Peer-to-peer learning in the age of mass
collaboration
Web 2.5 and the revolution in learning
Presented at Channel 4 & Dept.
Innovation, Universities and Skills Event
nick@wecreate.cc
www.wecreate.cc

We must teach them to understand themselves as products of
- and participants in - traditions;
to ready them to respond critically and constructively to
change;
and to develop their understanding of the ethical dimensions of
what they say and do.
New Curriculum, Harvard University
Stanford remains dedicated to finding solutions to the great
challenges of the day and to preparing our students for
leadership in today's complex world.

22% of all
billionaires

Countries must learn how to capitalise on their citizen’s cognitive resources if
they are to prosper both economically and socially.
Early interventions will be key.
Government Office for Science, 2008
8/10 jobs down to ‘soft skills’ in 2020

Leadership exists when people are no
longer victims of circumstances but
participate in creating new circumstances.
Ultimately, leadership is about creating
new realities.
Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline

In the world of large networks we face issues for which
hierarchical leadership is inherently inadequate.
This is the big difference of our world.
That’s why ‘becoming a real human
being’ really is the primary issue of our
time, on a scale never
but
required before.
C. Otto Scharmer
MIT Sloan School of Management

P2P

peer-pressure becomes peer-power
Affordability
Scale
Mass participation
Exponential creativity
Networked potential

Your behaviours are influenced by others in your network far more strongly than
you might think, even by people you’ve never met.
Harvard Medical School, New Scientist, 2009

‘Professional’
+ tools &
thinking

Disrupting Class
1. Most attempts at reform have not been guided by the root reasons that the education
system functions as it does
2. Disruptive innovation must go around and underneath the system. This is how
disruption drives affordability, accessibility, capability and responsiveness
3. If we acknowledge that all young people learn differently then the way the system is
arranged won’t ever allow us to educate them in customised ways
4. The places with the highest potential to create a new modular education system are
the emerging online user networks
5. Investing in technological platforms that will enable young people to create tools for
each other... will have extraordinary impact