At what point is a school a school?

[lila bailey]

Hi Schools People!

 

Recently I've been talking to a few people interested in starting schools. I've been trying to give them guidance on the process, but we really don't have one. I would really like to pin down in the next few weeks a statement of what makes a school a school (such that they can use our logo, call themselves a P2PU school and so on). We have some very vague minimum requirements listed on the schools working group page: http://wiki.p2pu.org/w/page/33028516/p2pu-schools-working-group

 

But I feel like we need something more concrete. When I send people interested in starting a school to that page it just leads to more confusion rather than less. I have been talking to Alison and Philipp about developing a schools template and some kind of "readiness checklist" that we can point people to. But in order to create those things, I think we need a really good idea of our definition of a school.

 

So, what is a school at P2PU? Is it enough to just have an aspiration to generate a community around a theme? Can one person running one course call themselves a school? I would say no, that something more is required ... but what is that "something more"? In my mind it has to do with demonstrating community support. Do folks agree with that idea? If so, what does such a demonstration look like?

 

Also, I wonder how people would react to the idea of having folks who want to call themselves a school sign some kind of commitment statement. Nothing legally binding, mind you, but something that would lay out what it means to be a school and the responsibilities that come along with that. Maybe even something like the SOW charter. Obviously, anyone who gets a microgrant will be signing a grant agreement, so I'm talking about schools that either have their own funding or who have no funding. What are people's thoughts on that?

 

Anyway, just trying to get this schools conversation jump started again, since it seems like most people on this list have not been paying much active attention to these issues...

 

If you no longer wish to be in the working group, please feel free to unsubscribe yourself from the google group.

 

Thanks for listening!

 

Lila

[Wesley Pennock]

WHAT A SCHOOL IS...

A school at P2PU is a place for people to learn and teach about a specific set of topics through P2P interactions. Each school would be run by a academic facilitator (or cooler name) who would be an expert in a area of particular importance to the school. The school is a place of learning and growth both personal and academic whose ultimate goal is to make a smarter, more open source/P2P world through using these such things as P2P, open source, freeware, etc to educate. The school is a place of diversity where people from around the globe gather to learn.

WHAT A SCHOOL IS NOT...

A place where hate,violence, rudeness,etc is tolerated. A place where unnecessarily commercial software is used. A place of close mindedness. 

These are just some of the thoughts I have on the idea of "school" for P2PU.

--

Sincerely,

Wesley Pennock

[Pippa Buchanan]

I think that this is a very valuable question Lila and a great way to jump-start the working group.

The formation of Webcraft was so specific that it's difficult to use us as a usecase. and School of Math Futures had an existing community to introduce to P2PU and SoSI a particular goal and existing community. In general I think that schools should emerge with either a group / org behind them or to evolve as more groups develop around certain areas.

Perhaps tags on the new site will help us identify where these "groupings" occur. 

For example, I can imagine that over time there'll be multiple groups exploring business skills - perhaps those people collaborate to develop the School of 21st Century Business or something?

Maybe a proto-School is 3 or more regularly maintained groups that communicate and collaborate? At some point we either offer / or they self-select to sign the School agreement?

P*

[lila bailey]

Thanks Pippa - I think it's a really good point that so far the schools we have seen have come from existing communities who come to P2PU. I think that's a great model, but I'd also like to think about how we can support folks who want to create organic communities within P2PU as well. Tags should help for courses that already exist or that people independently decide to create. But what about folks who want to generate a community around a theme more intentionally? The community list may simply be the best way for the near term, but I'm curious how else we might be able to help.

 

I quite like the idea of "proto-schools." It's a way for someone or a small group to show interested in creating a school, without necessarily needing to have everything fully formed in advance. Then if that proto-school takes off and gathers momentum, then they can opt to become a School (via an agreement or some other mechanism).

 

What's the best way for proto-schools to have a place within the new P2PU site? Is it as simple as tags? Or will there be "workspace" or something similar (like working groups on the current wiki)?

[Alison Jean Cole]

I think the info here: http://wiki.p2pu.org/w/page/33028516/p2pu-schools-working-group is actually pretty good.
While lots of folks have interest in forming schools, I think "pilot" periods would be pretty crucial to the formative process.

new.p2pu.org/en/alison/

[Wesley Pennock]

At this point I have to ask, what is the point of the micro-grant?

--

Sincerely,

Wesley Pennock

Check Out The Techie School

http://techieschool.blogspot.com/

[Alison Jean Cole]

Often getting a school off the ground can require a temporary burst of focus and hard work from those that run it. Microgrants can cover initial footwork, research and other operational costs once a school becomes established.

ALISON
new.p2pu.org/en/alison/

[Wesley Pennock]

Well then what software do we run on our servers? If not Ubuntu Server Edition then what?

[Philipp Schmidt]

On 1 May 2011 01:04, Wesley Pennock <wesleyma...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Well then what software do we run on our servers? If not Ubuntu Server
> Edition then what?

Question is off topic for this mailing list. Please direct to the dev list. P

[Jay Cassano]

This looks like a promising start to a fruitful discussion. If I can just chime in my (relatively uninformed) 2 cents.

Although flexibility has its upsides, I think it might be worthwhile to clearly layout some sort of roadmap for becoming a school with some clearly defined stages. For instance, let's think more and be more specific about would constitute a "proto-school". Here's a quick brainstorm of the path we could go down on this (keep in mind everything below is completely arbitrary, but just used as examples and to get us thinking):

Stage 1) Develop a school draft charter. This can be developed from a boilerplate (like SOW's). It will serve as a declaration of intent to start a new school at P2PU. We can have approval, vetting, feedback processes, etc. (Question: Would this then qualify as a proto-school? Should there be some other precondition to becoming a proto school besides a simple charter, such as previous P2PU course teaching experience?)
Stage 2) Have at least three facilitators who have previously facilitated a course at P2PU in this topic area. This ensures that there is community interest in this topic as well as sufficient stewardship from experienced P2PU mentors to administer the school.
Stage 3) Agree to the P2PU "schools agreement" (to be developed)
Stage 4) Become a school?

In general, I like the idea of proto-schools as a way to help build interest around a potential school theme. I'm just trying to think through the mechanics of how it would work.

~Jay



*Note that this model is for schools forming exclusively within P2PU and isn't necessarily applicable to schools formed from outside groups (e.g. SOW).

[lila bailey]

Jay,

 

This is exactly the sort of feedback i have been looking for. I'd be really interested if other folks feel like having this kind of staged or step-by-step school formation process makes sense (I personally do), and if so if the steps Jay has laid out look good.

 

For me, this is a really good start. We have been talking about the need for a schools "template" which I think is the same sort of thing you are talking about with a "charter." Someone just needs to put pen to paper to create a first draft of it. As I said in an earlier thread I could do that in June but if anyone else has time or interest - please just go ahead and throw together a draft & circulate it to the group.

 

I would probably swap steps 1 and 2, but in any case, I think the idea of having some core group of experienced P2PU course organizers is also a good idea, and would show committment. I'd be interested in other's thoughts on whether the minimum number should be 3, or what.

 

For stage 3 or 4, do we also want to have some show of demand from the community for the courses offered? Or is that unnecessary?

 

-Lila

[Alison Jean Cole]

Cleaned up wiki and added "about schools" to help desk: http://new.p2pu.org/en/groups/p2pu-help-desk/content/about-schools/

Please give input and help create good flow to and from important information. :-)

ALISON
new.p2pu.org/en/alison/

[Philipp Schmidt]

Having a few clear steps makes a lot of sense (and makes life easier
for those interested in starting schools).

I would try to identify goals that can be verified automatically,
rather than goals that require a lot of human involvement, review (and
I am mostly opposed to an approval process).

Jay's metric of having X people involved who have previously run a
P2PU course is a great example. It's clearly defined, and there is no
ambiguity. If we had more flexible metrics they would require a lot
more attention and time to review. (by the way - I think the magic
number X is 2, but that's gut feeling)

I also like Lila's idea of adding some measure of activity / demand.
In the same way that stackexchange requires new communities to show
sufficient energy before they get a free, hosted, Q&A site - we could
require schools to have a certain number of users who follow or
participate in courses, and a certain number of updates to
courses/groups affiliated to the school. Again, we can choose
indicators that are easy to track automatically to reduce the need for
manual review.

P

[Alison Jean Cole]

What would these numbers look like?

I think having at least 3 pilot courses run, with at least one that will run again is a good start.

Thoughts on what a critical mass looks like?

I think # of participants might be a stronger indicator than followers. I also wonder if proto-schools should have at least two cycles under their belts before applying for a microgrant?



ALISON
new.p2pu.org/en/alison/

[Jay Cassano]

Number of participants is definitely a stronger indicator than followers, but there might be a place for both. I know there are probably lots of people (such as myself until this past cycle) who lurked around P2PU but didn't actually join in on any courses. So I think there's something to be said for getting a quick headcount of the people who say "yeah, this is a good idea" in addition to the people who, by participating in a class, have already expressed that they think it's a good idea. On the other hand, I could see why it might be too complicated to rely on two different but closely related metrics... But something like "has 100 followers and 25 past class participants" (or again, some other numbers, those are just placeholders) could work.

There is also the possibility that, depending on how we organize these stages, we might want these two different metrics at different stages. i.e. early on in the process we only check for followers, but in a later phase we check for active participants). This would actually be parallel to the StackExchange model that Phillip mentioned.

For those who aren't familiar, this link gives an ok overview of how proposed new Q&A sites work at SE: http://area51.stackexchange.com/faq - you'll probably only need to read down through "how do I start a new site?" as the rest is more SE-specific. (As you're reading, just replace "site" with "school" to translate it to P2PU.) Obviously it doesn't mesh with P2PU 100%, but it might be worth pilfering a few of their ideas, since they have been very successful in what they do.

Lastly, I definitely think microgrants should require a much stronger indicator that the school (and its organizers) are committed and able to follow through than the standard requirements for becoming a school. Grants represent a significant commitment of resources on the part of P2PU so I doubt every school will de facto qualify. I think, though, that microgrants are a place where it does make much more sense for human beings to put in legwork rather than relying on cold metric; much of determining who gets a grant will be based on how strong the proposal is and the trust that P2PU decision-makers can put in that school's organizers.

~Jay

[Philipp Schmidt]

On 15 May 2011 07:05, Jay Cassano <cassa...@gmail.com> wrote:

Number of participants is definitely a stronger indicator than followers, but there might be a place for both. I know there are probably lots of people (such as myself until this past cycle) who lurked around P2PU but didn't actually join in on any courses. So I think there's something to be said for getting a quick headcount of the people who say "yeah, this is a good idea" in addition to the people who, by participating in a class, have already expressed that they think it's a good idea. On the other hand, I could see why it might be too complicated to rely on two different but closely related metrics... But something like "has 100 followers and 25 past class participants" (or again, some other numbers, those are just placeholders) could work.

There is also the possibility that, depending on how we organize these stages, we might want these two different metrics at different stages. i.e. early on in the process we only check for followers, but in a later phase we check for active participants). This would actually be parallel to the StackExchange model that Phillip mentioned.

For those who aren't familiar, this link gives an ok overview of how proposed new Q&A sites work at SE: http://area51.stackexchange.com/faq - you'll probably only need to read down through "how do I start a new site?" as the rest is more SE-specific. (As you're reading, just replace "site" with "school" to translate it to P2PU.) Obviously it doesn't mesh with P2PU 100%, but it might be worth pilfering a few of their ideas, since they have been very successful in what they do.

Lastly, I definitely think microgrants should require a much stronger indicator that the school (and its organizers) are committed and able to follow through than the standard requirements for becoming a school. Grants represent a significant commitment of resources on the part of P2PU so I doubt every school will de facto qualify. I think, though, that microgrants are a place where it does make much more sense for human beings to put in legwork rather than relying on cold metric; much of determining who gets a grant will be based on how strong the proposal is and the trust that P2PU decision-makers can put in that school's organizers.

Hey Jay - 

Thanks for adding your thoughtful voice to the conversation. I agree that hard numbers are useful, within limits, as a first step of the micro-grant application. Ideally new schools will become part of a larger P2PU ecosystem - and a strong proposal, as well as personal engagement are important factors for the funding decision.

In addition, it could be interesting to have an SE type process that doesn't need a lot of individual attention, for schools not applying for a micro-grant.

P

[lila bailey]

We have good guidelines for applying for the micro-grant, and this is really helpful in terms of fleshing out some basic threshold metrics that those who are *not* applying for a micro-grant would need to meet to call themselves a school.

 

The help desk link isn't working for me right now, so I will come back and check it later, but I think we are now at least in agreement that we'd like to have some baseline objective numers to point to (number of course organizers, number of previously run courses, number of courses that would be offered on a continuing basis, number of past course participants, number of people who "like" the general idea of the school, and so on). We also want to develop a way for a person or group to indicate an interest in building a school, even before they hit the various metrics we set out (a proto-school), and give such groups a way to communicate within P2PU.

 

Do you all think we should take the issue of which metrics and the specific numbers that would apply to the community list? Or should we simply make that decision within this working group?

 

-Lila