P2PU School of Webcraft: Developer training that's free, open and globally accessible

From:  http://www.drumbeat.org/p2pu-webcraft/about

"Mozilla and Peer 2 Peer University are creating the P2PU School of Webcraft, a powerful new way to teach and learn web developer skills. Our classes are globally accessible, 100% free, and powered entirely by learners, mentors and contributors like you. Our goal: create a vibrant, peer-led system that helps people around the world easily access and build careers on open web technology."

Open, Fine-Grained Certification

"Today's best developers draw on a broad mix of tools and platforms to learn, create, and innovate. Many certificate courses focus on a single proprietary technology, limiting students' exposure to the broad mix of tools today's developers need. This causes skill silos and student lock-in, hindering developers' abilities to implement optimal solutions, and the ability of those solutions to improve the field more broadly. Four-year programs can be out of reach for many, and emphasize rigid curricula that are not designed to keep pace with new developments in the field.

"In consultation with experts and practitioners, The School of Webcraft has assembled a set of core competencies they feel open web developers should have. Proposed courses are designed to reflect one or more of these core skills. As learners complete courses, they receive an endorsement for that area or competency. This approach to accreditation is timely, allowing a student's record to immediately reflect their accomplishments. It is also constantly evolving, and open to input and participation by all.

"We believe technical training and certification no longer needs to be expensive, exclusive or proprietary. By training a new generation of developers in open source values and skills, we can create opportunity and self-empowerment while spreading open standards and values that improve the open web itself.

Peer learning powered by mentors and learners like you

"P2PU School of Webcraft will deliver the skills and certification anyone, anywhere can use to build web development careers. The School of Webcraft's online courses are facilitated by practitioners who guide and support participants' independent learning, drawing on existing open learning materials. Learners build hands-on skills through implementing projects, and are encouraged to collaborate through self-organized study and discussion groups. Peer learners not only gain technical skills, but also an attitude and approach to web development -- "hacker habits" -- that reflects the way great developers think, solve problems and collaborate.

"Courses are grounded in real-world materials and problems, utilize the latest technical tools and techniques, and are organized by a vibrant community of peers. This enables participants to build portfolios of work, gain the practical open source experience employers want, and collect badges and certification that explicitly reflect what a learner has achieved.

"Anyone can propose new course ideas and learning materials any time -- allowing P2PU to move faster and stay more up to date on current technologies than traditional programs.

In September 2010 - we launch our first round of courses.

"This September we'll be running our first round of courses for the School of Webcraft. We're accepting more course proposal over the next weeks, but here's a preview of the courses we're already working on:

• HTML5
  • Participants will explore the current state of HTML5 support and develop websites that make use of the new standard's features.
• Web Development 101
  • An introduction to developing basic websites to web standards. This course will be suitable for beginners who wish to learn how to make static websites with (x)HTML and CSS.
• Principles of Project Management
  • This is an introductory course in project management as it is applied to software projects.
• Building Social with the Open Web
  • Social infrastructure has become an important part of building web applications. With the proliferation of social web applications it is becoming increasingly important to focus on standards that maximize interoperability. This course will introduce several protocols and specifications that allow developers to build decentralized, interoperable social applications.
• Reading Code
  • The Reading Code course will remind us that there is no magic-- only logic. We will dive into the mini universes of open source projects and learn techniques for getting oriented, debugging, and simply getting comfortable reading code.
• Semantic Markup
  • Approach on how you would layout your code so that you are creating code in best practice which leads onto other areas of web design and development
• Organic SEO Basics
  • Approach on how you would create web pages with SEO in mind.
• What is PHP (for dummies)
  • This course provides the basic information on what PHP is, what it can do and helps participants build a basic dynamic website using the language.

Get involved! Take a class; Propose a course; Make a contribution.

"Have a course you want to teach? Follow our guidelines for proposing courses here.

"Interested in participating as a learner, getting certified, or honing a particular web development skill? The first School of Webcraft session starts this September, 2010; sign up for a course here.

"Got learning materials or ideas to contribute? Get involved in our community.

SOURCE: http://www.drumbeat.org/p2pu-webcraft/about