Peeragogy Monthly Wraps - Charles Jeffrey Danoff (best android ereader txt) 📗

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Peeragogy Monthly Wrap: 2020-04 to 2020-09

Introduction

30 October 2020 – CHICAGOLAND – Hello again, dear reader, and happy Friday!

It is with a bounce in my keyboard click that I greet you with this fresh wrap-up of our peeragogical activities from April to September! We have made supercalifragilisticexpialidocious progress on our paper, course, software, podcast, and more!! :-)

Project Action Review

For the shortform version of what we’ve done over the past six months, peep this PAR, or Project Action Review (formerly “Peeragogy Action Review” and “Paragogy Action Review”).

1. Review the intention: what do/did we expect to learn or make together?

Produce meaningful learning products.

2. Establish what is happening: what and how are we learning?

We’ve been reading, reviewing texts, doing side projects, meeting in smaller groups, and developing educational techniques. We continue to learn how face-to-face interaction (online video conferencing in this case) goes a long way towards building understanding, open mindsets, and empathy.

3. What are some different perspectives on what’s happening?

It has not been a linear path over the last six months, but we feel there has been constructive progress. We are extending our reach through media like podcasting that makes our work more accessible to people in all walks of life and allows us to explore our concepts over time. Arguments have emerged that have largely been resolved through acceptance of good intentions. We have found peeragogy can tolerate disagreement, conflict, and/or value differences.

4. What did we learn or change?

We learned the value of managing expectations, being clear about policies and values, leaning on friends we never met in physical space, all the while continuing to be productive during the COVID-19 pandemic. We learned that simply sending someone over to our website or discussion group to explain peeragogy does not result in immediate understanding about the project. A more welcoming interface is needed. We also learned that our initial, emotional reactions to others’ expressed values or changes in process seldom reflect reality of others’ intentions.

5. What should we change going forward?

Continue to evolve, listen, and pursue opportunites. Think in a sustainable way to make the group self-sufficient possibly by creating sellable products (books, articles, courses, etc.) so that the group can have more than one website and raise our visibility. Create an accessible “dashboard” or graphical interface that will engage non-technical people who can benefit from the patterns and best practices. Take participants’ well considered proposals at face value and imagine them being successful before rejecting or opposing them.

Course

Following our engaging first semester of the Course in early 2020 (read our March wrap for details) led by Joe Corneli, we completed semester two in April and May. Charlotte Pierce and myself, Charlie Danoff, co-organized and participants included Vitor Bruno and Hermano Cintra out of Brazil. One of the highlights was a powerful presentation Hermano did on digital collaboration in open-source communities (download the slides). You can find details about the sessions and some videos on the syllabus.

Additionally in August we submitted a second proposal to Tufts University to teach a course that was not accepted, but that’s okay. We will continue to refine the course and plan to offer it again!

Paper

We finished multiple drafts of our paper we are planning to submit for a special issue of the Futures Journal. We are looking at how pattern languages that have been helpful for architecture and software development can help people better anticipate the future. We have a draft of the paper available for public comment, please take a look and let us know what you think!

Software

Led by Stephan Kreutzer, the technical side of the project has released some exciting new software to help humans improve their peer learning and peer production! One tool for this specific wrap generates the beautiful PDF and EPUB versions of this wrap you may be currently reading! Another tool still under development offers a place for us to enter our Project Action Reviews in a simple manner so that they can be easily stored, organized, and used for future learning adventures!

Podcast

The Peeragogy Podcast has been launched, with the first two episodes live-streamed to YouTube, Facebook, and LinkedIn. On September 26th Intro to Peeragogy and October 1st Wikipedia vs. Misinformation. Recordings remain on those platforms, and the universe can subscribe to the audio version via all major podcast apps like Apple, Google, Stitcher, SoundCloud, Spotify, Podverse and others. Our intent is to explore the research and cool tools we have developed since the inception of the project in 2012, and to make our design patterns, software, and best practices accessible to a broader audience.

The power of check-ins and clear communication

And now we have a special feature from one of our very talented peeragogues.

Joe Corneli (LONDON), 26 August 2020

I read about the power of check-ins and clear communication in “Don’t Hold My Head Down” by Lucy-Anne Holmes (Unbound, 2019).

“‘It is nice to meet you,’ he started, but then he screwed his face up […] ‘But you’re so fast. You’re like

Imprint

Text: Copyright (C) 2018-2020 Creative Commons Zero 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication
Images: Copyright (C) 2018-2020 Creative Commons Zero 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication
Proofreading: Stephan Kreutzer
Layout: Stephan Kreutzer
Publication Date: 08-30-2021

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