DISCUSSION ACTIVITY (AS PART OF INSTRUCTIONS FOR DAY 1)

[Patricia]

Dear Friends,

Apart from the "Instructions for Day 1" which have been posted, you
are asked to address these three questions under this link, as part
of the Assignment for Day 1.

Share your views and discuss among yourself.

Discussion Activity 1

Wikis are open authoring systems -- and in education circles, quality
is an important consideration.

We're keen to hear your thoughts and views on the following
questions:

1) Do you have any concerns about the quality of educational
resources developed using an open authoring approach? If so, what are
your concerns? If not, how does an open authoring approach contribute
to high quality learning materials?

2) In your opinion, should course development for education use
closed or open authoring approaches? Give reasons for your view?

3) What mechanisms can be adopted to assure quality of educational
content developed in Wiki environments?

Cheers,
Nellie and Patricia

Link

This discussion activity comes from Tutorial 1:

http://www.wikieducator.org/Wikieducator_tutorial/What_is_a_wiki/Advantages_and_disadvantages

[Donna Perry]

Dear Patricia and Nellie,

 

I am really sorry to have to say this at this time but I will have to pull out from the program.  I am a student teacher ...well, really I am just starting this Monday, January 12th,  with my new class for student teaching.  In addition to the student teaching, my program includes graduate classes going on at the same time.  I just received the syllabus for both classes and only now realize that I cannot put the time into this as well.  I underestimated the amount of work that is involved.  It is really a lot. 

 

If it is okay with you, I'd like to take this workshop a month after my student teaching is completed.  I had already spent hours of my time going over the information and am interested in pursuing it further.  

 

Please let me know your thoughts on this.

 

I am very sorry if I have inconvenienced anyone.

 

Thank you.

 

Donna Perry

[NELLIE DEUTSCH]

Dear Donna,
Thank you for the updates. You may sign up for the next L4C workshop.
Warm wishes,
Nellie Deutsch
Doctoral Student
Educational Leadership
Curriculum and Instruction
http://www.wikieducator.org/EL4C19
http://www.wikieducator.org/User:Nelliemuller
skype:nelliedeutschmuller

[AFriedman]

# Do you have any concerns about the quality of educational resources
developed using an open authoring approach? If so, what are your
concerns? If not, how does an open authoring approach contribute to
high quality learning materials?

Of course I'm concerned that people will vandalize the pages. Even
well intentioned authors may produce questionable materials, e.g. by
mis-remembering or misinterpreting facts or letting their unconscious
biases slip into an educational resource. However, even peer-reviewed
publications are vulnerable to biases. Nature and Science, two of the
top scientific journals, routinely publish papers that are downright
false. People without credentials are fallible, but so are people
with excellent credentials. I find Wikimedia an invaluable resource
when I start to do research on any topic. To me, the external links
are as valuable as the articles themselves and tend to be a reasonable
fact check and gapfiller for the articles (which I don't usually find
problems with). The internal and external links help me obtain
information that I can't find by other means, or that I wouldn't think
of.

# In your opinion, should course development for education use closed

or open authoring approaches? Give reasons for your view?

I think some course development should be closed authoring, and some
should be open authoring. Closed authoring is what most courses are
on paper, and this probably leads to more accountability. However,
discussion-based courses are effectively open authored. It is not
only the teachers who can make unique contributions to course
materials, but students as well. One of my high school teachers took
notes on the students' comments and would incorporate the students'
insights into his lessons the next year. Students may also have
insights into how to structure the curriculum as a whole. Although
the idea of open authoring (as on wikis) is new, I've already seen
some interesting and unique materials being developed. For example,
someone has created a Wikiversity course about the "history of Ireland
through song." The curriculum includes listening to Irish folk songs
about historical events. This seems to be a very nontraditional but
engaging approach to learning about this subject. By all means I feel
that more course materials should be open authored.

# What mechanisms can be adopted to assure quality of educational

content developed in Wiki environments?

Encouraging people to reference their facts has led to the information
being more accountable, and allows readers of the article to view
source materials. Many of the studies which were mentioned in the
reading found that referenced facts were more reliable than
unreferenced facts. I think that special recognition, e.g. barnstars,
privileges or other rewards, should be given to people whose edits
remain on highly viewed pages (i.e. people whose edits seem to satisfy
the readers of an article). Wikipedia has implemented a number of
measures which work, e.g. making vandalism easy to reverse, giving
articles ratings based on their completeness and quality, and blocking
vandals. Some vandals seem to be adding sections to articles that
would be appropriate for Uncyclopedia, a wiki billed as "the content-
free encyclopedia" and containing satirical rather than factual
articles. I think wikis such as Uncyclopedia may be an outlet for
some of their energies.

[coac...@gmail.com]

> 1) Do you have any concerns about the quality of educational
> resources developed using an open authoring approach? If so, what are
> your concerns? If not, how does an open authoring approach contribute
> to high quality learning materials?

I think I would have concerns more about rigor than malicious
introduction of content, but a quick scan of some of the texts
provided at Wikibooks indicated to me that they had a lot to offer,
and that I would in fact use them to augment the "official"
copyrighted text in certain courses I am about to take. There is a
sort of peer review process in the constructivist tendencies of
serious scholars who participate in the "wiki world."

2) In your opinion, should course development for education use
> closed or open authoring approaches? Give reasons for your view?

The short answer is yes; both closed and open authoring have their
part to play. The institutional need of organizations to develop
reliable and proprietarily manageable content to assure accreditation
of courses- a serious consideration for public face to face and
virtual high school programs in the US- means that some closed content
would always have to be part of the mix. However, for the serious
student open authored texts and references are a tool of incalculable
value in focusing and enriching their work at little or no cost.
3. As discussed in the articles recommended, wikis are surprisingly
"self healing" becuase of their communitarian nature that ensures
monitoring and correction of malicious or biased editing. Second, new
and innovative methods such as Wikiscanner are being developed to
monitor quality and veracity. Finally, the competition and comparison
with closed media provides a standard to measure against.

> http://www.wikieducator.org/Wikieducator_tutorial/What_is_a_wiki/Adva...

[Piezon]

1) Do you have any concerns about the quality of educational
resources developed using an open authoring approach? If so, what are
your concerns? If not, how does an open authoring approach contribute
to high quality learning materials?

A resounding yes. Material and resources are only as good (and
reliable) as the authors who write them. Having said that, I have the
same concerns over educational resources that can be purchased in any
college bookstore. Educational resources are heavily biased and often
contain erroneous information. The saving grace for textbooks is that
they can change between lesson plans. I cannot imagine trying to
teach from course materials that were fluidly changing throughout the
course. Exactly how do you develop a syllabus based on this? You
can't - at least not one that your university would accept. With a
textbook, you can preview it at your leisure, highlight erroneous or
biased sections, and supplement as necessary. For highly biased
materials - you can write the author, drop the book from your course,
and choose suitable replacement. It seems that wikis, if used
appropriately, could be used to supplement the bias nature of
textbooks to provide a well rounded view. The textbook could remain
the main resource with a supplemental wiki that would provide
alternate views, examples, ideas, etc that may broaden the educational
scope of the student and provide lively classroom debate. Although
some have stated that they are confident of the self-authoring
protection from biased and inappropriate material, that too, is only
as good as the editors and the time they are willing to commit to
maintaining the integrity of the site. Along the same lines, highly
biased wikis can also become self-fulfilling if the authors are
staunch enough in their belief and will simply edit to maintain their
bias. There is no such thing as free speech, free press, and
definitely not a free media where every voice will be heard.
Therefore, the democratic ideals of a wiki are delusional.

2) In your opinion, should course development for education use
closed or open authoring approaches? Give reasons for your view?

I think I answered this in the above rant. But as a summary statement
I will add that the decision should remain with the faculty member
teaching the course. Academic freedom for course instructors is one
of the few freedoms that faculty have left. Personally, I would only
use a wiki as supplemental material or base material from which to
build a course from scratch.

3) What mechanisms can be adopted to assure quality of educational
content developed in Wiki environments?

Only a high degree of monitoring by the faculty responsible for the
course can provide any level of assurance. Even this level is
deceptive at best. To expect the wiki contributors to ensure high
quality assurance is a poor expectation for freely contributed work
and a high expectation on individual time required to do so. To
expect any staff involvement from the school to ensure monitoring/
examination of all course materials is too broad and unmanageable for
the most highly staffed university. Universities must place some
degree of trust in their faculty to ensure that the educational
materials provided are of sound judgment. However, many faculty have
previously broken this trust due to laziness and ineptitude which has
led academic management to pursue a more dictatorial view of course
development. This lessens the creativity for those who are so
inclined to provide an "out-of-the-box" experience for their
students. Even so, many universities are slowly going to pre-
designated course materials (or more commonly known as canned
courses). This movement is a result of poorly managed courses by
faculty members. The result is a higher demand upon course
development/management and less academic freedom for individual course
instructors. It also propagates institutional thinking among students
instead of free thinking. Instead of management getting involved in
supervising and approving course documents, they should spend more
time hiring the right faculty members for their program (and yes, this
is an entire discussion in itself).

On Jan 4, 4:09 pm, Patricia <PSchli...@col.org> wrote:

> http://www.wikieducator.org/Wikieducator_tutorial/What_is_a_wiki/Adva...

[Karuna]

1)  Do you have any concerns about the quality of educational
> resources developed using an open authoring approach? If so, what are
> your concerns? If not, how does an open authoring approach contribute
> to high quality learning materials?

For myself I can think more clearly offline, with pen, paper, scissors
and glue so I would need to do this first and then get it uploaded to
feel I had done my best quality. However I think many people could do
fine straight onto the computer.

As for what's already on there and people being able to change it,
that does concern me alittle. Without realising it I edited an
incorrect word in someone's page. I don't know if it saved or not
since I didn't know what I was doing. However mostly I choose to trust
that most of us hold the intension to improve things and contribute to
each other and I'm excited that a structure exists that allows that.

Actually I'm not concerned about quality as such (many trashy books
have been published so how info is made available doesn't really
effect quality) but more concerned with material being changed without
the author having choice. I would like to be told what could be
improved and asked if another can change it for me rather than finding
that my stuff is changed because someone might not have understood
what I was trying to get across.

I am excited about the community (coming together to create), rather
than the individual, creating material that I believe has to be better
because its including more facets of understanding, many angles of
perception merging into a unity of understanding. Its new for western
society to think as a community, although much of the world's cultures
have not lost this as we have. I'm very hopeful about our western
culture starting to reclaim the understanding that we need to work
together and own the whole, rather than our own little piece, of our
accomplishments.

> 2)  In your opinion, should course development for education use
> closed or open authoring approaches? Give reasons for your view?

I'd like to see both available so that as we grow in our willingness
to share, those who need more control can contribute that way and
those who need less can contribute that way, modelling a better way
for the rest. I believe choice is very important for everyone to sense
respect, ownership and inclusion in the bigger sharing.

> 3) What mechanisms can be adopted to assure quality of educational
> content developed in Wiki environments?

So far I don't understand the environment well enough to really
comment. Are there folks who would read/look over stuff and could put
it in a discussion section (or tag) to get feedback on, if they
question the quality?
Or articles etc could be color tagged for different levels of overview
with comments included below so that readers can hear what others
think of the specific article. This is not thought out but just off
the cuff, for example: no-one has commented, 5 teachers have read and
liked it, its tagged as having lots of disagreement, its tagged as
having untrue facts, etc. This kind of approach (better thought out of
course) might help those many readers who have been taught to believe
everything they read, it could be a prompt to consider where it came
from, how many people have read it, who disagrees and why...get the
reader thinking more rather than just taking in the information.

Would the wiki environment allow such tags? comments? Maybe it does
already?