The



Peeragogy

  handbook

Introduction

Posted on April 10, 2012 by admin • 9 Comments

You are viewing an old revision of this post, from 19 April, 2012 @ 21:22. See below for differences between this version and the current revision.

Welcome to the Peeragogy Handbook, a Resource for Self-organizing Self-learners

With YouTube, Wikipedia, search engines, free chatrooms, blogs, wikis, and video communication, today’s self-learners have power never dreamed-of before. What does any group of self-learners need to know in order to self-organize learning about any topic? The Peeragogy Handbook is a volunteer-created and maintained resource for bootstrapping peer learning.

Howard Rheingold on “What is Peeragogy” from Howard Rheingold on Vimeo.

This project seeks to empower the worldwide population of self-motivated learners who use digital media to connect with each other, to co-construct knowledge, to co-learn. Co-learning is ancient; the capacity for learning by imitation and more, to teach others what we know, is the essence of human culture. We are human because we learn together. Today, however, the advent of digital production  media and distribution/communication networks has raised the power of co-learning to a new level.

If you want to learn how to fix a pipe, solve a partial differential equation, write software, you are seconds away from know-how via YouTube, Wikipedia and search engines. Access to technology and access to knowledge, however, isn’t enough. Learning is a social, active, and ongoing process. What would a motivated group of self-learners need to know to agree on a subject or skill, find and qualify the best learning resources about that topic, select and use appropriate communication media to co-learn it? Beyond technology, what do they need to know about learning and putting learning programs together? What does a group of people need to know to use today’s digital resources to co-learn a subject? This handbook is intended to answer that last question and provide a toolbox for co-learners.

Although “paragogy” is a more rationally derived word that extends “pedagogy” (teaching children) and “androgogy” (teaching adults), we’re using the word peeragogy because many people get the point as soon as we use the word.  (In some places, we style the word “pæragogy” to remind the reader of the fusion of “peer” and “para-” modalities: we will say more about this later.)

Our experience within this project has been that flattened hierarchies do not necessarily mean decisions go by consensus.  The handbook is in part a “collaboration” and in part a collection of single-author works.  Often the lines and voices are blurred.  One constant throughout the book is our interest in making something useful.  To this end, the book comes with numerous activities, and is available under non-restrictive legal terms (you can reuse portions of it however you see fit).  For those who seek more evidence-based, scholarly scaffolding for learning practices, we also maintain a literature review of learning theories that pertain to self-organized peer learning,. We also include some instructions on how to join us in further developing the resource.

- the Peeragogy team

Post Revisions:

Changes:

19 April, 2012 @ 21:22Current Revision
Content
-<span style="font-size: large; color: #ff0000;">Welcome to the Peeragogy Handbook, a Resource for Self-organizing Self-learners</span> +<strong><span style="font-size: large;">Welcome to the Peeragogy Handbook!</span></strong>
-<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/ video/39514638" frameborder="0" width="500" height="275"></iframe> 
-With YouTube, Wikipedia, search engines, free chatrooms, blogs, wikis, and video communication, today's self-learners have power never dreamed-of before. What does any group of self-learners need to know in order to self-organize learning about any topic? The Peeragogy Handbook is a volunteer-created and maintained resource for bootstrapping peer learning. 
 +<p style="text-align: justify;">
 +This book presents a range of techniques that self-motivated learners can use to connect with each other and develop stronger communities and collaborations. The book is addressed to everyone who is interested in how learning works, whether you're an educator, a hobbyist, an artist, a home-school student, an employee, a parent, an activist, an archivist, a mathematician, or a tennis player.  The book was written by a bunch of people who think learning is cool.</p>
 +<center>
-<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/ video/40039078?title=0&amp; byline=0&amp;portrait=0" frameborder="0" width="400" height="300"></iframe> +<iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/ embed/SDuSpOUtyJE" height="248" width="440" allowfullscreen="" frameborder=" 0"></iframe></center>
 +<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Over the course of working on the book, we practiced peeragogy -- another word for "peer learning" -- and we learned a lot.
 +</span></p>
-<a href="http:// vimeo.com/40039078">Howard Rheingold on "What is Peeragogy"</a> from <a href="http:// vimeo.com/user2556982">Howard Rheingold</a> on <a href="http:// vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.+<center><iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/ embed/-LzE6j2JRng" height="248" width="440" allowfullscreen="" frameborder=" 0"></iframe></center>
-This project seeks to empower the worldwide population of self-motivated learners who use digital media to connect with each other, to co-construct knowledge, to co-learn. Co-learning is ancient; the capacity for learning by imitation and more, to teach others what we know, is the essence of human culture. We are human because we learn together. Today, however, the advent of digital production  media and distribution/ communication networks has raised the power of co-learning to a new level. 
-If you want to learn how to fix a pipe, solve a partial differential equation, write software, you are seconds away from know-how via YouTube, Wikipedia and search engines. Access to technology and access to knowledge, however, isn't enough. Learning is a social, active, and ongoing process. What would a motivated group of self-learners need to know to agree on a subject or skill, find and qualify the best learning resources about that topic, select and use appropriate communication media to co-learn it? Beyond technology, what do they need to know about learning and putting learning programs together? What does a group of people need to know to use today's digital resources to co-learn a subject? This handbook is intended to answer that last question and provide a toolbox for co-learners. 
-Although "paragogy" is a more rationally derived word that extends "pedagogy" (teaching children) and "androgogy" (teaching adults), we're using the word <em>peeragogy< /em> because many people get the point as soon as we use the word.  (In some places, we style the word "<em>pæragogy</em>" to remind the reader of the fusion of "peer" and "para-" modalities: we will say more about this later.) 
-Our experience within this project has been that flattened hierarchies do not necessarily mean decisions go by consensus.  The handbook is in part a "collaboration" and in part a collection of single-author works.  Often the lines and voices are blurred.  One constant throughout the book is our interest in making something <em> useful.  </em>To this end, the book comes with numerous activities, and is available under non-restrictive legal terms (you can reuse portions of it however you see fit).  For those who seek more evidence-based, scholarly scaffolding for learning practices, we also maintain a literature review of learning theories that pertain to self-organized peer learning,. We also include some instructions on how to join us in further developing the resource. +<p style="text-align: justify;">Our experience within this project has been that flattened hierarchies do not necessarily mean decisions go by consensus -- people often take the ball and run with it. The handbook includes co-edited pages as well as single-author works: often the lines and voices are blurred. One constant throughout the book is our interest in making something useful. To this end, the book is available under non-restrictive <a href="http:// peeragogy.org/ resources/license/">legal terms</a>, which allow you to reuse portions of it however you see fit it. Among other things, we include instructions on <a href="http:// peeragogy.org/ resources/how- to-get-involved/" target="_blank">how to join us in further developing this resource</a>.</p>
-- <em>the Peeragogy team</em> 
 +<p style="text-align: left;">Sincerely,
 +<a href="http:// peeragogy.org/ resources/meet-the-team/" target="_blank">The Peeragogy Team</a></p>

Note: Spaces may be added to comparison text to allow better line wrapping.

Filed Under: E-Book Introduction

9 comments on “Introduction”

  1. Pat Tymchatyn on said:

    Wow! You people have been amazing! Good work!

    Reply ↓
  2. Thieme Hennis (@hennis) on said:

    hi there. Thanks for compiling this book. I have a question, I have downloaded the ePub and it does not seem very polished. Is it correct that it is an older version of what is currently presented here online? Or am I mistaken and is the ePub up to date? Best regards,
    Thieme Hennis – http://hennis.nl

    Reply ↓
    • admin on said:

      Hi Thieme: Yes, it’s an old version, indeed just a proof of concept. We’ll have a new PDF version and probably a new ePub version by Jan 1.

      Reply ↓
  3. Liza Loop on said:

    I’ve just started exploring the material in Peeragogy so maybe I’ve missed what I’m looking for — Have you answered (or suggested the learn ask) these two questions:
    What turns me on or motivates me?
    What kind of learner am I?
    The text on this page appears to begin with “a motivated group of self-learners”. But not all self-learners want to work in groups even though many may want to use peers as resources. Also, motivation is key both to getting started learning something and to staying engaged. I’d like a handbook to cover these topics. Unless I find it’s already been done I’ll volunteer to write the chapters.

    Reply ↓
    • Joe Corneli on said:

      Motivation gets a lot of discussion in the Peering into Learning article — and we’ll talk about quite it more in a forthcoming article on Project Management. What we don’t have yet is anything about “Peeragogy for One”, which I think would mostly relate to “weak ties”. If you start an article about that, I’ll have some things to contribute (drawing on a recent book by Burger & Starbird). Put a note in our G+ if you want to discuss more or share some draft material!

      For people who are interested in working in groups: our ideas about how to build a peer learning group are in the Convening section.

      Reply ↓
    • Joe Corneli on said:

      Hi Liza: Please check out the paragraph I added to the end of the “Peer Learning” article — it begins to address the idea of peer learning without a “group”.

      Reply ↓
  4. Miguel Angel Perez on said:

    Hi, There. How could we cooperate with this effort? I mean handbook effort. We have a course in the National Mexico University and we will analyze Peeragogy. We are using a Twitter Classroom to share ideas about Tech in education. Our hashtag is #tecedu. We are Pedagogy Students and teacher.

    Reply ↓
    • Joe Corneli on said:

      Hi Miguel: I suggest getting in touch with Paola Ricaurte (http://www.ccm.itesm.mx/investigacion/invricau.html) – I’ve put you two in touch by email as well.

      Reply ↓

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