Sharing Nicely

Voila. Another insightful and funny artwork by P2PU’s illustrator-in-residence and grungefarmer Alison Jean Cole (and referencing John Britton‘s encyclopedic knowledge of Steve Colbert’s work). Is P2PU a threat bigger than bears? Do sharks look good in P2PU t-shirts? As always, more answers than questions …

Original photo cc-by hermanusbackpackers, Illustration cc-by Alison Jean Cole

The not entirely joking background to this illustration comes from UC Berkeley. Erin Knight, who runs a Research Centre at the iSchool and works with P2PU/Mozilla on badges and assessment hosted an event on the “Future of Teaching and Learning.”. She took participants through a SWOT (strength, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis and P2PU came up in the discussion.

But in which part of SWOT P2PU came up was a surprise. You’d think P2PU is an O, an opportunity for UC Berkeley to investigate how online social learning could expand what it does so well already. But no, P2PU came up as a T, a threat to the future of teaching and learning at UC Berkeley?

Now, while for a moment it is a little flattering to think of ourselves as a threat to UC Berkeley, it’s also ridiculous, and a little sad. It indicates that at least for some in the accredited institutions – innovative and experimental approaches to probing the future of teaching and learning, like P2PU, are threats, and not opportunities.

We ended up having an interesting conversation about this on the p2pu-community list. Here are some excerpts:

• It’s funny, there is a definite comfort in being the underdog in a way! What happens when p2pu is mainstream? Or put another way, what does p2pu in the mainstream look like so as not to fall prey to the same tunnel vision thinking that there is only one way? (Jessy)
• I think the most important thing we can do is to keep the eyes on the real goal – which is to radically expand everyone’s access to a quality learning experience (and having a lot of fun in the process)… (Stian)
• I think some people see p2pu as a threat b/c it symbolizes a breakdown of the way things have worked forever, where the institution has all the control. p2pu represents (among many things)(to me) giving learners control, providing them with other pathways to quality learning. (Erin)