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LEARNING BY EVERYONE. FOR EVERYONE. ABOUT ALMOST ANYTHING. COMPLETELY FREE.

 

Blog

News and Updates from P2PU


  • Across The Line!

    P2PU and School of Open are delighted to announce that our latest iteration of Copyright 4 Educators Australia has just finished, and with almost 100% retention rate. Over 50 people joined the course, and only 4 dropped out. For those of you who might be wondering what all the fuss is about – this kind of [...]

  • Hit the Road Map!

    Join the School of Open (Creative Commons & P2PU), the Open Knowledge Foundation, and FLOSS Manuals Foundation for a fun evening to connect with your peers in the open education space! We’re going to be hanging out in London on October 24th, to build something wonderful… [...]

  • Help P2PU School of Open go to the Mozilla Festival in October!

    This is just a quick note to say that several School of Open community members in collaboration with extended communities from Mozilla, Wikimedia, the Open Knowledge Foundation and more are currently pitching the following sessions for the 2013 Mozilla Festival. Help get them on the Festival schedule by voting up the ones you [...]

  • Did You Cut Your Hair…? P2PU has a new look!

    pic by kiyanwang on FlickrYou may have noticed things are looking a little different over at p2pu.org. Slicker, smarter, and a lot more open. Like it? We certainly do. But this is about much more than a new coat of paint. You told us that you wanted to be able to see what people are doing. So [...]

 

Community

We are people from all over the world, who are passionate about learning and education. Anyone is invited to join!

Research Partner

June Ahn

Research Partner

June is a human computer interaction researcher at University of Maryland. He was brave enough to get involved with this crowd and is helping us make all our data available to everyone.

June is a human computer interaction researcher at University of Maryland. He was brave enough to get involved with this crowd and is helping us make all our data available to everyone.

Edupunk

John Britton

Edupunk

As an invaluable part of the volunteer community and later as p2pu staff, John’s s energy has resonated through the p2pu community since the pilot phase. P2PU has been able to make large leaps forward with John’s involvement: the Mechanical MOOC is his work, and the list of P2PU features John has been instrumental in developing is endless.

Lawyer P2PU activist

Larry Cooperman

P2PU activist

Volunteering his experience since P2PU’s inception, Larry continues to actively communicate P2PU to the world and innovate learning at his home institution UC Irvine.

Resident Grungefarmer

Alison Jean Cole

Resident Grungefarmer

Alison’s famous catchphrase: ‘Just like, do it.’ (free after a famous sportswear company) has stuck with p2pu since the fall of 2009. She ‘just made’ most of the instructional materials and has now left p2pu to do an open masters while inspiring others to ‘just keep doing’ as much as possible for p2pu.

Lead School of Mathematical Future Moocsketeer

Chris Ewald

Moocsketeer

Chris is the lead developer for P2PU’s Mechanical MOOC. He love’s making interactive learning experiences like what he has done with the School of Sound

Dean School of Ed

Karen Fasimpaur

Dean School of Ed

Karen Fasimpaur is owner and manager of K-12 handhelds, an educational technology company focused on mobile learning. She founded the School of Ed at P2PU and is currently building her off-the-grid house in Arizona. From scratch.

Board member

Ahrash Bissell

Board member

As a board member, Ahrash takes care of staying true to our original values, while pushing us to be more experimental. He is a wise man.

Commander of Open

Delia Browne

Commander of Open

If you are wondering why Delia’s title starts with ‘Commander’, ask Philipp. As a board member and active community member Delia makes sure things keep running smoothly at p2pu. Next to this she is involved in many of the legal aspects surrounding the organization.

Board member, Executive Director Creative Commons

Cathy Casserly

Board member, Executive Director Creative Commons

One of the original pioneers of opening education, Cathy gave P2PU its very first grant when she was at the Hewlett Foundation. She currently promotes open and collaborative practices to culture, education, and science as ED of creative commons.

Emeritus Webcraft Warrior

Pippa Buchanan

Emeritus Webcraft Warrior

Pippa was the original ‘Webcraft Warrior’ who facilitated the setting up of Mozilla School of Webcraft on the previous p2pu platform. She is currently living in Austria where she makes, sells and sails boats.

Advisor

Stephen Carson

Advisor

Steve has been invaluable as an advisor and is grand-father of the mechanical MOOC. Pretty good work for someone who is actually not a robot himself.

P2PU API creator

Jose Flores

P2PU API creator

If there would be one badge for most active community member who has never been employed by P2PU, it will be hard to pass Jose on volume and amount of work done for p2pu. Chances are good that you are doing one of his courses or using a feature he developed.

National Treasur(er)

Karen Gabriels

National Treasur(er)

Keeps our finances tidy. And our monies safe. And our boss out of jail.

Mad Learning Scientist

Vanessa Gennarelli

Mad Learning Scientist

How people learn stuff and in online peer-based structures is one of the greatest enigmas of our time. You need one badass researcher who works on the fringe of technology and learning to deliver actionable results. Enter Vanessa, who makes delightful learning experiences with an (over)dose of charm.

Facilitator Landlord

Allen Gunn

Facilitator Landlord

Relationships with landlords are rarely easy but ours is a great exception, Gunner is not our workshop facilitator of choice without reason. He is executive director at Aspiration, helping NGOs, activists, foundations and software developers make more effective use of technology for social change.

Co-founder

Stian Haklev

Co-founder

Recently hailed as one of the ‘Fantastic 5′ in open education where he was portrayed as Ben Grimm, Stian has been destroying old institutional structures as a rock solid board member since p2pu’s inception.

The Dean Mother

Rebecca Kahn

The Dean Mother

If Bekka were ever to leave p2pu it would fall apart. We have in the past thought about renaming p2pu to the Kahn Academy but that created too much confusion with other initiatives. Bekka really is the heart and soul of p2pu; any users who are frustrated with the automaton p2pu.org come in and talk to Bekka. She’ll make you a nice cup of tea.

Founder of the P2PU Mentor Program

Alexander Kehayias

Founder of the P2PU Mentor Program

Alex has been working on a mentorship platform for people to connect with knowledgeable mentors to guide them through learning a topic. He is also applying his vast real-life experience in coming up with great opening lines to create an ice-breaker functionality to butter up online interaction.

Vice president for copyright and microwave oven programming

Molly Kleinman

Vice president for copyright and microwave oven programming

Molly takes time out of her busy snacking schedule to drop copyright education bombs on the academic world. She’s a strong believer in understanding rights when it comes to creating and sharing content, especially in the open peer-learning world.

Destroyer/Builder

Pieter Kleymeer

Destroyer/Builder

Piet has been quietly learning about learning for several years, many of them while working with the University of Michigan’s Open.Michigan initiative. He is a founding volunteer with the School of Open, but also contributes to P2PU’s work on mentorship, interface design, the Open Masters project, and pretty much any place people are thinking about the intersections of learning, identity, and information.

Risk taker

Gary Matkin

Risk taker

Gary is Dean of the Extension School at University of California Irvine. He taught Philipp everything he knows about accounting (in 45 min) and infused P2PU with an awesome “beg for forgiveness, rather than ask for permission” attitude from the start.

Design thinker

João Menezes

Design thinker

João is a user-centered design expert, and the projects he engaged in during his ‘UX design’ course have inspired much of the design of the early p2pu.org platform. João continues his journey at p2pu and aims to help build meaningful interactions among peers through the design thinking philosophy and tools.

Founder P2PU ambassador program

Dany Javier Bautista Montaña

Founder P2PU ambassador program

Disappointed by the lack of easy access to learning about web design in Colombia, Dany gathered a group of people and engaged in learning web design through p2pu, setting up the “p2pu ambassador program” in South America in the process. He currently leads this ‘p2pu ambassador program’ for p2pu.

Title: Dean of Data

Laura Newman

Title: Dean of Data

Different people are realizing that Open Education, Open Science, and Open Data are an intimately connected tricolon. For this reason Laura recently started developing the school of data at P2PU in a partnership with OKFN.

Fork lover

Paul Osman

Fork lover

It appears to be so that Paul likes forks, regardless of whether these are pitchforks or software forks. It’s been great for him that he found his 2 places where he can combine his forking hobbies, his forked Mozilla drumbeat.org code is the basis of p2pu as we now know it, and he is currently employed as a developer evangelist at SoundCloud.

Co-founder and Board Member

Neeru Paharia

Co-founder and Board Member

As original gang-star par excellence, Neeru didn’t think it was enough to theorize about starting a peer learning platform so she co-founded p2pu and created and organized the ‘Behavioral Economics’ pilot course at p2pu. Neeru has been at the root of P2U’s success in many ways and now employs her vast experience on the board.

Title: Openness Lead

Jane Park

Title: Openness Lead

Another founding volunteer who loves p2pu so much she made it her day job — almost. Jane works for Creative Commons and devotes 60% of her time to co-creating the ‘School of Open’ with open advocates from around the world.

Another founding volunteer who loves p2pu so much she made it her day job — almost. Jane works for Creative Commons and devotes 60% of her time to co-creating the ‘School of Open’ with open advocates from around the world.

Founding Volunteer

Andrew Rens

Founding Volunteer

As a founding volunteer and early course facilitator of Copyright for Educators, Andrew was instrumental at arriving to a choice for a specific open license and the legalities involved in implementing the license at p2pu. He was formerly the legal lead for Creative Commons South Africa.

Master of the Custodial Arts

Philipp Schmidt

Master of the Custodial Arts

Not just a pretty face, Philipp is the executive director of p2pu answering only to the board, the community and Delia (uhm, so, everyone.) How he still manages to get any work done is a mystery.

P2PhDean

Jessy Kate Schingler

P2PhDean

Jessy is P2PU’s resident Superwoman–brains, brawn and badassery. Jessy is passionate about the ways that openness and collaboration can advance science and research. At P2PU, she’s focused on bringing science to our everyday lives, opening up research to be accessible to many, and making moments for reflection.

Game Preparer, Developer, and Player

Niels Sprong

Game Preparer, Developer, and Player

Niels is a man of many talents. He’ll beat you hands down playing cards, but then he’ll make you dinner afterwards. A founding volunteer at P2PU, Niels ran courses on Poker and Strategic Thinking and Molecular Gastronomy, and keeps asking us difficult questions, which is why we like to keep him around.

Designer

Aleksander Stachurka

Designer

In establishing p2pu’s visual identity, Aleksander has done a great job in translating the ideas of the the community into p2pu’s visual identity. Aleks now runs his own photography and design studio in Warsaw, Poland.

Board Member

Nadeem Shabir

Board Member

When Nadeem is not eloquently luring people at p2pu workshops into letting their emotions about peer learning run freely, he uses his vast experience in programming to contribute to the p2pu platform and add a developer perspective to the board.

Board member, Executive Director Mozilla Foundation

Mark Surman

Board member, Executive Director Mozilla Foundation

Mark loves all things open, including wine bars in San Francisco that are still open at 2am. As Mozilla Foundation ED he is leading an army of webmakers to keep the web open. As board member of P2PU he helps Philipp get more done.

Co-founder and Board Member

Joel Thierstein

Co-founder and Board Member

Possibly the hippest provost in the history of US academia, p2pu co-founder Joel has been upping the cool-level of p2pu since the early days as a co-founder. He currently sits on the board of P2PU and works for Rice University and the US Department of Education as a senior adviser and counsel.

Developer

Dirk Uys

Developer

While you’re surfing the web Dirk is probably surfing a crazy wave just off the coast of Durban. He is a software developer stoked to engage with the community and get the stuff the community thinks up implemented on p2pu.org. Any email to Dirk has to start with the words “Shot bru!”

Head of Games

Chloe Varelidi

Head of Games

If you would ever say a course is too difficult for you, Chloe would likely respond with “No, it’s a challenge ”. After and before courses were called courses, Chloe designed the basic way in which you can now structure courses into meaningful and challenging chunks, creating a better learning experience for everyone.

Very First Tech Lead

Zuzel Vera

Very First Tech Lead

Zuzel will probably rank high in any top list of most productive developers ever. P2PU would have been called about:blank if it weren’t for her.

Zuzel will probably rank high in any top list of most productive developers ever. P2PU would have been called about:blank if it weren’t for her.

Projectician

Alan Webb

Projectician

Alan supports those who wish to move passionately in the direction of their dreams through creating projects and learning together as peers. He is a seeker and a perpetual incubator of projects, including: the Open Masters Program, Citizen Circles, Emergent Workshops, the Living Transcript, the School of Social Innovation…

Check out our community discussion and chime in with your ideas. Design a brand new course and ask for feedback. Create a research study about learning online. Or come up with a completely new idea for P2PU.

 

Courses

 

Badges

 

Schools

 

MOOCs

We have run MOOCs on Learning Python, Creative Learning (with the MIT Media Lab) and Data skills. Our MOOCs are big learning communities that run on the web. Lots of people sign up, and we facilitate collaboration and team work.