Final Draft of Micro-Grant Proposal Guidelines

[lila bailey]

Hi folks,

Here is the final draft of the guidelines, incorporating the feedback I got from everyone so far:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uj_Cg5UP7iXk-nqHjyn6HfdX-dtnmiocHSuGY67qGOc/edit?hl=en&authkey=CLPjxpAF#

If you have any changes or suggestions, make them now or forever hold your peace!

In a few days, we should probably post these guidelines somewhere on the website (or wiki?), and then tweet/blog about it so folks know we're open for business, so to speak.  Yes?

Happy holidays everyone!

-Lila

[Alison Jean Cole]

Looks great Lila!

Although I am wary of "advertising" that we have this money for schools, spreading the word might actually connect us with folks who are looking for a platform/outlet for p2p learning. :-)

A


p2pu.org

[Maria Droujkova]

I will wait till this is out to apply for Family and Community Math. I would want for people who organize courses to get some money.

Great work, Lila!

Cheers,
Maria Droujkova

Make math your own, to make your own math.

[Stian Håklev]

Maria, I personally don't think that's the idea behind this grant - and we quite strongly expressed in Barcelona that P2PU would not be funding individual course organizers (we left it open if outside agencies wanted to fund the running of courses).

Stian

--
http://reganmian.net/blog -- Random Stuff that Matters

[Maria Droujkova]

What are people spending money on? Are there existing examples?

[Stian Håklev]

If you look at SoW, which is already running, although they didn't get any funding from this specific grant, they hired Pippa to be a community coordinator (not sure what her official title is), and have also paid for various people to work on accreditation models and software. I believe SoSI also wants to use the money for community coordination, and also to enable them to apply for larger grants from others.

Stian

[Pippa Buchanan]

Stian, I'm not sure what my official title is. I think at various
times of the day it varies between "course and curriculum organiser",
"community lead", "official worrier" and "carrot holder / ass
kicker".

FYI Maria, when I ran a course I didn't include it in my contracted hours.

If you want to thank your course organisers you could do that by
providing them with certificates, a reference letter listing the
skills they developed as organisers (facilitating, online team
management) and of course there's always the popular option of sending
them t-shirts.

[Rebecca Kahn]

I think Pippa makes an important point.
As a pain member of staff at P2PU, it was made clear from the beginning that I would never invoice for the time I spend doing "course stuff". Because P2P is all about volunteering, as an organiser or participant in courses.

The time I am paid for is spent doing admin for the project - basically the kind of scuttlebutt work that no-one wanted to volunteer to do.

B

--
Rebecca Kahn
Skype: rebekahn

[Philipp Schmidt]

On 23 December 2010 08:54, Rebecca Kahn <bekka...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I think Pippa makes an important point.
> As a pain member of staff at P2PU, it was made clear from the beginning that
> I would never invoice for the time I spend doing "course stuff". Because P2P
> is all about volunteering, as an organiser or participant in courses.
>
> The time I am paid for is spent doing admin for the project - basically the
> kind of scuttlebutt work that no-one wanted to volunteer to do.

I agree. In principle there is no "rule" against paying people to run
courses in the schools, and I think that's fine, because, I doubt that
a grant proposal for funds to pay course organizers would be
successful. We can deal with this at the concrete level.

P

[Maria Droujkova]

On Thu, Dec 23, 2010 at 1:54 AM, Rebecca Kahn <bekka...@gmail.com> wrote:

I think Pippa makes an important point.
As a pain member of staff at P2PU, it was made clear from the beginning that I would never invoice for the time I spend doing "course stuff". Because P2P is all about volunteering, as an organiser or participant in courses.

The time I am paid for is spent doing admin for the project - basically the kind of scuttlebutt work that no-one wanted to volunteer to do.

B

This makes sense, because paying for "running" the course will exclude that peer (the facilitator) from the rest of the group in a rather strong and questionable manner.

The sort of "scuttlebutt work" I anticipate in the School of Math Future (that's what we are calling it for now) has to do with mobilizing, inviting and connecting existing math ed communities so their members will participate "as a group" - preserving their community ties. My time will probably be sponsored by Natural Math, but as for others, we will see what support is needed for that work. It's a whole lot of emails and Skype talks, as I know from my Math 2.0 Interest Group experience. Organizing math educators is like herding cats :-) There is also research - data collection, analysis, publication preparation - and applying for other grants, to think about.

I am very passionate about mathematics education being a part of the peer-to-peer movement from its start. In the seventies, computer science, social change and mathematics education were three forces pushing then-significant innovation in education in general. Unfortunately, by the late eighties mathematics education was ceasing to play this role, and by mid-nineties, it fell behind. For example, most meaningful math computer games are around twenty years old. Only in the last few years, with the help of such online and shareable computational tools as Wolfram|Alpha, and strong online communities such as Art of Problem Solving or GeoGebra, mathematics education has become a force of innovation once again. P2PU has School of Webcraft, is building School of Social Innovation, and now School of Math Future. The three forces are at work - just like the old times, only better!

We have four courses confirmed so far for January - Early Algebra, Running Math Clubs, Developmental Psychology and Mathematics, and GeoGebra Screencasting. Joe is working on a math games course, as well. I am building tools for aggregating our work and helping course organizers, at the Math 2.0 Interest Group page for now. I made a page at the p2pu wiki as well.



Cheers,
Maria Droujkova

[Alison Jean Cole]

re Maria/Math: You should definitely get folks to put these courses up on P2PU.org before the orientation begins on 10 January.

re Document: Should we include stipulations as to what funding may be used for. As P said, there is no "rule" against paying organizers, but we ought to make it clear to folks applying that a proposal to do so would be denied. It may save folks an extra step and any surprises.

A


p2pu.org

[Maria Droujkova]

On Mon, Dec 27, 2010 at 3:23 PM, Alison Jean Cole <alisonj...@gmail.com> wrote:

re Maria/Math: You should definitely get folks to put these courses up on P2PU.org before the orientation begins on 10 January.

Thank you! We have five courses in the works, with the "internal" deadline for offering new ones at January 5th. I will help everybody register courses at the p2pu.org as well. We are calling it a school on Math Future site, though I realize there may be some time before it becomes a school of P2PU, if I understood the discussions of the last month correctly.

This is exciting!

http://mathfuture.wikispaces.com/SchoolOfMathFuture

Maria Droujkova

[Alison Jean Cole]

Maria this is great!
You should definitely share this with p2pu-co...@googlegroups.com.

One tiny detail  - if you're representing P2PU graphically you should use our official logos and get an ok from the council about partnerships (I think...). I guess the best folks to speak with are Philipp & Stian (they are both on the council and Philipp is the director) - they are on this list and will probably pipe in here. :-)

All in all, a math focused school is very, very exciting!

A



p2pu.org/users/alison

[Maria Droujkova]

Thanks - just let me know what to do and what not to do, or change things directly as it's all on wikis. I changed the background color on the logo, assuming it's ok because Webcraft people changed colors around. I am looking forward to more feedback.

Cheers,
Maria Droujkova

Make math your own, to make your own math.

 

[Alison Jean Cole]

Yes, saw the red logo - that's fine. :-)

[Maria Droujkova]

On Mon, Dec 27, 2010 at 4:29 PM, Maria Droujkova <drou...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Mon, Dec 27, 2010 at 3:23 PM, Alison Jean Cole <alisonj...@gmail.com> wrote:

re Maria/Math: You should definitely get folks to put these courses up on P2PU.org before the orientation begins on 10 January.

I just heard back from Peter Appelbaum, the coordinator of mathematics education courses at Arcadia University where I will be teaching a graduate course on mathematics curriculum development. They will be happy if I make the course open to participation through P2PU. This adds the sixth course to our list in the School of Mathematical Future. It makes me happy for the course members, who I believe will get a better experience this way.
http://mathfuture.wikispaces.com/CourseSignUp

I want to thank Alec Couros, whose work I am using as a model for setting up this course.

[Joe Corneli]

Just to weigh in here briefly -

For now, the focus is mainly going to be on running a half dozen or so
successful courses. As Maria said earlier, any work to build a
coalition would be time-consuming -- but we agree that a successful
"incubation" round at P2PU will make a big difference and will likely
attract many interesting, interested, people. It's probably a bit
early to even guess about what we might spend money on (just my view).

Regarding the aims of the "Math Future" school: currently a lot of it
is drawing on Maria's existing community and practices, but I for one
am hoping to get my math-related projects into the mix (I don't think
we need "two" math schools, but one that includes various different
approaches would be cool!) -- and I'd like to see other individuals
and groups getting involved as time goes by.

This morning, I was kicking around an expanded version of the name
that I rather like, "School of the Mathematical Future" -- which I
think gets at both the pedagogical and technological aspects of the
project. Not everyone involved with mathematics or math education
would be interested in a project with this focus -- but I think there
will likely be quite a few who are interested. Just what sort
organizing work (e.g. outreach or inreach) is most useful depends on
various factors (including various factors that are relevant across
P2PU, and some that are specific to this particular
school-in-incubation).

[Alison Jean Cole]

When a new p2pu related focus group is created the general p2pu-community list should be notified. Please add p2pu-ma...@googlegroups.com to this page: http://wiki.p2pu.org/mailing-lists and share information about it with the larger community so interested folks can join.

ALISON

p2pu.org/users/alison

[Maria Droujkova]

Done, Alison! Thank you!