perception

[valerie]

As an assignment in a community college course, my students are asked
to find a learning resource in WikiEducator. Finding good learning
objects in WE can be difficult, so I have included this assignment to
have students find what they thought was complete and interesting.
Although there is usually some frustration, they find some amazing WE
pages. I'm accumulating a list of pages they discover.

However, sometimes I get more information and feedback than I
bargained for... I though this was an interesting comment from one of
my students.
"Also, the color scheme and design of the website is exactly the same
as Wikipedia.org. Wikipedia is known for false information, and cannot
be used for research papers. I feel that this site is similar to
Wikipedia; therefore, this site's information cannot be trusted."

Sigh... Yes, some of our faculty are convinced that Wikipedia and by
association, all wikis, especially those that look like Wikipedia
because they use Mediawiki are evil and populated by gangs of internet
hooligans intent on provide false information to unsuspecting web
users. They explicitly forbid the use of Wikipedia.

Has anyone else heard of similar credibility issues for WikiEducator
content? Is this something that is limiting adoption of WE learning
objects?

..Valerie

[kirby urner]

On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 5:50 PM, valerie <vta...@gmail.com> wrote:

<< snip >>
 

Sigh... Yes, some of our faculty are convinced that Wikipedia and by
association, all wikis, especially those that look like Wikipedia
because they use Mediawiki are evil and populated by gangs of internet
hooligans intent on provide false information to unsuspecting web
users. They explicitly forbid the use of Wikipedia.

Has anyone else heard of similar credibility issues for WikiEducator
content? Is this something that is limiting adoption of WE learning
objects?

..Valerie

You bring up an interesting point Valarie.

As Wikieducators, I think it makes sense for us to cogently explain the difference between look and feel, and content.

We also have defenders of Wikipedia among us I'm sure.

I don't think it's a teacher's job, whenever confronted with a negative prejudice towards some resource or institution, to simply capitulate and accept some rumor-based verdict. 

Sometimes one needs to push back and give an alternative point of view.

What I might say to a student about Wikipedia is that encyclopedias by their very nature tend to be controversial, as they strive to tell sometimes controversial stories in an authoritative manner.

Wikipedia simply takes the lid off and shows us how some entries become contentious, whereas others scoot by with little or no discussion, attract no debates.  The public is privy to this process, whereas a more private enterprise reveals less of the internal debate (if there is one -- we have no way of knowing).

The problem of authentication, believability, credibility, is not confined to wikis of any description, nor to the Web or the Internet.  Misinformation is pervasive and may be propagated by people who simply don't know any better, have no intent to misinform. 

The institutional role of "teacher" or "educator" should include catching and correcting information where possible, and of course I realize we don't always agree to begin with, about what the truth is -- that's the whole point.  So we keep debating, going back and forth, advancing the conversation.  That's a learning process we encourage.

Finally, I think we should take every opportunity to simply explain with a wiki is, in general terms.  Where the idea comes from, what it's history is.  Who came up with the idea?  What was the first wiki?  If I search on Wikieducator about Wikis, what will I find?...

This seems a good page:
http://wikieducator.org/Wikieducator_tutorial/What_is_a_wiki

I've met Ward Cunningham a few times (inventor of the wiki).  He's around Portland, Oregon, as is Linus Torvalds, inventor of Linux.  Lots of open source culture around here, which I'm proud about.

On a rather different topic, related to my Python work, I'm interested to what extent WikiEducator pages venture into non-Latin-1 characters (unicode glyphs).  I was able to find Hebrew and Arabic on one of the pages.  I haven't yet found any examples of Chinese and/or Japanese characters.

One of the coolest features of Wikipedia is that a lot of its pages are in other languages:

http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9D%D0%B5%D0%B3%D0%B0-%D0%BF%D0%BE%D0%B7%D0%B8%D1%86%D0%B8%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%8F_%D1%81%D0%B8%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B5%D0%BC%D0%B0_%D1%81%D1%87%D0%B8%D1%81%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%8F

(sorry for the nasty URL, should work though...)


Kirby

[Wong Leo]

Chinese try is here http://wikieducator.org/TESOL

2010/1/19 kirby urner <kirby...@gmail.com>

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[Robert Kruhlak]

Hi Kirby,

> On a rather different topic, related to my Python work, I'm interested to
> what extent WikiEducator pages venture into non-Latin-1 characters (unicode
> glyphs).  I was able to find Hebrew and Arabic on one of the pages.  I
> haven't yet found any examples of Chinese and/or Japanese characters.

Have a look at the following for an example of usage in a template:

http://www.wikieducator.org/Template:Flashcard/doc

Cheers

Rob
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[Jan Visser]

"Also, the color scheme and design of the website is exactly the same as Wikipedia.org. Wikipedia is known for false information, and cannot be used for research papers. I feel that this site is similar to Wikipedia; therefore, this site's information cannot be trusted."

 

There are two reasons why you can't use Wikipedia as a source for citation in arguments where scientific validation is a serious concern: (1) the source is not stable. What is there one day may no longer ne there the next day. (2) The authorship is anonymous and articles have not been peer reviewed. So, whatever claims appear in the citation can't be traced back to a particular individual or institutional environment with a recognizable history of validly contributing to scientific knowledge building.

 

It doesn't mean, though, that what you read in the Wikipedia is worthless or that students should be discouraged from using it in their explorations. Quite to the contrary, in my view. In many areas, Wikipedia is an excellent resource. Students can often use it as a good starting point for their research because it's free, but they will have to move beyond it to check what they read against sources that meet the criteria for citation mentioned above. Many good entries in the Wikipedia are linked to or cite such quotable sources, which should make it easy for students to do such further research.

 

As WikiEducator's mission is in the first place to provide curriculum materials, it's unlikely that it will want to become a quotable resource, for the same reason that printed curriculum materials developed for schools are unlikely to end up among the referenced works cited in scientific papers, unless the paper is in the area of the sciences of learning.

 

The student is wrong if s/he thinks that you cannot trust the information in Wikipedia simply because it is Wikipedia and that, if it is in one of those other sources, it can be automatically trusted. Anything written will always have to be subject to the critical scrutiny of those who care to read. S/he is right in expressing distrust in a source that has earlier been found to be weak in validity control.

 

In my view, the student's remark points once again to the important opportunity for WikiEducator to develop materials and processes that lead students to becoming critically constructive users and producers of the growing wealth of knowledge available in a distributed fashion via different channels, one of them being the Internet.

 

Jan

 

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E-mail: jvi...@learndev.org

Check out: http://www.learndev.org and http://www.facebook.com/learndev

Blog: http://jvisser-ldi.blogspot.com/

 

 

[kirby urner]

Jan's points below are well taken.

In the thick of some scientific debate, where the veracity of various positions is being called into question, it's generally not considered appropriate to cite an encyclopedia, even Britannica.  Encyclopedias are secondary sources, and when a point needs strong support, one needs to locate a primary source.

Encyclopedia citations in the case of blog postings, electronic memos, correspondence, may helpfully go to Wikipedia when simply defining terms or mentioning an historical event in passing. 

I'll link to Math World, Urban Dictionary, Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences in this way.  These aren't student papers justifying a debating position.  These are orienting cues or clues, hoping to keep my reader up to speed enough to not disconnect entirely, because I'm using too many undefined terms. 

Or if I am taking a controversial position, then I need to do better than just cite an encyclopedia (any encyclopedia).

However, even when decoding shop talk or jargon, one may encounter entries with problems e.g. this entry regarding UML (unified modeling language)  is currently flagged as "written like an advertisement"  -- another kind of spam editors of an open wiki-based encyclopedia need to contend with.

Regarding Wikieducator, there's little to stop someone at the top of their game, one of the leading authorities in some field, from making some Wikieducator page a window into her or his thinking.

Imagine if Linus Pauling had chosen Wikieducator as a place to share views, not only about chemistry (for which he had a Nobel prize), but also about nuclear disarmament (he had a Nobel Peace Prize as well, took many controversial opinions at the height of the McCarthy period and subsequently).

Regarding Wikipedia, there's a specific policy that articles should contain no original research.  I don't see WikiEducator has having such a policy, e.g. here's a Wikieducator page giving the results of some specific field study.  This is nothing like an encyclopedia entry in Wikipedia.

On a different topic, I was wondering how in WikiEducator one might embed an iFrame such as are used in Google Street Views.  I did some searches but so far have not found any examples.

Kirby Urner

--

[Randy Fisher]

Hi All,

Regarding Kirby's point about original research on WikiEducator, we encourage that. Soon, we will be launching WikiResearcher.org - a space where researchers can collaborate on research, funding proposals etc. It's a companion project of WikiEducator, via the OER Foundation.

www.oerfoundation.org - See "Projects".

- Randy

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________________
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Senior Consultant, Organization Development, Intersol Group, Canada

Senior Consultant, Organization & Business Development
International Centre for Open Education / OER Foundation, New Zealand

Elected Member, WikiEducator Community Council, www.wikieducator.org
+1 613.230.6424 x144 (EST)
Skype: wikirandy
Twitter: wikirandy

* Stakeholder Engagement, Change / Transition Management & Performance
* Organization Design & Development
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[Jim Tittsler]

On Wed, Jan 20, 2010 at 02:08, Jan Visser <jvi...@learndev.org> wrote:

> There are two reasons why you can't use Wikipedia as a source for citation
> in arguments where scientific validation is a serious concern: (1) the
> source is not stable. What is there one day may no longer ne there the next

> day. [...]

Note that you can cite a specific revision (on Wikipedia or
WikiEducator) if you wish. Simply visit the history page and you can
get a permanent link to the desired revision of the page.

[Wayne Mackintosh]

Hi Valerie, Kirby, Jan, Leo, Rob and Randy

At last a remedy for my WE withdrawal symptoms resulting from my summer vacation (and lack of connectivity because of moving house combined with local idiosyncrasies with my previous telecom provider :-(  -- with emphasis on previous provider -- I've now changed supplier  ;-)

Its great to be back -- and my best wishes to all WikiEducators for the new year. 2010 is going to be an amazing year for OER!

Apology for the rather long-winded response below -- however, given the importance of quality in education, should we think about setting up a Community Workgroup (http://www.wikieducator.org/Workgroup:WikiEducator_Workgroups/Guidelines )? Do we have folk on the list who would be keen to sign up and help us develop quality guidelines and processes that will work for educators?

Reflections

Quality is a very pertinent and relevant discussion for our WikiEducator community.  As a community of educators -- this is important for us and we have the opportunity (and freedom) to get this right in ways that will work for us (educators and researchers). Gee you got to love open education and open philanthropy -- we can work collaboratively in the co-design of Q & A processes that will support our mission. Nurturing the development of appropriate quality processes is a priority for the OER Foundation -- As a community of educators, quality is important for us WE have made some progress. I look forward to working with the community in pioneering appropriate solutions.

A few random thoughts and reflections -- in no specific order:

1. From a technical point of view it would be possible to site a specific historical instance of a wiki page (notwithstanding an open authoring environment).  The wiki keeps a history of every edit -- a very powerful feature of the technology. Using the history tab -- we can cite a specific historical instance of a page (see for example: http://wikieducator.org/index.php?title=Wikieducator_tutorial/What_is_a_wiki&oldid=451248 ). However, a more user friendly solution for citing specific instances would be great.
2. In the future, it will be easier to generate a static instance of content produced collaboratively in WikiEducator. The OER Foundation has secured generous funding support from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation for building a technical bridge between the Mediawiki software and the Connexions platform (see: http://wikieducator.org/CNX-WE ). When completed -- it will be possible to export a static version of a WikiEducator page for hosting on the Connexions platform -- In this way a dynamic draft can be hosted in parallel with a static version. Useful for research papers and course materials where the teacher would prefer to use a static version of the OER. It will also be possible for going the other way -- that is exporting a Connexions module for collaborative authoring in a wiki environment -- great for saving time with course revisions.
3. As we move forward with the planning for the launch of WikiResearcher.org, the OER Foundation is keen to take a look at refining a Mediawiki extension called Flagged Revisions (see - http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Extension:FlaggedRevs ). With some refinement it would be possible to assign peer review rights to "approved" editors. The idea is that edits can be peer reviewed and then 'Flagged" as a peer reviewed resource. Users visiting a page would then see the peer reviewed version as the default view.  
4. WE have made a reasonable start on thinking about quality assurance and review (see: http://www.wikieducator.org/WikiEducator:Quality_Assurance_and_Review ) and the start of a portal page on Q&A (http://www.wikieducator.org/WikiEducator:Quality_Assurance_Framework ) -- this is a great start and we can build on these foundations.
   

Thoughts?

Cheers
Wayne

2010/1/19 valerie <vta...@gmail.com>

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[valerie]

Thanks Kirby

Sorry, perhaps I wasn't clear. I have several class assignments
looking at Wikipedia page histories and discussions so students
understand the process and the power of a collaboratively written
resource work like Wikipedia. That works great.

WE are always eager to expand our WikiEducator user community. While
it is going well, it could be better. This comment from a student was
simply the latest reminder that there are faculty who are actively
campaigning against wikis and web-based learning objects. I am
frustrated by faculty and their lack of curiosity and professional
growth, that after all this time they are still short-changing their
students with their anti-Wikipedia beliefs.

If faculty won't accept Wikipedia as a resource, it will be a very
hard sell to get them to author or adopt learning objects in
WikiEducator. While that is their loss, their students are missing out
as well.

Thanks for listening.

..Valerie

On Jan 18, 6:49 pm, kirby urner <kirby.ur...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 5:50 PM, valerie <vtay...@gmail.com> wrote:
>

[Wayne Mackintosh]

Hi Valerie,

Your point regarding faculty perception is very important.  I suppose the solution is part:

• education -- helping faculty learn about how quality works in wiki models, and
• part process (the techniques and procedures WE adopt to support quality.

With reference to the education side of the equation, the OER Foundation has a little funding available to develop a series of "intermediate" level tutorials. Open question -- should WE commission the development of a tutorial on how to promote and monitor quality of wiki-based OERs?  Would this help "educate" faculty?

With reference to the process side -- we're making progress, but clearly a lot more needs to be done. Should we convene a Community workgroup on quality to take this forward? Any other thoughts on what we should be doing to improve WE processes and/or tools to support quality promotion?

Like I said -- 2010 is going to be a great year for OER and WE.

Cheers
Wayne

2010/1/20 valerie <vta...@gmail.com>

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[Jan Visser]

Hi Wayne. Thanks for stepping in and Happy New Year to you as well. Greetings to all others.

 

Below are some thoughts triggered by your reflections.

 

Jan

 

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President & Sr. Researcher, Learning Development Institute

E-mail: jvi...@learndev.org

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Blog: http://jvisser-ldi.blogspot.com/

 

 

From: wikied...@googlegroups.com [mailto:wikied...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Wayne Mackintosh
Sent: Tuesday, January 19, 2010 11:15 PM
To: wikied...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [WikiEducator] perception

 

Hi Valerie, Kirby, Jan, Leo, Rob and Randy

At last a remedy for my WE withdrawal symptoms resulting from my summer vacation (and lack of connectivity because of moving house combined with local idiosyncrasies with my previous telecom provider :-(  -- with emphasis on previous provider -- I've now changed supplier  ;-)

Its great to be back -- and my best wishes to all WikiEducators for the new year. 2010 is going to be an amazing year for OER!

Apology for the rather long-winded response below -- however, given the importance of quality in education, should we think about setting up a Community Workgroup (http://www.wikieducator.org/Workgroup:WikiEducator_Workgroups/Guidelines )? Do we have folk on the list who would be keen to sign up and help us develop quality guidelines and processes that will work for educators?

Reflections

Quality is a very pertinent and relevant discussion for our WikiEducator community.  As a community of educators -- this is important for us and we have the opportunity (and freedom) to get this right in ways that will work for us (educators and researchers). Gee you got to love open education and open philanthropy -- we can work collaboratively in the co-design of Q & A processes that will support our mission. Nurturing the development of appropriate quality processes is a priority for the OER Foundation -- As a community of educators, quality is important for us WE have made some progress. I look forward to working with the community in pioneering appropriate solutions.

<<I agree that quality is a key concept. One idea would be to establish a review board of people with recognized competence who are willing to review final products. This would imply that after a period of collaborative authoring one finalizes the product and avoids further tempering with it. Users can still break it up in pieces and use those in newer developments. But they will at least know that they build on validated components. This seems to be in line with what you refer to below under Item 2.>>

A few random thoughts and reflections -- in no specific order:

1. From a technical point of view it would be possible to site a specific historical instance of a wiki page (notwithstanding an open authoring environment).  The wiki keeps a history of every edit -- a very powerful feature of the technology. Using the history tab -- we can cite a specific historical instance of a page (see for example: http://wikieducator.org/index.php?title=Wikieducator_tutorial/What_is_a_wiki&oldid=451248 ). However, a more user friendly solution for citing specific instances would be great.

<<As I said before, I don’t think WikiEducator should want to be a citable source. It’s not its mission. WE is not doing original research that results in the learning materials it creates. Yes, there is a research community, but that community researches the processes involved in the work of WE. Researchers doing so will likely want to publish their papers in media that are set up to validate their research, i.e., in peer reviewed journals.>>

2. In the future, it will be easier to generate a static instance of content produced collaboratively in WikiEducator. The OER Foundation has secured generous funding support from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation for building a technical bridge between the Mediawiki software and the Connexions platform (see: http://wikieducator.org/CNX-WE ). When completed -- it will be possible to export a static version of a WikiEducator page for hosting on the Connexions platform -- In this way a dynamic draft can be hosted in parallel with a static version. Useful for research papers and course materials where the teacher would prefer to use a static version of the OER. It will also be possible for going the other way -- that is exporting a Connexions module for collaborative authoring in a wiki environment -- great for saving time with course revisions.

<<Sounds like an excellent idea. See also my first comment above.>>

3. As we move forward with the planning for the launch of WikiResearcher.org, the OER Foundation is keen to take a look at refining a Mediawiki extension called Flagged Revisions (see - http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Extension:FlaggedRevs ). With some refinement it would be possible to assign peer review rights to "approved" editors. The idea is that edits can be peer reviewed and then 'Flagged" as a peer reviewed resource. Users visiting a page would then see the peer reviewed version as the default view.  

<<Are you talking here about review of the learning resources WE is supposed to produce or peer review of research done on the WE processes? If the latter, it will take considerable time before one gets recognized as a serious peer reviewed online research journal. There are good examples of such online journals in the biomedical sciences, though, and one may learn from their experience. It may be less costly and less of a distraction if researchers chose to publish at least initially via the existing scientific journals. This also has the advantage that one brings one’s work to the attention of colleagues of existing scientific communities that read those journals, thus avoiding preaching to the WE choir, which I think is important.>>

4. WE have made a reasonable start on thinking about quality assurance and review (see: http://www.wikieducator.org/WikiEducator:Quality_Assurance_and_Review ) and the start of a portal page on Q&A (http://www.wikieducator.org/WikiEducator:Quality_Assurance_Framework ) -- this is a great start and we can build on these foundations.

<<None of the above may address Valerie’s concern regarding the perceptions of her colleagues about anything Wiki. Here, I think, it’s important to listen carefully to the arguments of those colleagues. Some of their concerns may be worth our attention. Those that are not worth our attention should still be listened to carefully if any counter argument is going to be worth their attention.>>

[kirby urner]

On Tue, Jan 19, 2010 at 7:30 PM, valerie <vta...@gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks Kirby

Sorry, perhaps I wasn't clear. I have several class assignments
looking at Wikipedia page histories and discussions so students
understand the process and the power of a collaboratively written
resource work like Wikipedia. That works great.

 

Hi Valerie --

 

This sounds like an intelligent and enlightened approach.

 

I have struggled with the Wikipedia ecosystem myself. 

 

I've put a lot of work into an esoteric philosophical work called 'Synergetics: Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking' and yet for some years, entering 'Synergetics' in Wikipedia took one to a page primarily about the work of another author, using a similar title. 

 

Disambiguation we needed. 

 

Once someone (not me) started a new page on RB Fuller's 'Synergetics', there followed additional discussions. I can't say I'm hugely happy with that new page as it stands. 

 

In the External Links section, you'll see my link to WikiEducator, where I give a more personal and not-like-an-encyclopedia posting about Synergetics (given this is WikiEducator, not Wikipedia, I have no worries about my use of the first person, am behaving more like a primary source than a secondary one).

 

WE are always eager to expand our WikiEducator user community. While
it is going well, it could be better. This comment from a student was
simply the latest reminder that there are faculty who are actively
campaigning against wikis and web-based learning objects.  I am
frustrated by faculty and their lack of curiosity and professional
growth, that after all this time they are still short-changing their
students with their anti-Wikipedia beliefs.

 

I respect and understand your frustration.  Teachers have different motivations.  Feel free to clarify what you think these might be. 

 

In some cases, people are simply overwhelmed by the Internet in general and push back against learning new skills, because they resent what they regard as an imposition by others.  Future shock is a painful experience sometimes.  You wake up one morning and it seems like everyone but you is a Wikieducator. 

 

At first you panic, then you maybe find some peers who share your "skepticism" and fight back in some ways.

 

In my world, there are many political nuances.  For example, one may have had a bruising experience with Wikipedia, say by having one's page deleted by Wikipedia authorities, and so be very down on Wikipedia in particular. 

 

And yet this same person might in general endorse and appreciate the Wiki concept.  Many companies use wikis internally for documentation and so forth.  Not all wikis are "open".  Maybe only two or three people have access rights on a given page.

 

My point is simply that we have many criss-crossing ideas / concepts, relating to openness, collaboration, different uses of the same tool across multiple contexts.  "Love wikis, hate Wikipedia" is a possible viewpoint in this mix.

 

 Anthony Judge (UIA), who has a Wikipedia entry, has stirred up some discussion of the Wikipedia ecosystem, e.g. here:

 

http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/anthony-judge-the-wikipedia-needs-a-process-for-counterclaims/2008/01/08

 

If faculty won't accept Wikipedia as a resource, it will be a very
hard sell to get them to author or adopt learning objects in
WikiEducator. While that is their loss, their students are missing out
as well.

 

Yes.

 

My initial response was an attempt to disconnect the technology (the wiki) from issues of reliability, verifiability, and the purpose of an encyclopedia in culture more generally. 

 

Wikipedia has a conscious policy of trying to be an encyclopedia in the sense of not being a source of original research or speculation.  It's not a magazine or warehouse for science fiction.  It's not a place for new cults to establish themselves.  It's not a place advertise goods and services.  And so forth. 

 

And yet a wiki, in and of itself, may be pressed into all of these services, and many more.

 

 

Thanks for listening.

..Valerie

 

I hope I don't give the impression that I'm lecturing and pontificating to people I consider uninformed or in need of my vast learning. 

 

 On the contrary, I am relatively new to Wikieducator and have a lot less experience with learning objects, or wikis in general, than probably you do, or most people on this list.  I'm just thinking out loud and hoping to clarify my own thinking in a semi-public venue.

 

I would urge compassion for those who feel overwhelmed by the pace of technological change.  Future shock is a real phenomenon. 

 

It's also sometimes smart to set up obstacle courses, raise objections, even where one thinks the technology might well be appropriate but still one needs to be sure. 

 

We need to test, verify, not simply accept on faith that every tool is as apropos as its champions advertise.  Detractors perform a social service sometimes, in registering their skepticism.  It's one thing to challenge, another to stand in the way.

 

When I encounter a resistent attitude, sometimes my question is:  is this person really a gatekeeper?  Sometimes a lot of frustration arises from thinking so-and-so needs to agree or cooperate.

 

Last night I attended a talk about how micro-hydro installations are bringing the Internet to the mountain tribes of Borneo.  Thanks to some of these experiments, kids are less likely to leave the village, while still getting an education.  "Place based education" is ever more possible in some contexts. 

 

A local wiki might provide the local map of the village and its surroundings.  When it comes to resisting timber company efforts to simply grab land, having these maps is a big help.  These maps are "learning objects" of a vital nature. 

 

The talk (led by a member of one of these tribes) included showing off Google Earth.  Even though we were a room full of mostly older technologically savvy people, I could tell that Google Earth was new to some of us.  Our presenter from Borneo was likewise an engineer, in his 30s, and ahead of a lot of us, in terms of skills and mastery over contemporary technology.

 

Back to Fuller's 'Synergetics', I'm always encountering skepticism as to its relevance and importance to contemporary intellectual history, and that's OK with me, is what I have to work with.  I also get to work with Google Sketchup and WikiEducator, so why should I complain?

 

http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=a4295f6b93a3e11488961f28097fe890&prevstart=0  (dome tent)
 
http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=41da9dccf088fd4d3bbc5c9f885136bc&prevstart=0  (octet truss building a buckyball)
 
http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=56d2fcc950f147aaeac8dd3fda239aee&prevstart=0  (Fuller Projection)

 

In that sense, I'm quite open to people sharing about their possibly negative experiences with this or that technology. 

 

If you've had a bad experience with Wikipedia or some other wiki, there should be a forum or group where it's OK to share it, and without automatically being stigmatized as "anti progress" or "a poor teacher" or some such label. 

 

I expect readers here agree, so again please don't take this as a lecture.

 

Kirby

 

On Jan 18, 6:49 pm, kirby urner <kirby.ur...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 5:50 PM, valerie <vtay...@gmail.com> wrote:
>

[Edward Cherlin]

On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 20:50, valerie <vta...@gmail.com> wrote:
> As an assignment in a community college course, my students  are asked
> to find a learning resource in WikiEducator. Finding good learning
> objects in WE can be difficult, so I have included this assignment to
> have students find what they thought was complete and interesting.
> Although there is usually some frustration, they find some amazing WE
> pages. I'm accumulating a list of pages they discover.
>
> However, sometimes I get more information and feedback than I
> bargained for... I though this was an interesting comment from one of
> my students.
> "Also, the color scheme and design of the website is exactly the same
> as Wikipedia.org. Wikipedia is known for false information, and cannot
> be used for research papers. I feel that this site is similar to
> Wikipedia; therefore, this site's information cannot be trusted."

A very common and elementary fallacy.

Assuming
A and B have property X.
A has property Y.

we are given the incorrect conclusion

Therefore B has property Y.

Easily shown to be nonsense using a Venn diagram, which unfortunately
I cannot include in a text message. X and Y should be overlapping
regions, with neither included in the other. Then A is in X and Y,
while B is in X but not in Y.

> Sigh... Yes, some of our faculty are convinced that Wikipedia and by
> association, all wikis, especially those that look like Wikipedia
> because they use Mediawiki are evil and populated by gangs of internet
> hooligans intent on provide false information to unsuspecting web
> users. They explicitly forbid the use of Wikipedia.
>
> Has anyone else heard of similar credibility issues for WikiEducator
> content?

It is true that Wikipedia should never be cited as a primary source
for research. The same is generally true of other Wikis. The correct
attitude is not to ban use of Wikis, but to require that students find
the original sources for the information in the Wiki, and to study and
cite those sources. You should not take the word of any participant
here for fact, but should yourself look at the research papers,
software, learning materials, and methods recommended and evaluate
them accordingly. Wikis are neither more nor less reliable than other
published encyclopedias, newspapers, TV, or other secondary and
tertiary sources.

Of course, many primary sources, such as research articles using
improper methodolgy and drawing unwarranted conclusions, are also
utterly unreliable. There is no magic in correct scientific method,
only careful work.

> Is this something that is limiting adoption of WE learning
> objects?

No.

> ..Valerie

>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
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> To visit wikieducator: http://www.wikieducator.org
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> To post to this group, send email to wikied...@googlegroups.com
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
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--
Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://www.earthtreasury.org/

[Wong Leo]

Dear Valerie

Can we think of this question from another perspective , what is the diffeernce between wikipedia and wikieducator ?

of course we can see that both of them need to think of quality issue , however I think a big difference is

if we just put content into the Wikieducator , can we call it educational ?

I personally like teacher when they utlise something so called " Non-educational " and combine it with their classes or put it into curriulum .

to give you a good example in China , www.haokanbu.com is not a educational website ( it is for sharing photos and stories it is like Flickr but absolutely not )

but , many teacher began to use it, so it became " educational"  tool for many teachers  ,however , I found that most of teacher are from Instrucational technology field , instead of from other subjects , is this also happening in your countries ??

I really like to hear what other people feel abt this ?

Leo

2010/1/21 Edward Cherlin <eche...@gmail.com>

--

[kirby urner]

On Wed, Jan 20, 2010 at 12:02 PM, Edward Cherlin <eche...@gmail.com> wrote:

...

 

It is true that Wikipedia should never be cited as a primary source
for research. The same is generally true of other Wikis. The correct
attitude is not to ban use of Wikis, but to require that students find
the original sources for the information in the Wiki, and to study and
cite those sources. You should not take the word of any participant

 

 

Yes, where primary sources are required, Wikipedia strives to self-disqualify.

 

However, not all research requires a primary source for every point. 

 

Also, Wikipedia may be an object of study, and so the citations point to "exhibits" therein for discussion. 

 

My logical point:  a student research project that cites Wikipedia is not therefore amateurish just because of that fact. 

 

In some contexts, citing a secondary source such as a newspaper article, TV story, encyclopedia, glossary or dictionary entry is an OK thing to do.  Citations are deliberately cast widely in some kinds of writing.  Thinking of Borges.

 

 

here for fact, but should yourself look at the research papers,
software, learning materials, and methods recommended and evaluate
them accordingly. Wikis are neither more nor less reliable than other
published encyclopedias, newspapers, TV, or other secondary and
tertiary sources.

 

 

Indeed, and on the very same Wiki, you may have pages that vary hugely as to their quality and reliability.

 

A wiki is in some ways closer to what the original web was supposed to be:  as easy to add to as to browse. 

 

Turned out html, ftp, hosting, domain names and all of that, made the web more passive than originally hoped.  Wikis have helped address that, although I'm far from claiming they're shouldering the entire burden.

 

Blaming a wiki for the content of one of its pages may be like blaming a jet airplane because the dinner rolls in one of the gallies have gone cold.

 

On the other hand, Wikipedia has a brand to think about and doesn't stand to gain from a flood of poor information.  So a lot of advisories have been worked out, resulting in a kind of politics, where pages get challenged as to their relevance, veracity, readability etc. 

 

That's something you don't see in most printing press type encyclopedias.  Here the pages keep evolving and we're privy to at least some of th editorial process.

 

All of which is to say:  not everything is a clone of something we've had in the past, and in some ways Wikipedia is a genuinely new phenomenon, even though it's also correct to call it an encyclopedia.  Wikieducator likewise.  Innovation proceeds apace.

 

Kirby

 

[jkelly952]

Wikis are not an end in themselves - they are a beginning, a source to
stir our imagination, creativity and to provide direction.

Jim Kelly

http://wikieducator.org/K-12math.info_%28English_-_Espa%C3%B1ol_%E2%80%93_Fran%C3%A7ais%29

[Samuel Rose]

Hi Valerie,

On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 8:50 PM, valerie <vta...@gmail.com> wrote:
> As an assignment in a community college course, my students  are asked
> to find a learning resource in WikiEducator. Finding good learning
> objects in WE can be difficult, so I have included this assignment to
> have students find what they thought was complete and interesting.
> Although there is usually some frustration, they find some amazing WE
> pages. I'm accumulating a list of pages they discover.
>
> However, sometimes I get more information and feedback than I
> bargained for... I though this was an interesting comment from one of
> my students.
> "Also, the color scheme and design of the website is exactly the same
> as Wikipedia.org. Wikipedia is known for false information, and cannot
> be used for research papers. I feel that this site is similar to
> Wikipedia; therefore, this site's information cannot be trusted."
>

See Special Report Internet encyclopaedias go head to head Jim Giles
Nature 438, 900-901 (15 December 2005) | doi:10.1038/438900a;
Published online 14 December 2005

The study by Nature suggests that in scientific articles, the accuracy
of articles in wikipedia vs encylopedia britannica are near equal

Several other studies have been done on this phenomenon. See refs in
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikipedia

> Sigh... Yes, some of our faculty are convinced that Wikipedia and by
> association, all wikis, especially those that look like Wikipedia
> because they use Mediawiki are evil and populated by gangs of internet
> hooligans intent on provide false information to unsuspecting web
> users. They explicitly forbid the use of Wikipedia.
>

This position by people in academia is simply ignorant of the facts
connected to the issue. One could counter argue that forbidding the
use of Wikipedia or wikis in education is a massive disservice to
students, given that:

1. Wikis are in widespread use throughout the world, and thus
delivering literacies for effective use of collaborative learning
tools and processes is fundamental to education in the 21st century

2. There is no sound basis for total rejection of wikis, given that
all studies conclude that wiki references tend to be at least as
accurate as commercially produced references.

> Has anyone else heard of similar credibility issues for WikiEducator
> content? Is this something that is limiting adoption of WE learning
> objects?
>

This attitude is widespread in academia due to fear. Academia is
afraid that collaborative learning in the digital medium will obsolete
the monopoly that Universities and related institutions now have on
resources and educational domains.

The flip side of this is that some institutions *are* adopting
collaborative technologies, as we've found in our work producing the
open source http://socialmediaclassroom.com project software

> ..Valerie
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> Groups "WikiEducator" group.
> To visit wikieducator: http://www.wikieducator.org
> To visit the discussion forum: http://groups.google.com/group/wikieducator
> To post to this group, send email to wikied...@googlegroups.com
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
> wikieducator...@googlegroups.com
>

--
--
Sam Rose
Social Synergy
Tel:+1(517) 639-1552
Cel: +1-(517)-974-6451
skype: samuelrose
email: samue...@gmail.com
http://socialsynergyweb.com
http://forwardfound.org
http://socialsynergyweb.org/culturing
http://flowsbook.panarchy.com/
http://socialmediaclassroom.com
http://localfoodsystems.org
http://notanemployee.net
http://communitywiki.org

"The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human
ambition." - Carl Sagan

[Wayne Mackintosh]

Hi Jan,

Really appreciate your comments and insights. The conversation continues :-)

Jan said:

<<I agree that quality is a key concept. One idea would be to establish a review board of people with recognized competence who are willing to review final products. This would imply that after a period of collaborative authoring one finalizes the product and avoids further tempering with it. Users can still break it up in pieces and use those in newer developments. But they will at least know that they build on validated components. This seems to be in line with what you refer to below under Item 2.>>

Jan, agreed -- our emergent thinking is well aligned with your suggestions -- that is, to encourage review teams with recognised competence to volunteer review time.

Ideally, in the case of educational materials I think we should try to extend review competence beyond subject matter expertise to include peer review of the pedagogical dimensions as well. WE need to think about the practical implementation of these review perspectives. Fortunately there is a wealth of experience we can derive from the distance education model which pioneered the professional team approach for the design and development of distance education materials. Typically well designed DE materials would be developed by teams comprising subject matter experts, learning designers, multimedia designers, linguists etc. It would be great if our review model could incorporate all these dimensions.

From previous discussions on the list, WE think that we should avoid mandatory review of OER. The review process should be optional where the primary author(s) opt-in and request peer review. This is more of a maturity model where individual authors can gain confidence and experience in the open authoring model before being subjected to a rigorous review process which may be daunting for newbies. In addition, some OER materials may be intended for personal classroom use and not for collaborative authoring. This suggests a tiered quality review model as illustrated in this graphic:

http://www.wikieducator.org/WikiEducator:Quality_Assurance_Framework/Contribution_Levels#Introduction

Thinking about practical implementation, one idea is to have a "status indicator" of the resource, where for example the author can use a template to communicate the status of development and whether the resource is ready for review or not. For instance:

• Level 1: "Draft resource under development" (in other words -- don't review my resource, I'm not ready)
• Level 2:  "Resource is ready for review comments" (i.e. requesting review)
• Level 3: "Published" (i.e. Review completed and recommendations implemented)
• Level 4: "Usage comments and feedback from teachers available" -- where the community has provided feedback and tips relating to the reuse of the materials. We could incorporate a star rating system as well.
  

WE've been experimenting with a draft OER metadata template which aims to incorporate the "status" of the resource:

http://www.wikieducator.org/Template:OER_Metadata#status

Jan said:

<<As I said before, I don’t think WikiEducator should want to be a citable source. It’s not its mission. WE is not doing original research that results in the learning materials it creates. Yes, there is a research community, but that community researches the processes involved in the work of WE. Researchers doing so will likely want to publish their papers in media that are set up to validate their research, i.e., in peer reviewed journals.>>

I agree -- the core mission of WikiEducator is not to become a citable source in the sense of original research. However, that does not remove the need for citing specific instances of an OER resource. Our license requires attribution -- so we need to think about easier ways to attribute specific instances taking into account that a wiki page can be modified at any time.

With regards to publishing in peer reviewed journals, their is refreshing growth in the number of open access, peer reviewed journals which publish research outputs under open content licenses :-).  The wiki model provides exciting opportunities for the planning and execution and dissemination of research work -- hence our interest in thinking about WikiResearcher.org.

Jan said:

<<Are you talking here about review of the learning resources WE is supposed to produce or peer review of research done on the WE processes? If the latter, it will take considerable time before one gets recognized as a serious peer reviewed online research journal. There are good examples of such online journals in the biomedical sciences, though, and one may learn from their experience. It may be less costly and less of a distraction if researchers chose to publish at least initially via the existing scientific journals. This also has the advantage that one brings one’s work to the attention of colleagues of existing scientific communities that read those journals, thus avoiding preaching to the WE choir, which I think is important.>>

In time, with the implementation and maturation of WikiResearcher.org (in addition to WikiEducator) I think we mean review of both. recognising the the review of educational materials is different from academic peer review of research. I don't see the WikiResearcher concept as a replacement for traditional publishing models -- but rather augmenting the channels and technologies we can use to further knowledge production and dissemination.

Great conversation!

Cheers
Wayne

[Wayne Mackintosh]

Hi Edward,

All the best for the new year -- I trust that your move went well and now settled in your new location.

2010/1/21 Edward Cherlin <eche...@gmail.com>

It is true that Wikipedia should never be cited as a primary source
for research. The same is generally true of other Wikis. The correct
attitude is not to ban use of Wikis, but to require that students find
the original sources for the information in the Wiki, and to study and
cite those sources. You should not take the word of any participant
here for fact, but should yourself look at the research papers,
software, learning materials, and methods recommended and evaluate
them accordingly. Wikis are neither more nor less reliable than other
published encyclopedias, newspapers, TV, or other secondary and
tertiary sources.

Good point --  I recall my educators (pre wikis ;-) ) teaching us that we shouldn't believe everything we read!

It fascinates me how some of the academy discards and discounts normal processes of knowledge validation when the technology changes ;-). WE have a big education task in helping faculty understand how these open processes work particularly with reference to the skills of discernment and validation in social networking environments.

In time I'm optimistic that we can get this right --- I suppose one could argue that how to discern and validate knowledge in social networked environments is a contemporary life-skill (academics included ;-) ).

Cheers
Wayne

[Wayne Mackintosh]

Hi Leo,

2010/1/21 Wong Leo <leol...@gmail.com>

Can we think of this question from another perspective , what is the diffeernce between wikipedia and wikieducator ?

A very relevant question -- particularly with reference to thinking about what distinguishes educational materials from other digital resources. I'd like to add a few additional reflections which I think are important.

WikiEducator was not established in competition to any of the WikiMedia foundation or other open content projects (eg Wikipedia, Wikibooks, Wikiversity, Connexions, OCW etc).

Rather, I see our community working and collaborating with the free culture movement in widening and diversifying access to open content for the benefit of society. WikiEducator is first and foremost a community of educators. More than 70% of our members are teachers, lecturers or trainers working in the formal education sector --- as a result,  -- WE have established a distinctive niche in the international open content arena. 

With reference to your question on the difference between WikiEducator and other projects, when developing the strategic plans for the OER Foundation we took a careful look at what distinguishes the WE project.

See for example:

http://www.wikieducator.org/OERF:Strategy#Product_differentiation

Their are distinctive differences most notably:

1) how our project is organised (that is we are a community of educators developing a wide range of different content objects rather than structuring our project in terms of the types of content produced, eg encyclopaedia articles, books etc) and
2) Our community, i.e. the profile of the internet population our site attracts when compared to other projects.

Also, a very good example highlighting that there are many types of content (eg photos, News paper articles, fictional books etc.), that were not primary developed for education purposes -- however, when used in the context of an educational situation they do become educational resources.

So for example, a teacher could re-contextualise and re-use a wikipedia article for a lesson by adapting the resource for the age level of the students or selecting those components of an encyclopaedia article which map to the particular curriculum. It would be great to see WikiEducators experimenting with the adaptation and remix of Wikipedia articles as lesson plans or teaching materials for specific curricula.  We're keen to try this under the OERNZ project here in New Zealand.

[Wayne Mackintosh]

HI Kirby,

Great post -- and your contribution does not read like lecturing and pontificating at all ;-). On the contrary the depth of discussion and reflection from contributors to this thread is quite refreshing and enlightening :-).

I like to highlight and emphasise a point you raise because I think this is something which distinguishes the WE family:

Kirby said:

"I would urge compassion for those who feel overwhelmed by the pace of technological change.  Future shock is a real phenomenon."

Kirby -- couldn't agree more! 

WE tries to practice and implement our motto of "Just try it. Our community will support you!" WE spend considerable time and effort on providing opportunities to "educate" educators and to share our experiences in a tangible way.

As a result, our Learning4Content project is the world's largest wiki training project in education. I think its important to ,meet folk where they are at and to support them. Its a neat professional development project because its a live "simulation" --- Learning4Content participants get to acquire and practice their skills in a live community community environment. In many respects -- we're using contemporary digital social networking to reincarnate the traditional apprenticeship model.

There's lots of room for improvement in our capacity building initiatives -- but feel that we have an obligation to help and support educators in discovering the potential of this amazing and innovative technology.

All suggestions and ideas for helping us get better at what we do are well received!

Great conversation -- thanks :-).

Wayne

2010/1/21 kirby urner <kirby...@gmail.com>

[Jan Visser]

Hi Wayne,

 

Just to say that I entirely agree. What you write is a perfect further elaboration on the suggestions I made. Indeed, a great conversation. One in which ideas build on ideas, as should be expected to happen in an open collaborative environment. I particularly agree that the review process should not merely focus on the content. I also very much like the phased model of different levels of validation and the metadata set proposed to communicate the status of particular contributions to the WE repository.

 

You wrote in response to Ed:

 

It fascinates me how some of the academy discards and discounts normal processes of knowledge validation when the technology changes ;-). WE have a big education task in helping faculty understand how these open processes work particularly with reference to the skills of discernment and validation in social networking environments.
In time I'm optimistic that we can get this right --- I suppose one could argue that how to discern and validate knowledge in social networked environments is a contemporary life-skill (academics included ;-) ).

 

Again, I’m in total agreement with your observation, particularly as it recognizes the need to develop new life-skills regarding how we operate in our now much more fluid and open emotive-cognitive world. Helping WE users develop those skills is a very important challenge for our community.

 

Cheers, and thanks for your thoughts J,

 

Jan

 

Check out Learners in a Changing Learning Landscape

at http://www.learndev.org/learnland2008.html

 

--

Jan Visser, Ph.D.

President & Sr. Researcher, Learning Development Institute

E-mail: jvi...@learndev.org

Fax (France): +33-9-505-97347

Fax and voice messages via Internet:

       +1-928-569-7978

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---

From: wikied...@googlegroups.com [mailto:wikied...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Wayne Mackintosh
Sent: Thursday, January 21, 2010 11:44 PM
To: wikied...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [WikiEducator] perception

 

Hi Jan,

--

[Jan Visser]

Hi Leo,

 

I think you bring up an important point. Indeed, education is not just about content; it’s about what we (learners and those who interact with them) do with the content. That means that it is also about the ability to go beyond the content given, which has profound implications for how we present content and for the environment we create in which the content is being offered. It’s something to be kept in mind in collectively caring for the WE environment.

 

Jan

 

--

Jan Visser, Ph.D.

President & Sr. Researcher, Learning Development Institute

E-mail: jvi...@learndev.org

Check out: http://www.learndev.org and http://www.facebook.com/learndev

Blog: http://jvisser-ldi.blogspot.com/

 

 

---