Greetings from P2PU’s New Learning Lead


Hi there, Vanessa here. Totally psyched to be joining P2PU as your Learning Lead.

I <3 P2PU. Since joining in spring 2010, I’ve launched several writing courses, most recently Writing for the Web. My proudest moments at P2PU are times when peers helped me learn skills that were completely new to me, like the first interactive design I made with fellow peer Garrett Polifka for User Experience Design, and my first array I made as John’s mentee.

P2PU lit my mind on fire & led me to pursue graduate study. I’m a part-time student in the Technology, Innovation and Education program at Harvard, where I’ve completed research projects about P2PU as a community of inquiry, peer assessment in writing, and remix projects to promote empathy in peers.  I’ve also been kicking around the Lifelong Kindergarten Lab at MIT, interviewing Scratchers & making educator resources for ScratchEd.

I’m committed to creative learning experiences–open-ended, interdisciplinary experiences that encourage folks to take projects as far as they want to go. Recognizing how we help each other and how we evolve is fascinating and important. To wit, my next top-level goals are:

  1. Articulate a theory of learning for P2PU that we can focus and test
  2. Draft a vision for our assessment program over the next 3, 6 and 12 months
  3. Evaluate the current user experience from a learning point of view and present design improvements
  4. Build upon P2PU’s empire of awesome

You can find me at vanessa@p2pu.org.



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