This week at P2PU // 17 July – 23 July 2010
INTRO > Stian had the excellent idea that we needed community updates – an informal stream of consciousness on what’s going on at P2PU. The answer is usually “lots is going on” which is why there never seems enough time to report on all of it. So, the idea is to crowdsource what’s happening at P2PU each week. If you are doing something you want in the update – make sure it’s on the community list, or let me know by email. I will compile everything into one manageable update email for Friday. You can then print it out and read it slowly over the weekend. We’ll also post it on the blog. The updates will be short, and with musical themes to guess. This week’s theme is easy to guess.
NEXT ROUND > We are working frantically on new courses. The timelines are written (pencil -> calendar = 15 September 2010), the watches are wound, and the shoelaces tied. We just sent out the call for new courses, but are also talking to people and organizations
individually. There is a chance we’ll have a first prototype course with the Hacks/Hackers community (an awesome group of computer geeks and journalists) and our fingers are crossed to have our very first art history course (with a big twist) as well. Call for courses: http://blogs.p2pu.org/
WEBCRAFT > The School of Webcraft continues to grow at amazing speed. Pippa, who is shaping the curriculum and leading on course development reported that 17 course proposals were submitted by the deadline, but deadline or not, people are still adding more. We are up to 20 course proposal as of today. Check them out and leave your comments at https://wiki.mozilla.org/Drumbeat/p2pu/courses
ORIENT YOURSELF > Alison came on board to design our all new orientation process and signed up an amazing group of experts to help
her. Discussions happen on the http://groups.google.com/group/p2pu-orientation mailing list, and people from UC Berkely, and University of Cape Town have already agreed to help with the seminars. The materials are on the wiki at http://wiki.p2pu.org/orientation and it would be great if the organizers of past courses could have a look and add their thoughts. We also redesigned the course proposal process, see here http://wiki.p2pu.org/Create-a-Course.
GANG > The gang is gone, long live the gang … ah … community. During the past year, a lot of the discussion about p2pu and its future has taken place on the gang list, which was for people with skin in the game. The gang stars (yes, it’s corny, but also crazy and cool – but in an insider joke kind of way) are an awesome group of people from all over the world who act as the stewards of P2PU. They will continue to do so, but we are throwing open the doors of perception and invite everyone to join the p2pu-community list. See for yourself at http://groups.google.com/group/p2pu-community.
MEETUP > John set up a bunch of meetups, so there is no excuse anymore to not come out and play. Join us for free Wifi (hopefully), cheap drinks (maybe), and stimulating conversations (ha ha). Lila even offered to host the San Francisco meetup at her house. Little does she know. http://www.meetup.com/p2pu/
PAPER > In case you forgot to pick up your local copy, P2PU was recently mentioned in the online edition of The Hindu, an English language newspaper with a circulation of 5,2 million readers. That’s a lot of people and pretty big news for us and we noticed a nice spike in sign-ups from India, which is wonderful. Get your fix at http://www.hindu.com/2010/07/11/stories/2010071160251400.htm
TUNES > Staying with this week’s musical theme: “You know we’ve got to find a way – to bring some lovin’ here today.” Have great weekends! Watch this -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9KC7uhMY9s