Pippa Buchanan

It’s the final day to sign up for courses running in Peer 2 Peer University’s (P2PU) September 2011 round of courses. This also marks the final day to get involved in the pilot web development courses for the Mozilla School of Webcraft.

I always felt that the School of Webcraft was a brilliant idea – I volunteered to run a course as soon as I heard about it and eventually ended up with a rather excellent job working on the project. I’m a geek who’s worked as an educator, programmer and web developer, and I’m a fan of alternative, non-formal learning models. What’s not to like?

Get this: how about we use the power of peer-based learning as a way to bring together experienced web developers with total beginners, and let them learn about standards-based open-web development? Oh, and we’ll offer these classes online, to a global audience, for free and we’ll have the backing of the Mozilla Foundation.

Awesome.

What’s also awesome is the level of response we’ve had from applicants who are desperate to learn the basics of making websites.  I knew and felt that it was a good idea, but I really knew it we were doing the right thing when I started talking with one of the applicants for my Web Development 101 course.

I really *was* amazed to find that the local colleges and universities don’t teach web development skills. I thought heck, that’s got to be an undergrad course, or something I might find at the night class level at the community college (filed under “continuing education” or “career building”). No such luck.

Well, it might be that colleges and universities aren’t providing people with a way to learn web development skills, but P2PU and Mozilla School of Webcraft are. So check out the course list and make an application:  If you’re not lucky enough to get involved in a class this round, we’ll have a new round of even more courses listed in January 2o11.