[hackerspaces] Tech and General Education Courses at P2P University in Hackerspaces

[Heath Matlock]

On Mon, Feb 15, 2010 at 11:57 AM, Simon Dorfman <simon at gumbolabs.org> wrote:
> It's interesting that you're pursuing accreditation.  I don't know much
> about accreditation.  Can you tell us more about it?  Is it worth pursuing?

The Wikipedia page has a good overview of accreditation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_accreditation

Of course it's worth pursuing, employers don't care much for
non-accredited work, they prefer their employees to have been held to
standards set by accrediting agencies for some reason.

> What is the process?  What governing body (or bodies) would you have to
> please?

That depends on what type of accrediting agency, whether it's an
international or regional, here's a list of agencies in the world:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recognized_accreditation_associations_of_higher_learning


> I'm considering organizing an iPhone App Dev class at our space this summer
> (using the Stanford class materials):
> http://forum.gumbolabs.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=33

Nice, as a comment to the hackintosh, you might look into running Mac
virtually.

> Do you think that would fit in with P2PU?

I certainly think it would, you can view previous courses at
http://www.p2pu.org/Courses and by tomorrow, new courses for the next
semester are supposedly being posted. You might want to look into
being a teacher.

As a side note, I'm not affiliated with P2PU, I've yet to take a
course, and have only had minimal contact with those involved in
organizing things. Personally, it doesn't seem so P2P-like at the
moment because I don't see anyone active in discussion boards or chat
channels. I'm typically the only guy in the chat channel. If you visit
http://groups.google.com/group/p2pu-discuss/about you'll see that with
only sending seven emails I've risen quickly to become a "top poster" on
the email list :-\

This is my only complaint about P2P-U and I'll forward this to the
channel and maybe we can have some discussion on opening up decision
making processes to everyone and not just a few board members, because
that isn't P2P. I may be wrong, hopefully I am.


> On Mon, Feb 15, 2010 at 2:33 AM, Heath Matlock <heathmatlock at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> Here's the idea in a nutshell: create an international school with
>> schools located at various hackerspaces.
>>
>> Surprise, it's already in the works, P2PU ( http://www.p2pu.org ). But
>> P2PU needs to partner with some organizations in order to get certain
>> accreditation, specifically in areas of technology and engineering,
>> because you really do need a hands-on approach with some areas of
>> study in these broad categories of education. And in light of all the
>> technology being developed and already present at many hackerspaces,
>> this idea seems feasible.
>>
>> Because it  can be cumbersome to specialize in more than two specific
>> areas of education, I propose hackerspace specialize. One hackerspace
>> could focus on Molecular Biology, another on CS and EE. And because of
>> this specialization, students would probably be travelling to new
>> hackerspaces between semesters.
>>
>> If you're interested in this concept of allowing students a chance to
>> meet many interesting people, training in well-equipped facilities,
>> and being credited for their work, please toss out your thoughts. :-)
>>
>> --
>> Heath Matlock
>> +1 256 274 4225
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-- 
Heath Matlock
+1 256 274 4225