEC 2. Functional Improvements List Evaluation Metrics and Goals Summary </p>

COMPLETED BY DEC. 14 EST AM Partner Account Challenges 101 30% UX Changes, including Challenge fixes (Challenge pieces and parts +) UX Wireframes

COMPLETED BY DEC 16 Hackasaurus Content 50% UX

COMPLETED BY JAN 10 Hackasaurus Content iterations Hackasaurus challenges in P2PU platform

ANNOUNCE Challenges to Community on JAN 16 (ask for feedback: SOFT LAUNCH) 100% UX Changes committed and released

ITERATE Challenges by JAN 23

PROMOTE Challenges in community call and to Public starting JAN 24

COLLECT R1 Stats starting JAN 30

REVIEW R1 Stats by FEB 6

Roadmap

Week of 21 Nov

[Chloe] working on Challenge UX improvements/ Laura touch base? [Laura] Gathers all the feedback on what we need to do to get the platform in place (draft done). - Chloe has gathered all the feedback on this http://bit.ly/veC1W4 - [Laura] to parse and create functional improvement list (discuss w/ Chloe and Philipp what Zuzel is already implementing) [Laura] Draft evaluation metrics and goals, work with Philipp, Steph to finalize. [Mark] Tee up conversation with BVAC Hackasaurus as first test https://etherpad.mozilla.org/challenges-evaluation-goals

Week of 28 Nov - Week of 12 Dec

[Chloe] Prepare short summary of what makes a good challenge (longer versions are mostly done, needs to be distilled down) http://chloeatplay.tumblr.com/post/10849812155/a-basic-how-to-make-a-school-of-webcraft-challenge http://chloeatplay.tumblr.com/post/10404458453/what-makes-a-good-school-of-webcraft-challenge [Chloe] Challenge 101 (1 or 2 challenges on P2PU that help anyone get started designing their own challenge) [suggestion: come up with a clearer name... I didn't know what "Challenge 101" meant until I read this pad. Perhaps "Make your first challenge" or similar] [Laura] works with P2PU folks to work UX changes into the platform. [Laura] Transform BAVC content into a challenges. [Jess] Develop Hackasaurus challenges, work with Laura to lay into P2PU.

Week of 12 Dec

14-16: Challenge Hackfest in Toronto (finalize draft challenges)

Jan 2012:

Announce / Promote challenges Run challenges Evaluate

THE LONG VERSION: MOZILLA CHALLENGES ON P2PU

What it is

In the Fall of 2011, P2PU and Mozilla evaluated P2PU current offerings, and began an experiment called „Challenges“. These learning modules are a series of tasks that lead to the development of a web project. Through the completion of these modules, participants can develop skills and earn badges to document their triumphs. The alpha run of Challenges is called Webcraft 101 and includes seven challenges. Completion of these project based challenges lead to the participant's development of a fully functional webspace. Basic HTML/CSS skills and web concepts like hosting, server space, and DNS are among the skills participants learn.

At this stage, Mozilla and P2PU are making UX/functional improvements to the P2PU platform to support challenges created for Mozilla projects. These improvements will allow Mozilla greater functionality for the creation of Mozilla content, and allow content creators to assign badges. The Hackasaurus project will provide the first trial content.

Mozilla and P2PU are also working together to determine the value Challenges brings to users, learners, mentors, teachers, and course designers. After the Hackasaurus curricula are created and built using the P2PU platform, Mozilla and P2PU will evaluate success by comparing Webmaking 101 usage with Hackasaurus usage.

Goals

The main goals of this project are to improve the interface of P2PU to make Challenges easier to create and with more interactive functionality, specifically for Mozilla content creators and to assess the value of the challenges process from a partner perspective and from a user perspective.

Initial functional improvements can be seen here: https://etherpad.mozilla.org/p2pu-easychanges-mozsupport

Evaluation goals and metrics can be seen here: https://etherpad.mozilla.org/challenges-evaluation-goals

Stakeholders

The Mozilla Foundation supports P2PU as a sponsor. Mozilla is supporting the Challenges project through investment as well as through promotion of the School of Webcraft. Through the sharing of community, Mozilla is interested in spreading content efforts to a wider range of people.

P2PU owns the platform, which will hold the content. As a sponsored project of Mozilla, P2PU is interested in maintaining good relations and improving their platform based on the recommendations of a global technology leader.

The Mozilla Team and the P2PU team are also stakeholders in the Challenges Project. Because the team is creating the project and implementing functional changes to the P2PU platform, the visibility of each team members skills and competencies is very high.

The user is king. These efforts are to inspire users to become web makers and to share with their individual communities. The projects are for the people.

We all want the project to be a success. Those working on the project will use discursive strategies to communicate. As is the case in Open Web projects, management will also use open and honest communication. We're collaborating and will discuss issues as they arise.

Resources

The resources integral to the project are it's team members. P2PU and Mozilla have dedicated project leaders to facilitate the functional improvement's of the P2PU platform. P2PU has committed developers to implementing these changes, and Mozilla has committed man power to drive the project. Both organizations will spend time and effort marketing and promoting challenges within their respective web spaces.

Risk Assessment

Designing learning content for the major Mozilla projects using the challenge based platform requires specific curriculum design and thinking for a specific target audience. Currently, there are no plans in place to modify the challenges processes or interface for different age groups. It will be up to the content creators to understand the nuances of curriculum development in general and for different age groups, and without an educational background, this might prove difficult.

Platform problems are also a risk. The platform is under constant development and is always improving, but scalability and usability are areas that will potentially have issues. Usability is an area that should be under constant surveillance. It is a risk that content creators may find the platform difficult to use and thus uninspired to create challenges.

The idea of peer to peer learning is also an experiment. P2PU's courses have seen a drop off in participation over the length of the course, particularly with the long term courses. Hopefully, the Challenges content will be organized in such a way to inspire peer to peer assessment and mentorship. It hasn't yet been determined if the model is adequate for assessment between peers. Learners are still used to a hierarchal model, thus the risk that that perspective is ingrained is relatively large.

Finally, Challenges need to be created for what exists, rather than what will soon be possible. Curriculum will likely need to be modified each time a project expands or changes focus and each time a piece of software is updated. This means dedicated man hours to consistently improve Challenges.

What it could be

With the initial functional improvements to the P2PU platform, Mozilla content creators will have mechanisms to help them build project based curriculum for the public at large. Through gamification of learning materials and peer assisted assessment, users will have the ability to learn real digital skills asynchronously (and have fun while doing it).

If the trial run of Hackasaurus Challenges proves successful, other Mozilla flagship projects will have step-by-step guidance in the creation of learning material that supports and underlines individual project goals and learning. They will have the ability to issue badges and track learning. The Open Badges project will see a proliferation in badge issuance.

The School of Webcraft could become a hub for project based learning based on other Mozilla interests while pushing users offsite for other project initiatives and content. The active trafficking of users between P2PU and Mozilla Project Sites would create awareness of both organizations and further their missions.

The current project team is experimenting with this idea of peer to peer based project learning and assessment and will be able to serve as a think tank for other Mozilla projects. The team will have the expertise required to define and develop creative, interesting, thought-provoking, and fun curricula that fits within current project visions. They will be able to define granular pieces of knowledge in other Mozilla projects and create project based curriculum that supports and underlines those pieces.

If Challenges prove successful, Mozilla projects will have a process for developing solid, accessible, open, project-based learning curricula.