Drumbeat/Challenges/p2pu

Title

Open Web Career Track:
a collection of peer 2 peer courses for people who want to learn open web skills

Background

The challenge: Most tech career development courses focus on certification around a single technology (e.g. MCSE or Cisco Academy). The result: students go into their careers knowing one or two tools rather than knowing how to learn and adapt tools on the fly. Also, there is a sense that permission and certification are the keys to tech career success -- but the reality is that creative, entrepreneurial problem solving is much more important.

The emerging Peer 2 Peer University (P2PU) initiative could offer an alternative to this kind of tech career development. P2PU is helps people create small groups of motivated learners, compile packages of open learning materials and dseign and facilitate their own courses. Students and tutors get recognition for their work, and plans are in the works to develop formal (peer rating based?) credit as well.

Description

Open Web Career Track is a series of P2PU courses where students collaboratively learn -- and rate each other on -- open web skills. The courses focus both on specific, standards-based technologies (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, etc.) and learn-as-you-go problem solving and hacking (the real skill you need to succeed). Individual courses are organized by learners using the P2PU model. The overall program is organized as a Drumbeat project involving both employers (TopCoder?) and online career web sites (LinkedIn?).

The Open Web Career Track program is particularly focused on regions with high growth technology sectors and a strong bent towards certification. Likely places include: India, East Asia and Brasil. We want peer learning and accreditation to emerge as serious open web career path alternatives in these regions.

How does this make the web better?

This makes the web better in two ways:

1. more people skilled in the core technologies used to create the open web
2. more people building their careers and skills around openness, creativity, on the fly learning -- the values and approaches needed for the open web to thrive

Tags

learning, openweb, p2p

Video

Click here to watch video on blip.tv.

Goals and metrics (outcome)

need to work on these, especially add metrics ... but here is a start

• Q1 2010 - compile materials, attract leaders and test concept
  • Metrics: at least one course running, clear curriculum exists, leadership in place
• Q2 2010 - full slate of courses -- HTML, JS, CSS plus more business oriented?
  • Metrics:
•  ???

Participation asks

• Define learning goals and curriculum outline
  • (what do we think students need to learn)
• Help us find and write open curriculum
  • (add more granular asks here)
• Start a course or a local study group
• Participate in a course
• Participate as a tutor
• Join as a 'sponsoring employer'
  • Provide feedback on learning goals (what are you hiring for?)
  • Donate staff time for tutoring
  • Will consider candidates once they get to certain level
• Join as a karma channel
  • E.g. show your peer reviews from courses in LinkedIn

Donation Target and Ask

• Raise $5,000 by March 2009 to create open learning materials
• Mozilla will match w/ additional $5,000 once goal has been met

Toolset and Platform

• Will use P2PU's existing learning platform?
• Where is workspace for creating learning materials? (assuming they don't exist yet)

Timeline and Milestones

• Would be great to have a test course running in February
•  ???

Current challenges and questions

• Who's doing stuff in this space already? Do they have open learning materials? Do they want to collaborate?
• How do we bootstrap? W/ interested tutors? Who coordinates?
• Do we have a leader / leaders for this? People who know the content? People in the countries where this needs to happen?
• What materials exist that we could draw on? Is there enough that we could run a course tomorrow?