www.johndbritton.com

P2PU & Drumbeat Open Web Career Track

johndbritton — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 20:15:32 +0000

If you've got ten minutes to spare, I suggest you check out the presentation that I just gave about the soon to be 'Open Web Career Track' at the Peer 2 Peer University. The Open Web Career Track is one of the first few Drumbeat projects being kickstarted in collaboration with Mozilla.

The Peer 2 Peer University (P2PU) is an online community of open study groups for short university-level courses. Think of it as online book clubs for open educational resources. The P2PU helps you navigate the wealth of open education materials that are out there, creates small groups of motivated learners, and supports the design and facilitation of courses. Students and tutors get recognition for their work, and we are building pathways to formal credit as well.

P2PU is entirely volunteer driven, open, and free of charge. Anyone can lead a course about anything, and starting on 12 February we'll be accepting applications to participate in each of the 15 courses slated to start in March. Keep a lookout on http://www.p2pu.org for more information on how to participate.

Courses proposed for March 2010 Cycle at P2PU

Behavioral Economics
Copyright for Educators
Cyberpunk Literature
Non Ficton Writing v2.0
Mashing Up the Open Web
Solve Anything! Building Ideas Through Design
Transformational Art
Running a Campaign
Green Action: Creating Sustainable Communitites
Urban Disaster Risk Management
Intro to Economics & Finance
Introdução ao pensamento de Paulo Freire
Cidadania Hacker – Novas Formas de Ação na Esfera Pública Interconectada
Cidadania e as Redes Digitas
Music Theory

Great Firewall of China, Stopping Contribution to Open Source

johndbritton — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 04:59:43 +0000

I just received the email below on the Google Summer of Code Students mailing list. In 2008 I worked on Gallery as part of Google's Summer of Code. I did the bulk of my work while I was on exchange in Beijing, China. Luckily, at the time, the Summer of Code management application wasn't censored, apparently it is now.

This really hurts. If the Chinese Government doesn't lift the ban on the GSoC site, there will inevitably be a drop in participation by Chinese students. Further, these tech-savvy individuals will likely bypass the firewall by using a proxy and may be in direct violation of the law.

This could all be sidestepped by providing an alternate URL & IP address for GSoC, but this is really just one example of censorship catching more than intended.

I'm a GSoC 2008 student from China. If Google hold SoC this year, I will apply it. But I found I can't access socghop.appspot.com in these days.

In China, sometimes socghop.appspot.com was accessable, but in most time it is unaccessable. Under GFW(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Shield_Project), many websites can not be visited in China. The govenment thought these sites threaten country's stability. Websites like YouTube, Blogspot, and any website with "appspot.com" domain name were blocked.

The govenment have no intention to ban GSoC, the reason of blocking appspot.com is that Google App Engine can be used to set up proxy sever and circumvent the GFW, so the government blocked all sites with domain name "appspot.com".

Yes, it is very ridiculous, but what we can do? There are many Chinese students participated in the past GSoC seasons and made remarkable contribute to Open Source. It would be a heavy losses to Open Source if there are no Chinese(and other undemocratic countries) GSoCers in 2010.

If google can provide an alternative entrance besides socghop.appspot.com and students can commit applications on it, that would be enough.

Google Wave Invites

johndbritton — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 17:46:54 +0000

I just got a bunch of Google Wave invites. Post a comment here if you want one, be sure to include your email in the form (it won't be displayed).

P2PU Sign-up Closed, 227 Applicants in 7 Courses

johndbritton — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 14:10:43 +0000

On August 26, 2009 at midnight EST we closed applications to the first cycle at the Peer 2 Peer University (P2PU) with a total of 227 applicants across 7 courses. The six week pilot phase will begin on September 9, 2009 (09/09/09). Each of the 7 courses has a maximum enrollment of 8 - 15 students. All applicants will be notified of their status within a week.

P2PU Course Application Distribution

Number of Applicants to Each P2PU Course

54 - Copyright for Educators
48 - Behavioral Economics and Decision Making
34 - Land Restoration and Afforestation
30 - Open Creative Nonfiction Writing
25 - Introduction to Cyberpunk Literature
20 - Poker and Strategic Thinking
16 - Neuroethics and International Biolaw

Summary

These are exciting times, all of our initial courses have more applicants than we can possibly accept. At the end of the first cycle, we're going to meet for a retrospective and iterate on our methodology. During the second cycle I'll be leading a course on web development. Hope to see you there.

Fast Company Article on Open Education

johndbritton — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 22:59:35 +0000

Photo: CC-BY-SA

Fast Company has an interesting article about Edupunk. It covers Academic Earth, Flat World Knowledge, and Peer2Peer University (P2PU).

It's also worth noting the total contribution to Open Education by The Hewlett Foundation is $68 million. Thanks for sending me to the Open Education Conference last year!

P2PU - Enroll Now, Classes Start 09/09/09

johndbritton — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 17:13:57 +0000

Today at the Open Education Conference in Vancouver, Canada we will open applications to The Peer 2 Peer University (P2PU).

The first round of six week courses will include:

About P2PU

The Peer 2 Peer University (P2PU) is an online community of open study groups for short university-level courses. Think of it as online book clubs for open educational resources. The P2PU helps you navigate the wealth of open education materials that are out there, creates small groups of motivated learners, and supports the design and facilitation of courses. Students and tutors get recognition for their work, and we are building pathways to formal credit as well.

Wiki-Conference New York

johndbritton — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 05:55:39 +0000

This weekend is Wiki-Conference New York. I'll be there to kick start the Open Sessions on Saturday. Hope you can make it! I'm also going to lead two sessions: 'Steering Communities of Practice' and 'Using Wikipedia as a Translation Engine'.

The Nitty-Gritty

Date: 25 - 26 July 2009
Location: New York University: Vanderbilt Hall
Host: Free Culture @ NYU / Wikimedia NYC
Details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/NYC/Wiki-Conference_2009

Open Education Conference 2009 Vancouver, Canada - Scholarship Application

johndbritton — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 03:40:28 +0000

This blog post is my application for a travel scholarship to attend OpenEd 2009.

Last year I applied for, and was awarded a scholarship to attend OpenEd in Logan, Utah. I came all the way from Hong Kong, and I'm tremendously glad that I did. My experience at OpenEd has made an enormous impact on my life. I met some great people, found a great project, and subsequently landed an excellent job in Open Education.

There are four main reasons I plan to attend OpenEd 2009:

P2PU - Most (if not all) the people from the Peer2Peer University will be there, it's a perfect time to meet up and move forward.
Open Everything - I'm facilitating the organization of Open Everything unconferences in more than 10 cities around the world. OpenEd will be a great place to find more people to get involved. Open Everything NYC featured an entire Open Education track.
Flat World Knowledge - I've recently taken a position at this innovative Open textbook publishing company. I'll be there to share and answer questions.
Open Sessions - I thrive on Open sessions. I'm sure I'll lead at least one, and will be active in many.

There are plenty more good reasons for me to be there, who knows what new things I'll discover.

The most important issue I'm currently facing relates to the commercialization of the Open Education field. If I'm selected to attend OpenEd 2009, I'll be there to gather information and discuss the topic of for-profit commercialization of Open Education. Important decisions lie ahead and I want to be sure to do the right thing. It will be valuable to interact with people who have experience in commercializing Open and building sustainable business models.

Thanks for reading, feel free to contact me. I appreciate your consideration for this opportunity and I hope to see you all at OpenEd 2009.

Couch Surfing Day 2009 - Beijingers Featured in Wanderlust

johndbritton — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 21:58:52 +0000

Last year I organized a gathering in Beijing's Beihai Park for Couch Surfing Day 2008. This year we were featured in the Wanderlust Newsletter. Check it out!

CAKE, Live at Terminal 5 in NYC

johndbritton — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 02:23:09 +0000

This past Friday a few friends and I ventured in to New York City to see a live performance by CAKE (Official Site, Wikipedia). It was everything I could have hoped for. Back during my freshman year at RPI, CAKE came to Albany and I've been kicking myself ever since I missed my chance to see them live.

The show was sold out, but I was able to snag a couple tickets off eBay. The crowd was good fun, I could tell there were tons of die-hard fans there. They played a good variety of tunes, but I was disappointed they didn't play "Mr. Mastodon Farm" even though I knew it was unlikely.

I streamed a few live videos of the show from my iPhone using the Qik application. Check them out, and keep an eye out for my future live streams.