K12 Open Ed

An idea

I’ve mostly been too consumed with the pilot of the P2PU School of Ed to think much about what comes next, but here are two interesting things that have bubbled to the surface.

First, the idea to remix an open math textbook into an interactive Moodle course (and perhaps more) has been spun off into a whole new P2PU seminar group. This will start Dec. 1 so if you are interested, please join us.

Secondly, we’ve been bouncing around some ideas for different course (learning group?) formats. One idea has been to do some shorter courses that are largely driven by conversation. These groups could have the potential to have a greater number of participants and then might lead to some longer, deeper learning experiences. Possibly project- or challenge-based?

In a conversation with Bud the Teacher the other day, we brainstormed this a bit. Bud suggested the idea of having some smaller groups actually design these projects or challenges — perhaps a sort of online maker faires for teachers.

So how exactly do you assemble a course/group to build something of their own design without first knowing what that thing they are building is?

Perhaps this grows out of one of those shorter, discussion-driven groups, perhaps even a “massive” one (100+ people). So say, as an example, you have a two week group to explore the question — What could a classroom based on something other than a textbook or a canned curriculum look like?

Spend two weeks discussing and exploring and see what grows out of it. Perhaps some small groups coalesce around some ideas or projects, and they spin off into more in-depth attempts to build something together.

What do you think? Sound interesting? Have ideas for other good questions to explore? Want to play along?

Open-licensed multimedia

Here’s a short presentation on some of the best sources for open-licensed clip art, photos, sound effects, music, and video that I did for our P2PU course on OER in the classroom.

[iframe: src=”http://player.vimeo.com/video/31256209?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0″ width=”400″ height=”265″ frameborder=”0″ webkitAllowFullScreen allowFullScreen]

I love our writing group!

I love the NaNo Prep group on P2PU. (NaNoWriMo is a project undertaken by thousands each year to write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November.)

As I had a hunch it might be, this group is everything I think P2PU is or should be about. It is not leader/instructor-led. A variety of folks are editing and adding tasks. People are accomplishing authentic, self-driven tasks. It is a well-functioning peer group through which I have learned new things, gotten support, and made new friends.

So there are clearly lessons to be learned from this experience. What makes this different from other peer learning experiences?

I think the most important thing is that this group supports a real task — writing a novel — that we were all planning to do anyway. The smaller tasks that lead up to this larger goal genuinely support the goal, and in this group, can be customized by each person to support their own project.

The group dynamic — we all self-identify as writers — is positive. We all love writing. Peer learning is a lot more fun when you love what you’re doing, individually and as a group.

We are all collaborating in the sense that we are supporting each other to write our novels, but in the end, the central task is individual. (Sometimes, collaborative tasks can be pretty contrived and that detracts from motivation, I think.)

I think some great novels will be written in November!

Part 2-Social learning

The strongest participation by far in all of the P2PU School of Ed courses is happening in the discussions. (Fortuitous that we chose this logo graphic, huh? :)

There are lots of posts, comments, questions back and forth, etc. Clearly, this is where engagement is happening in these groups. This is not a surprise if you see learning as a primarily social endeavor.

And so I am reflecting on whether deep learning can occur primarily, or even solely, as a result of short format conversations.

My first gut reaction, I must say, is no. I think you need other resources as well…reading, writing, depth.

But then I think about Twitter. While I initially thought it was a bit of a waste of time, I know count it as my #1 source for professional learning. The conversations I have there are amazing. Granted, it’s not all 140 character bits. It’s also links to readings, videos, and web sites. It’s blog posts. It’s photos. And sometimes, it’s invitations to jump off and have a “real conversation” on Skype or even f2f.

Digital Is has a good collection on this phenomenon here. (Thanks, Kevin.)

So…perhaps this is a new way for me to think about designing a peer learning experience. Perhaps it could be designed as a series of very active, short discussions that then lead to deeper learning experiences. Readings, writing, activities, etc. that grow out of the discussions.

This requires a lot of rethinking, in terms of format, audience, tools, and most probably course (group) topics. I’m going to think about an idea or two in this vein to try out in January. Any ideas or willing collaborators? ;)