DIY U

It’s finally here, the book of our dreamy time in Barcelona. Experience the magic 12 to 1 ET on Wednesday, January 25. I’m breaking my maternity leave just to chat with Phillip Schmidt of P2PU, so you know it has to be good.

Get the book here:

How can the ideas of the open source movement help foster learning? What are the most effective ways to bring learning to everyone? How does openness help the spread of knowledge? Part exhibition catalog, part manifesto, this is a concise, fun-to-read introduction to what Mozilla is doing to support learners everywhere.

Hello!

For the next few months I’ll be embarking on a radical new long-term experiment in home-based open participatory peer learning. The online component will be minimal at first but I anticipate that changing after March.

I’ll have new stories appearing at Fast Company in February and March, and my Tribune column will continue to appear monthly as well. I may Tweet occasionally. There are some ongoing updates and improvements to the EdupunksGuide.org website, and the DIY U self-learning online community “course” will be running better than ever with new facilitators at P2PU.org –updates to that coming soon. If you’re interested in having me come speak somewhere after April 2012 contact Dustin Jones at Keppler Speakers.

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year to everyone!!

Anya

I have a piece in the Winter issue of GOOD Magazine about Dennis Littky’s work with College Unbound. I wrote about College Unbound briefly in DIY U and I’ve followed his work closely since them. I am impressed as hell with what they are doing.

Over the past two years, Littky has launched College Unbound as a prototype for how higher learning can cater to kids, instead of the other way around. Students live in small, tight-knit communities, work one-on-one with advisers to fashion individualized learning plans built around a job or internship that speaks to a personal passion, pursue independent research related to their fields, and cover the humanities and math together in seminars. It’s an update of the educational model Littky has been refining over three decades…

Littky’s artisanal, hands-on approach—he often uses the slogan “one student at a time”—flies in the face of the prevailing vision for education reform. Typified by Khan Academy’s short math videos and adaptive learning software, which were lauded by Bill Gates himself from the TED Conference stage this year, the new model calls for cutting-edge technology, millions of users, and massive amounts of automatically generated data on student outcomes.

UPDATE: I am beyond thrilled with the two individuals who have presented themselves to help out with this course. You will be in good hands if you want to participate–I am excited to see what they come up with!

I’m going on maternity leave in about a month. I’d love to find someone to take over the next round of our course on P2Pu.org.You’ll be partnering with the awesome Alison Cole.

Basically this is a group of people from all over the world interested in self-learning. New people are signing up every couple of days. They are working on the tasks found in the Tutorials section of the Edupunks Guide: writing and posting personal learning plans, trying to build their learning networks and find mentors.

This is like a community manager job where your job is to engage with and encourage people interested in pursuing their own independent paths. Get them to talk to each other and to offer feedback and help point them to other useful resources. We’ve tried posting videos and screencasts and scheduling Skype calls as a way to make the group more interactive.

This is for people really interested in online and self-directed learning, but you don’t have to be experienced. P2Pu is an awesome community that is actively building, updating and experimenting with their platform for self-organized learning.

Time commitment is only a few hours a week for up to 12 weeks, whatever you feel like you can do.

send me an email at DIYUBook@gmail.com if you want to try it!

I spoke about student debt on the “human mic” at Occupy Washington Square Park, described in the Village Voice as “a smaller group autonomous of, but loosely affiliated with” #ows. They’ve been having general assemblies, working groups, and speakers including Angela Davis and Judith Butler.

Here’s a video.

An NYU professor, Andrew Ross, who also spoke, is affiliated with organizing the occupy student debt working group. One proposal they’re knocking around is a “debt refusal” campaign–get 1 million people to sign on and then all stop paying their loans.

It’s an intriguing idea that I haven’t heard before. People who can’t pay back their loans are in a pretty rough spot as individuals, but then again, it’s no guarantee that there’d be safety in numbers, either.

Anyway, it was fun speaking for the mic (where the crowd repeats your words every few phrases.) Here’s what I said.

36 million Americans have Student Loan Debt
That’s two-thirds of college graduates
It totals one trillion dollars
that’s more than credit card debt
$27,000 per person
I’ve been writing about this problem
for seven years
Student Loan Debt negates the American dream
We’re told that if we work hard
the smart ones,
the ones that deserve it
will be let through the gates
and into the middle class
but there’s a catch
College tuition has risen
more than any other good or service
ANY OTHER GOOD OR SERVICE
In the US Economy
since 1978!
Tuition increases and debt increases
make each other possible.

So what’s to be done?
Number one, Abolition
I think that’s a nonstarter politically on its own
you have to admit that American college students
are a privileged part of the 99 percent
But if you call for a general amnesty
On all kinds of debt
A bailout for the 99 percent
I think it makes sense morally
And even economically
Number 2, direct action
You can just stop paying your loans
I know people who have done it
You will never have credit
You will never have assets in your name
You will never go back to school
But the good news is
They can’t repossess your brain
Number 3, Bankruptcy protection
For both private and federal loans
This is very very important
It’s been shot down several times
In the past few years
But there are bills right now
In the House and Senate
And now’s a good time to call for it
Number 4, this is the most important
Attack the source
which is the cost of higher education
My last two books
DIY U
and the free Edupunks Guide
are about self-organized peer to peer forms of learning
often using open digital resources
that are free or very cheap
I see the Occupy movement
And this event this afternoon
as an example of self-organized education
I think everyone has the power
to take control of your own learning
and provide an alternative
that puts the institutions on notice
that they must lower their costs
Because education is a human right.

Great conversation about the Edupunks’ Guide, Occupy Wall St and more with a great friend and colleague.

(crossposted from the Huffington Post)

Student loan debt has become a defining issue of the Occupy Wall Street movement. The nation’s cumulative student loan debt surpassed our cumulative credit card debt in 2010, and is heading north of $1 trillion; currently two-thirds of graduates take out loans, an average of $27,000 a head.

The growth of this particular kind of debt makes young people furious. It’s a betrayal of the American social contract that says if you work hard and invest in yourself through education, you’ll be able to build a better life. In my first book, Generation Debt, I explored how we got here and told stories about the emotional and cultural impacts of student loans; lately, with DIY U and the free Edupunks’ Guide, I’ve been focusing more on the underlying issue of soaring college tuition and innovations that might be able to cut the cost spiral–not to mention the growing world of free and open education.

These innovations are great, but they don’t help the graduates who are already saddled with so much debt. So here are some proposals to offer student borrowers relief that #OccupyWallSt could take up, ranked from the most radical to the more feasible.

1) Forgive all student loan debt. This idea has a Facebook page, a petition with 300,000 signatures, and it’s even been introduced in Congress. There are real fairness issues here because college graduates, even those with student loans are relatively more privileged with higher earning potential than non-college graduates. Still, if included as part of a radical call for bailing out the American people across the board — mortgages and credit card debt included– it has emotional resonance and could actually jumpstart the economy to boot.

1)a. You could help out those who most need it by canceling the student loan debt of non-graduates, defaulters, people who meet certain income requirements, or people who attended for-profits or other colleges with unacceptably low graduation rates (half of all student loan defaulters attend for-profits). See also: bankruptcy protection.

1)b. The radical direct action variation of this is for people to stage a debt revolt and simply stop paying their student loans. Advantage: Unlike with a mortgage or auto loan, they can’t repossess your brain. Disadvantage: You will never have credit again, and people in your life who have worked hard to pay off their own loans might see you as a deadbeat.

2)Rein in private student loans.
Private student loans, those offered by banks like Citibank and Wells Fargo, are growing three times faster than federal student loans. They are much more expensive, with higher fees and interest rates ranging up to 15%, varying by your creditworthiness.
Private student loans could be abolished outright, or they could be required to offer the same interest rates and repayment options as federal student loans, which would severely restrict their availability. If we don’t do something to tame the private student loan beast, it doesn’t much matter what happens with federal student loans–the volume of private loans is set to outpace the volume of public loans by 2025, according to Mark Kantrowitz of finaid.org.

3) Reinstate bankruptcy for student loans.
Student loans are unlike any other kind of debt in that they are almost impossible to discharge in bankruptcy, barring permanent disability. For federal loans, the government can garnish your wages, seize your tax refund, your federal disaster relief payments, and even your Social Security. Even private, unsubsidized student loans, the ones with 10 and 15% interest rates, have been nondischargeable in bankruptcy since 2005.

Alan Collinge of Student Loan Justice has been organizing on this issue for several years. Bankruptcy protection has failed three times in Congress; there are currently bills in the House (sponsored by Rep. Steve Cohen of TN) and Senate (sponsored by Sen. Durbin)
This is an issue of basic fairness. There’s no reason to treat student loan debt so differently from other types of debt, other than as a gift to the banks.

4) Expand Income-Based Repayment and Public Service Loan Forgiveness.
Depending on how much you make and how much you owe, you have the right to lower your monthly payments on FFELP and direct student loans through Income-Based Repayment. President Obama just announced that he’s accelerating access to the plan so that graduates can pay just 10% of their income, with all loans forgiven after 20 years. Meanwhile, people who work in the military, for the government, for nonprofits, police, firefighters, teachers, social workers, have the right to have loans completely forgiven after 10 years of repayments.
One issue with these programs is simply that they’re undersubscribed. Another is that you may end up paying more by stretching out the payments, and you’re harnessed to that payment for 20 years. But they’re a hell of a lot better than default, and in the absence of bankruptcy protection, they’re the least bad option for people currently facing unsupportable student loan debt.

Sorry for the silence here, I’ve been busy with a mini-tour for The Edupunks’ Guide that took me to Maker Faire, the Smithsonian, the New School, and the Educause conference. I wanted to cross post two recent pieces I did for the Huffington Post about #OccupyWallSt. I’ve been tremendously impressed and inspired by what’s going on there.

Generation Debt At the Barricades (hat tip to Kevin Carey for the suggestion/title):

College is the centerpiece of the American dream. We tell our children that if you have both merit and gumption you’ll be handed the chance to prove yourself on a level playing field, with both financial and personal rewards. And so it’s our nation’s college students — the ones with an average age of 26, the ones who are burning through their youth with a cycle of part-time jobs and part-time classes — who are now raising their voices to tell us that the dream has gone hollow.

That’s what this movement is really about. That’s what makes it so hard to ignore. Millennials, like all young people throughout history, have been pilloried for their sense of entitlement and lack of perspective, but that’s exactly what gives them the moral high ground here. They feel entitled to a better future than what they’re facing. They believe, as they’ve been taught to believe, in an America of rising prospects and expanding opportunities. They’re not living in that America anymore.

#OccupyEverywhere: University of the Streets

one major way the occupations are functioning for the people involved: as a nationwide free school or teach-in, a university of the streets. I’m not just talking about when famous academics like Cornel West or Slavoj ZIzek stop by to give a lecture, but about the all-day seminars.
Take people out of their normal routines, put them together in a context of multiple issues of immediate concern, and they talk and exchange ideas and sometimes come up with solutions.

College debt has emerged as one of the major issues of this protest, and the young people involved are discovering two things: that education can be free, and that they can educate themselves and each other.

For the past two months or so I’ve been working on translating my ebook, the Edupunks’ Guide, into an easy-to-navigate website. I’ve had the help of an all-woman team: the fantastic designer, Emma Welles, and developer, Ashley Holtgraver,  plus my tireless research assistant Molly who did the heavy lifting on the content entry.

And here it is! EdupunksGuide.org

This is my first time commissioning a website and I have to say I’m quite pleased with how it turned out. The idea was to translate the material in the guide into an attractive, easily searchable and navigable site. A relaunch is coming later this fall with commenting and annotating capabilities…in the meantime, I’m taking suggestions by email for new resources to add to the site, as well as bugs and edits of course!

Gates Foundation supported the development of the website, as well as hosting for one year (assuming moderate amounts of traffic). After September 2012, if it’s built up a decent audience and people seem to value it, I may look for some ads to continue to support it.