In our seminal report on How the Internet is Revolutionizing Education, we introduced you to P2PU, a grassroots, open education project that organizes learning outside of institutional walls.
Since last summer, P2PU has grown to 30,000 users aka “peers” under the care of its 7-person team that’s strategically spread across the globe. In the past few months, the nonprofit has opened up in 3 new languages, so in addition to English and Spanish, you can now take classes in Swedish, Dutch and Chinese translations.
Unlike offerings from the recently launched Coursera, which we covered this morning, courses aren’t taught in a traditional sense by professors and video lectures, but are set up as challenges via a step-by-step, multimedia process. While you’re engaged, other P2PU peers are working on the challenges with you. Oftentimes, the classes come with activities that encourage group participation.
Today, P2PU is announcing 15 new courses with topics like Entrepreneurial Marketing, Design Your First Big Game, Writing for the Web and Curating Content. All classes are free to anyone in the world and at this time, teachers aren’t paid as the nonprofit’s main goal is to keep the experience free.
“I’m a web developer and people ask me how to be a web developer all the time,” says John Britton, P2PU’s Product Manager. “So instead of telling each of my friends how to do this, I created a P2PU course for them to take. I’m watching as they go through the steps and can see what they’re doing so I can jump in and help them out when needed.”
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P2PU has numerous partnerships with companies such as Mozilla that have built schools on its platform including School of Ed and School of Webcraft, which offer classes like Collaborative Lesson Planning and Programming with the Twitter API, respectively. In addition to its new offerings, P2Pu courses are now more social, scalable and easier to find. Learner profiles have also been improved so you can now add your P2PU badges to your Mozilla Backpack.
“I currently work at a great college and am constantly impressed by the faculty I work with. They are remarkable. However, I do see them struggling — trying to prepare young people for jobs that don’t even exist yet. I can see where “just in time learning” like that found here on P2PU can be a better solution,” says educationist Leah Macvie.
Looking forward, a P2PU ambassador program is under way and the School of Data and School of Open are soon to pilot their first courses.
➤ P2PU
inacio pires via shutterstock
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