The Viral Academy is a P2P framework for creating online and offline learning experiences. Students are encouraged to pass on their learning by the built in Learning TimeBank, which enables us to offer all courses for free to anyone in the world.
The methodology we have developed is designed to scale at as low a cost as possible, and to address the main bottleneck regarding teaching and learning subjects that are fast moving, and where teachers are far and few between.
Here we document the ever-changing sands of shifting focus that is the Viral Academy. It is time for a consoldation. We have settled on a strange and beautiful platform, and we have refined a strategy. We need to write it down in plain English:
We use a time based currency: Students are required to pass on their learning in order to earn credits that they can use to take further free courses.
In Happenings we practice a sort of conversation through editing. It's a weird experience, but many like it. Key to creating that dynamic is that we not only read, write, and fork, but that we synthesize as well.
We are providing a series of month long residencies in London, and are looking to partner with other spaces to provide a network of spaces.
We use Mozilla Open Badges to to acknowledge the skills learned, and emphasise the social and communications skills required for successful group work.
At the Viral Academy we started to use the term Learning Object for the Hangout Based Lessons we were experimenting with.
The Viral Academy invites mentors and experts to volunteer time in the support of learners. Online Experts are asked to volunteer a minimum of 10 hours online support over a year, and provided with an easy to manage interface allowing them to effectively manage their time.
One of the principles of the Viral Academy is that learning takes place everywhere - it should be embedded in the experience of doing things.
The Viral Academy is structured around Projects not Courses, but we have had to adapt the methodology to weave in both components. However we always strive to base learning around the activity of making.
The motivational pyramid consists of two main parts: first the motivation to take more in-depth advanced courses, and second the motivation to be in small group learning settings with well know expert teachers.