[WikiEducator] Great news about Wikimedia Foundation licensing?

[Steve Foerster]

Colleagues:

a href=http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/
Resolution:License_update target=_blankhttp://
wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:License_update/a

Does this mean that we'll soon be able to use material from Wikipedia
and other Mekimedia Foundation sites here on WikiEducator?  Or is it
still just happening Real Soon Now?

If it's the former, that's tremendously exciting.  There are a number
of subjects where concatenating a series of Wikipedia articles could
make a rough draft of a textbook on that subject.

-=Steve=-
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[WikiEducator] Re: Liquid Threads ... a couple of months on: thoughts?

[Steve Foerster]

Interestingly, I just added a comment to 
http://www.wikieducator.org/Talk:Libre_License
and it changed almost all of the dates on the other comments to be the
present.  Weirdly, though, there are a few that didn't change.

-=Steve=-
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[WikiEducator] Re: Fwd: Wikis Go Printable: Wikimedia/PediaPress/COL/OSI partnership

[Steve Foerster]

Erik wrote:

 http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikis_Go_Printable

Especially for someone like me who wants to see more collaborative
textbook development on WikiEducator, this is a profoundly welcome
development!

-=Steve=-


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[WikiEducator] Re: How wikieducator keep the cultural identity of the students

[Steve Foerster]

To expand on Randy's point, WikiEducator doesn't actually do anything
independently of those who contribute to it; it is simply the sum of
its contributions.  The strength of an open system like WE is that
those who are concerned about maintaining cultural diversity in
educational materials are free to make contributions that further
those ideals.  In other words, if those materials appear on WE (or
another repository), then the issue really was important to people.
And if not, well, then it really wasn't important.  After all, actions
speak louder than words.

That's not to say there aren't good examples.  Educators in India
could have used materials from MIT or the Open University or other
Western materials, but they're creating their own eGyankosh repository
instead http://www.egyankosh.ac.in/.  Thus, when they talk about
wanting their own materials, they clearly mean it.

Another example would be the various curricula that the VUSSC project
is building here on WE.  It takes into account the unique economic
situations that those in small island states face, things that would
not be covered in currricula developed for those in large countries.
http://wikieducator.org/VUSSC/Content

-=Steve=-


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[WikiEducator] Re: Hey everyone!

[Steve Foerster]

Nellie Deutsch wrote:

 Randy what do you mean by: Can't wait 'til the day that we have Master's
 level content on WikiEd!

The stated goal of WikiEducator is to have developed materials for all
disciplines at the primary, secondary, and tertiary level by 2015.
That includes the materials necessary for Master's level degrees.

(As an aside, it would be nice were COL to add its own Commonwealth
Executive MBA and MPA materials in furtherance of that)

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[WikiEducator] Re: How wikieducator keep the cultural identity of the students

[Steve Foerster]

Leo wrote:

 It is even much harder for me to participate in the discussion
here , coz I sooo much want to speak out for China students ,
but there are not
much platform like WE ( I like WE best personally ) however , WE is
not supporting Chinese so far now . 

For what it's worth, I too agree that WikiEducator should support
Chinese.  If a prospective funder for this is associated with COL,
hopefully the point can be made that there are millions of
Commonwealth citizens in Singapore, Malaysia, and elsewhere who read
Chinese natively.  Although, will the difference between Simplified or
Traditional Chinese perhaps be another issue?


 I am promoting WE in my network , you can find all the stories
http://www.google.cn/search?h1=enq=wikieducator
+site:www.haokanbu.com I creat duringh last year I write stories on
haokanbu , I use  A chinese web21.0 website , and many teachers in
China don't have the techie captacity on building their own wiki like
I do I have my own wiki site , 

Don't worry, my observation is that most teachers in English-speaking
countries don't know that much about technology either.


 and Chinese as the most spoken and beautiful langauge itself should
be supported HERE in WE no matter what you think . 

:-)  I think it's more of a technical and funding issue than anything
else, and it's my hope that we'll support it before long.


 personal note on myself  : I don't feel comfortble and blend in
here in WE , but at least I am trying to read ,listen , thank you
guys , 

I hope you don't feel terribly uncomfortable.  You're certainly
welcome here!

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[WikiEducator] Re: How wikieducator keep the cultural identity of the students

[Steve Foerster]

Leo wrote:

 It is even much harder for me to participate in the discussion
here , coz I sooo much want to speak out for China students ,
but there are not
much platform like WE ( I like WE best personally ) however , WE is
not supporting Chinese so far now . 

For what it's worth, I too agree that WikiEducator should support
Chinese.  If a prospective funder for this is associated with COL,
hopefully the point can be made that there are millions of
Commonwealth citizens in Singapore, Malaysia, and elsewhere who read
Chinese natively.  Although, will the difference between Simplified or
Traditional Chinese perhaps be another issue?


 I am promoting WE in my network , you can find all the stories
http://www.google.cn/search?h1=enq=wikieducator
+site:www.haokanbu.com I creat duringh last year I write stories on
haokanbu , I use  A chinese web21.0 website , and many teachers in
China don't have the techie captacity on building their own wiki like
I do I have my own wiki site , 

Don't worry, my observation is that most teachers in English-speaking
countries don't know that much about technology either.


 and Chinese as the most spoken and beautiful langauge itself should
be supported HERE in WE no matter what you think . 

:-)  I think it's more of a technical and funding issue than anything
else, and it's my hope that we'll support it before long.


 personal note on myself  : I don't feel comfortble and blend in
here in WE , but at least I am trying to read ,listen , thank you
guys , 

I hope you don't feel terribly uncomfortable.  You're certainly
welcome here!

-=Steve=-
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[WikiEducator] Re: Expo for User pages?

[Steve Foerster]

So we've had some more updates to the UPE page and I think we're ready
for the conspiracy to strike.  One question, though, how do things get
added to the front page?  I'm realising from this that I have no idea
what that process is, who the editor-in-chief is there.

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[WikiEducator] Re: Thank you for the clarification

[Steve Foerster]

Leigh wrote:

 Maybe it will deter some people Nadia. It doesn't deter me. I like
the idea of a small start up business discovering a way to make money
from my work. 

I do too, especially when that means that a small for-profit school
has access to the materials they need, especially in places where
government is unwilling or unable to do the job.  Good for them!

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[WikiEducator] Re: Thank you for the clarification

[Steve Foerster]

Randy wrote:

 Is there an FAQ about these specific questions, or shall we create
one?  

Well, there's this:

http://wikieducator.org/WikiEducator:Licensing_Policy

That's not a FAQ, that's a start of a policy that I put together a
while back.  At this point, though I think completion will have to
wait for the WE Council to be elected.

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[WikiEducator] Re: How to get teaching materials translatedand converted?

[Steve Foerster]

Wayne wrote:

 Don't forget that our WikiEducator community would also benefit
tremendously from these initiatives smile. WE already has a few
examples worth exploring.  Steve Foerster has started  called XXI
Texts -- the idea being to update text books which are in the public
domain.  (http://wikieducator.org/XXI_Texts) and as started work on
the Principles of Economics by Alfred Marshal over here:http://
wikieducator.org/Economics_Marshall. Still lots of work to be done and
it would be great if we could get a little help. 

Lots and lots of work, although one of the exciting things is that we
have a number of candidates for XXI Texts of old textbooks that would
be worth revising for today's students.

In our case, though, part of the delay is that I believe that
something that comes out of the public domain should stay there, even
as it's revised, so having a complete WE policy on exactly how we use
alternative licenses within WE will be helpful.  I suppose that will
have to wait for the new Council


 We need help in translating our Wiki Newbie Tutorials for the
Spanish, French and Portuguese WikiEducator installations and
hopefully Chinese sometime in the future. 

For those who haven't seen them or didn't know they were there:

Spanish WikiEducator:
http://es.wikieducator.org/

French WikiEducator:
http://fr.wikieducator.org/

Portuguese WikiEducator:
http://pt.wikieducator.org/

Perhaps those German language materials could start life as the core
of an instance at de.wikieducator.org?

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[WikiEducator] Re: does WE support Chinese now ?

[Steve Foerster]

Wayne wrote:

 I'm working hard to find a solution for establishing a Chinese
localisation for WE. The bottom line is that I need external funding
sources for the installation and hosting. 

Who funded the Spanish, French, and Portuguese editions?


 As a Commonwealth Agency, I am unable to set up a Chinese version,
unless this is funded  through externally monies :-(. 

It's rather disappointing to hear that Commonwealth seems to mean
English-language.  There are many Commonwealth citizens whose native
languages are other than English, including millions of native
speakers of Chinese languages.

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[WikiEducator] Re: Election Reminders

[Steve Foerster]

James,

That's a great question.

If WE is truly to be community governed, then assigning
responsibilities like administrative permissions needs to come from
the Council.  I foresee that once the Council is in place, that
through resolution they can appoint people or rescind administrative
permissions or any other responsibilities.

There should also be a WikiEducator:People page that has a list of
those with administrative permissions and other responsibilities so
that the community knows who to contact for help with specific
issues.  (Perhaps there's already such a list elsewhere and I'm just
not aware of it?)

-=Steve=-


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[WikiEducator] Re: First WE Election Updates

[Steve Foerster]

Nellie wrote:

 Please note that to ensure a fair and valid voting procedure, we will
 need

 * First name and last name
 * WikiEducator username

 Please rest assured that all votes are confidential and only the
 electoral committee has access to the personal information of
 candidates and only for the purpose of verifying their accounts in
 order to validate their vote.

I just voted.

Was there really no MediaWiki plugin to accommodate this election?  I
ask because a fair election requires a secret ballot, something that
isn't in place when an electoral committee has access to see how
everyone voted.  Worse, requiring identification without any kind of
verification is an open invitation to ballot fraud.  Who can say
whether the vote tagged with my name and username really comes from
me?  Given that it's a third party surveying service, can we even get
IP addresses to see whether multiple votes come a single source?

I realise that at this point we should carry on, and even though I'm
raising these issues, as a candidate for this election I will accept
its results.  I also don't mean to impugn the electoral committee:
they say our votes will be confidential and I believe them.  However,
as we move toward community governance I thought that these issues
should be mentioned, and should I be elected I will support changing
this process for the next election cycle.

-=Steve=-


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[WikiEducator] Re: This is well aligned with WE

[Steve Foerster]

Peter wrote:

 http://www.technology.virginia.gov/TechnologyNews/index.cfm?id=770

Benjamin Crowell's _Light_and_Matter_ series of physics textbooks was
designed for introductory courses at the university level, but it's
seen adoption by a number of secondary schools as well:

http://lightandmatter.com/books.html

I wonder why they don't just start with that?  It's already CC-BY-SA;
they don't even need to ask.

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[WikiEducator] Re: This is well aligned with WE

[Steve Foerster]

I wrote:

 I wonder why they don't just start with that?  It's already
 CC-BY-SA; they don't even need to ask.

I went ahead and wrote to the contact person listed in the press
release.  If he responds interestingly I'll post it here.

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[WikiEducator] Re: award what do you think ?

[Steve Foerster]

Leo wrote:

 http://www.dmlcompetition.net/
 what do you think of this ?

Wow, good eye, Leo, I think it's really interesting.  I'd think that
WE might have a chance for one of the the organisational awards.  Can
we apply?

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[WikiEducator] Re: ELECTIONS OFFICIALLY CLOSED

[Steve Foerster]

Nellie wrote:

 The final announcement will be made on September 30, 2008.

Is that an answer to my question about releasing results earlier if
they're available? ;-)

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[WikiEducator] Forum for Council discussions

[Steve Foerster]

Thank you very much to all who participated in our first WikiEducator
Council election, and especially to those who oversaw them.  I'd also
like to add my personal thanks to those who honoured me with one of
their votes.

Now that this process is complete, however, we have a lot of work to
do.  It strikes me that the first order of business is to decide on
what forum we as a Council will use for discussion.

There is a separate Google group that was set up for the Interim Int'l
Advisory Committee.  With that precedent set, we could set up a new
Google group where Council members are signed up.  This Google group
should be publicly accessible, as befits a Council that represents a
wider community.

Unless someone offers an alternative suggestion for a forum, I will
set this up in two days' time so that we can move on to appointing the
remaining ten members of the Council.

-=Steve=-


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[WikiEducator] Group created

[Steve Foerster]

I've created the group for the WikiEducator Community Council.  Those
who are members have been added already, others can see the archives.

http://groups.google.com/group/wikieducator-community-council

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[WikiEducator] Re: Content on Wikipedia and Wikieducator

[Steve Foerster]

Victor wrote:

 On another note, i am not sure if there exist a page/portal/
category of all policies we have been developing so far for WE.
While we can discuss this here, perhaps the council should collate our
views on this and incorporate into a disccussion agenda somethime. 

I try to add categories when I see them, so check out:

http://www.wikieducator.org/Category:Policy

They're all drafts, obviously, since none have been proposed as a
resolution nor voted on by the Council.

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[WikiEducator] Re: WikiEducator 3.0 -- Building our future together

[Steve Foerster]

Wayne wrote:

 This is an open invitation to all WIkiEducators for any questions
you may have about WikiEducator 3.0,  but more importantly providing
us with well-founded advice on our next steps. 

I have a few questions:

* Where did we get WikiEducator 3.0?  I wasn't aware we'd had a
2.0.  If anything, I'd call everything up to the point of elected
community governance a beta version, and only now really going into
production.  Or, that we were in alpha before, now we're in beta, and
once we have a separate legal entity we'll be in production.  (Not
that I'd suggest actually using any of that, I only meant those as
comparative analogies.)

* I'd like to know exactly what your proposed timeline is for
transferring WE from COL to Otago, what needs to be done, etc.  How
much do you have to do, and how much can others help you?

* I'd like to know more about the International Centre for Open
Education that is being established at Otago Polytechnic.  If I
understand correctly, that's something that will be permanently
attached to Otago, so it won't serve as the separate legal entity that
WE needs.  What will this Centre's relationship with WE be, and what
else might it do?

* I understand that to this point you were acting in WE's interest and
had to act quickly, and especially given that Otago seems to be more
flexible than COL when it comes to software development and
multilanguage support, I'm pleased we're moving there.  However, I
believe that from this point forward issues must be discussed openly
and decisions must be made through Council resolutions.  Do you see
anything in our future that would make this impractical?

Thanks,

-=Steve=-
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[WikiEducator] Re: Planned downtime: Sunday, 4PM PST

[Steve Foerster]

Erik wrote:

 It will allow us to update our extensions, including the ever-
beloved LQT. (The latest LQT fixes include a fix for the issue with
highlighting only the first comment in new message notifications, and
restore the header page, which was inadvertently removed when the sort
feature was introduced.) 

Is there a free extension for Asian language support?  If so, would it
be time consuming or technically troublesome to add it?


 Is this downtime day  time acceptable? My schedule isn't very
flexible these days so weekends work best for me. 

Unless someone objects to this time and date, I'll put a news item
about it on the main page by the end of the day my time (GMT-4).

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[WikiEducator] Re: WikiEducator Discussion Group

[Steve Foerster]

Randy,

I think that's a good idea, and since it seems everyone else does as
well I went to change it, but can't see how to do so.  Perhaps that's
a level of access I don't have?

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[WikiEducator] Re: job or role description for WikiEd Council Members

[Steve Foerster]

Randy wrote:

 In a way, I feel like I'm going by the seat of my pants ~ many
things seem to be in a state of flux, and in terms of what the
expectations regarding my role as WikiEd Council Member, I am unsure.


I know what you mean.  In the absence of something formal, though, I
suppose all we can do is bang along until we've reached some kind of
equilibrium and set some useful precedents.


 If I were asked to join the Board of a nonprofit, or for profit,
there would definitely be a job description. Is there a guideline for
our fabulous wiki venture? Or a precedent, that we can use as a
baseline and customise for our own purposes? Thoughts, suggestions? 

That's a great idea!  I made a stub:

http://wikieducator.org/WikiEducator:Community_Council/What_members_do

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[WikiEducator] Re: reaching out to educators; new approach

[Steve Foerster]

Randy wrote:

 I've just had an experience that is leading me to believe that WE
can reach out to educators previously not on our radar (i.e., the
Early / Late Majority ~ from Geoffrey Moore's Crossing the Chasm). My
sense is that, it could really help us accelerate our scalability
plans in WikiEducator 3.0 

This is a fine idea.  I still maintain, however, that nothing we could
do can as comparable an impact on how many educators we can involve as
adding rich text editing.

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[WikiEducator] Re: GFDL 1.3 released

[Steve Foerster]

Erik wrote:

 the Free Software Foundation has today released the version 1.3 of
the GNU Free Documentation License, the licensed used by Wikipedia.
This version of the GFDL allows GFDL-wikis to switch to CC-BY-SA - see
section 11, relicensing: 

Sing, choirs of angels, sing in exultation!
Sing, all ye citizens of heaven above!


 Wikimedia hasn't decided to switch yet, but we plan to hold a
community referendum on the issue very soon. If we do switch, I'll let
you know - it would enable two-way legal compatibility with
WikiEducator and similar educational resources. 

I really, really hope the community referendum on this is successful.

Thanks,

-=Steve=-
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[WikiEducator] Re: WikiEducator goes non-violent?

[Steve Foerster]

Günther,

I'm surprised your message calling for an examination of what
relationship WE could have with nonviolence didn't get more
attention.  It sounds interesting, but there are aspects to this that
I would want to explore further.

For example, the four listed guidelines use terms that mean different
things to different people, and which seem to go beyond what I would
strictly think of as nonviolence.  For example, respect for life
often has contentious connotations about abortion, and both socialists
and libertarians (in the American sense) believe theirs is the just
economic order.

Instead of starting with an attempt to draft a set of ethics for WE,
it might be better to start by using WE to collaborate on building
curricula on nonviolence studies?

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[WikiEducator] Re: HYN 2009

[Steve Foerster]

Happy New Year to Savithri and to all.  Your card was very beautiful.
For what it's worth, I'm still hopeful that even as the world noisily
takes two steps back it also in other ways quietly takes three steps
forward.

-=Steve=-

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[WikiEducator] Re: enough with copyleft, fair use/dealings is more important

[Steve Foerster]

Leigh wrote:

 Fair Use (and Dealings) is the right of educators, as it is for journalists
 and documentary makers. Instead of religiously playing into the hands of
 copyright fascism with strict adherence to copyleft (and so limiting our
 educational opportunities to only content meeting free cultural
 definitions), Wikieducator should aggressively lead the charge (in a non
 violent way) and stand up for Fair Use/Dealings, and grow the security of
 that ground for educators everywhere.

I totally agree:

http://blog.worldcampus.psu.edu/index.php/2007/11/14/fair-use-as-a-complement-to-open-licensing/

Cheers,

-=Steve=-

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[WikiEducator] Re: WikiEducator goes non-violent?

[Steve Foerster]

Günther wrote:

 Really sorry that I did not answer to you posts up to this moment,
but that didn't mean I ignored your replies. I was so busy the last
weeks, that I couldn't start working on that too. Now it's Christmas
holidays  and I'll be back on screen midst of January. Then I'll
respond. 

I look forward to it -- this is an interesting topic for me. :-)

Peace and prosperity to all in the new year,

-=Steve=-

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[WikiEducator] Re: Up for Grabs

[Steve Foerster]

Minhaaj wrote:

 Well sorry for missing a month at UPE and probably too late for
this one. I would like to announce that UPE is up for grabs. If
someone want to volunteer in awarding UPEs, you are most welcome.
Steve and I have been too busy in real life stuff that probably won't
be as active as before. Step up :) 

It's true -- I've discovered that my doctoral program requires lot of,
you know, actual work.  But I'm very pleased that others enjoy the
User Page Expo enough to keep it going.  In fact, now I can nominate
people and let others do the write ups!  The conspiracy continues!

-=Steve=-

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[WikiEducator] Re: February UPE is Gladys Gahona

[Steve Foerster]

Peter wrote:

 I round of applause for Gladys Gahona. She is this months Featured
 User Page.http://www.wikieducator.org/UPE#February_2009
 having her first edit on 6th November 2008, she has done amazing work
 and created an exemplary user page. Check out her 
 page;http://www.wikieducator.org/User:Chela5808

What a great choice!  Congratulations, Gladys!

-=Steve=-

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[WikiEducator] Re: Nomination of UPEs

[Steve Foerster]

Peter wrote:

 This idea seems to be gaining support. Any objections to me adding the
 following to the UPE definition?

 UPE's can also be nominated (either self nominated or nominated by
 another). The only requirements for nomination are;
 1) the name of the nominee
 2) the URL of the nominees user page
 3) a short written description of why the user page should be a UPE.

It was also asked whether repeat nominations would be okay.  I can't
imagine why they wouldn't be fine, but perhaps you could say so
explicitly.

-=Steve=-


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[WikiEducator] Re: TRINIDAD and TOBAGO's PHYSICS Teachers join WIKI

[Steve Foerster]

Hollis wrote:

 Ten PHYSICS educators from Trinidad and Tobago became wiki
educators today as they registered as wikieducators and began a two
day workshop hosted by the Curriculum Planning and Development Division
{CPDD}, Ministry of Education in collaboration with the National Open
School of Trinidad and Tobago. 

I'd especially like to welcome you and your colleagues, because I'm
always excited to see WE's adoption by Caribbean educators.  If you
have ideas on Caribbean cooperation, I'd certainly like to hear them.

Regards,

-=Steve=-

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[WikiEducator] Re: Pressure to Integrate Technology in Higher Education

[Steve Foerster]

Nellie wrote:

 I would like to see more educators collaborating on Wikieducator.

Me too, but I continue to believe that this won't happen the way we
want until WikiEducator has WYSIWYG editing.  My day job is training
university faculty members to use technology, and there's no way most
of mine will learn wiki code; they use PBWiki instead.

-=Steve=-

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[WikiEducator] Re: April UPE is Rima Al Eryani

[Steve Foerster]

Wow Rima, what a great user page!  The award is richly deserved!

-=Steve=-

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[WikiEducator] Re: I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the community...

[Steve Foerster]

Benjamin wrote:

 I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the community, and as
 long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. –
 George Bernard Shaw (http://www.wisdomquotes.com/cat_community.html)

 This quote by George Bernard Shaw (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
 George_Bernard_Shaw), I think, sums up how most of us feel about our
 commitment to OERs and what it can do for the betterment of the
 community.

It doesn't sum up how I feel at all, actually.  My life belongs to me
and no one else.  It so happens that I enjoy helping others and
working with people toward a common goal, but that stems from my
choice as an individual, not from some collectivist sense of
obligation.

-=Steve=-

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[WikiEducator] Re: WikiEducator needs to keep the focus

[Steve Foerster]

Jim wrote:

 Secondly, WikiEducator has as one of its missions to help different
learning communities to develop courses and materials. 

I've been pretty quiet for a while now, sorry about that everyone!
I've been busy with doctoral study and switching from employment to
contracting, and it's been pretty intense, although now things are now
fairly well settled. :-)

Anyway, Jim's comment reminds me about what I've long thought is our
most important issue: That our biggest barrier to gaining more content
is that there is no WYSIWYG, rich text editing interface to WE.  We
spend a lot of effort on teaching wiki skills, but the barrier to
entry of wikicode is intimidating and unnecessary, and a solution is
long overdue.

-=Steve=-

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[WikiEducator] Re: WikiEducator needs to keep the focus

[Steve Foerster]

Randy wrote:

 That barrier is set to fall very soon, with Jim Tittsler's work,
 community input and NZ Ministry of Education funding.

 We have a rich text editing beta up at:http://en1.wikieducator.net

 You can log into it, using your WE settings  as usual.

Whoa, I didn't know that.  I suppose this is what I get for not
staying in the loop!


 Try it out! - but make sure that you don't 'leave content' there,
 - just copy it over to your regular wiki page.

It seems to work really well!  That's so exciting!  Thanks much to all
who are making this possible!


 Wayne can advise of the timing for release.

Wayne, when do we plan for this to go into production?  Or, if there's
a particular testing sequence that needs to be exhausted, how can
interested people help out?  Count me in!

Thanks,

-=Steve=-
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[WikiEducator] Re: WikiEducator needs to keep the focus

[Steve Foerster]

Wayne wrote:

 Welcome back! They say changing jobs, moving house etc are among
the top 10 stress generators. Add a little PhD work into the mix ---
that's more than enough to divert attention!  That said, we're most
appreciative of the time you've volunteered during the recent
Community Council meeting. 

I only wish we could get things done more quickly!  But then I suppose
that's always the way, isn't it? :-)


 We've been looking at rich text editing for some time -- and have
been listening to your call for WYSIWYG wiki editing. Thanks to
significant progress in the Mediawiki FCK extension, support from the
New Zealand Ministry of Education and OERF appointing a Lead Software
Engineer (and dedicated WikiEducator) we are in a position to move
this forward. 

I remember at one point we were concerned that FCK would break other
Mediawiki extensions we're using.  I'm glad to see it seems those
issues have been resolved.


 We're getting close to moving this into production -- we still need
to tweak the installation and optimise/ improve performance of the
servers at Athabasca University, but we're making excellent progress.
In the mean time -- have a play on the test servers and let us know of
any issues. (Note that we will not preserve edits on the test server
when we update the test servers with snapshots of the production
WikiEducator.) 

So, if I'm doing things correctly, then the editor allows text to be
WYSIWYG formatted once it's there, which is great, and it takes
whatever's already on the page and makes it available for WYSIWYG
editing, which is also great.  But it doesn't seem to allow text
that's already formatted to be pasted into the editor and retain that
formatting.  When I try to paste formatted text into it, it brings up
a new window specifically calling for plain text.  Am I doing
something wrong?

The reason I want to be able to do this is that there are a lot of
textbooks old enough to be in the public domain but much of the
content of which is still surprisingly relevant.  I'd like to be able
to put those old textbooks onto the wiki so that they could
collaboratively revised and made useful for today's students.  If
there are few enough steps to get them from word processor document or
HTML to wikicode, then that would speed up these XXI Texts up
enormously.


 Rob Kruhlak and Helena Mill are helping us out with reconfiguring
our existing tutorials in preparatation for the move to Rich Text
Editing.  See: http://wikieducator.org/Help:Rich_text_editor_tutorials


Well, I guess I can't kvetch about it and then not help.  Let me see
what I can do with it once I feel sufficiently familiar with the
extension.  At what sort of timeframe are we looking here?

-=Steve=-


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[WikiEducator] Re: WE blog or newsletter?

[Steve Foerster]

Anil wrote:

 Steve has consented to be the Convener of the WE Blog WorkGroup.
 Now  all those community members interested in framing policy for
 WE Blog may be invited to enlist their name at:
 http://www.wikieducator.org/Workgroup:WikiEducator_Blog

One thing I can report is that I briefly corresponded with Ken Udas
and he's interested in moving Terra Incognita to WikiEducator, and
that a neutral location like WE might be better than as part of a
university web site as it's been thus far.  He's at a conference and
said we should discuss it further on his return.

While TI would be a very nice feather in WE's cap, I'd like to see a
few different blogs for different purposes, including a relatively
open access one where there are a few moderators but anyone can sign
up to contribute.  But we can talk about many possibilities once we
get a working group together. :-)

-=Steve=-

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[WikiEducator] Re: WE blog or newsletter?

[Steve Foerster]

Wayne wrote:

 Agree we need to be very careful with mass-email which can arguably
and justifiably be labelled as WE  spam. I would suggest implementing
an option for new users to subscribe to a news / letter magazine.  We
can consider a once off notification to WE account holders regarding
the option to subscribe to the news letter once this option has been
implemented for new account holders. However -- this would need to be
an affirmative action to subscribe rather than a default that everyone
gets the newsletter unless they opt out. 

Good, that's a reasonable approach.


 Personally, I'd like to see both -- they serve different audiences
and I don't see one replacing and / or duplicating the other.
 WikiEducator has extensive reach in the developing world -- places
where connectivity is difficult, unreliable and expensive. The
newsletter / WE magazine is an innovative way to connect the
disconnected and keep those who want to stay abreast of what is
happening online.  Notifying teachers around the world of exemplary
resources that may be of use. Profiling and sharing experiences of the
efforts in setting up national OER collaborations (eg Uganda,
 Bangladesh, India etc.)  --- These experiences are invaluable for
other countries trying to bootstrap OER.  We could have a low-
resolution version to simplify local reproduction and keep costs to a
minimum. Certainly, within the formal education sector -- there are
still large numbers of educators who do not surf the blog sphere ---
lets cast a wide net for open education :-) 

Very well, but there's no reason that a blog and a dead-trees
newsletter couldn't have the same content.  We could have the official
news blog, and when there have been enough posts to fill however many
pages we want the newsletter to be, we release the same content as
PDF, RTF, ODT, etc.  (Our actually printing and posting it sounds
expensive, I assume that's not the intent here?)

One potential issue with treeware is that some countries use Letter
size and some use A4.  (My wife's doing an LLB through a school in the
UK from here in the U.S. where A4 is annoyingly hard to find, so we've
been hit in the head by this one.)


 Hopefully there will be more people than Wayne, Jim posting -- we
should also include posts from Council members, workgroup leaders,
featured teachers etc.  This model would need some sort of editorial
team to oversee alignment with community values etc. 

Valerie edited the workgroup charter to have us continue to oversee
whatever blogs come out of this process.  That's okay with me, at
least as a starting point.


 We definitely need an outlet that isn't edited --- we just need a
clear communication / disclaimer  that the posts are the opinions of
the individuals writing them. 

Very good, so then it seems our workgroup should refine the approach
of having three blogs:

1. Terra Incognita if possible, or if not then a sort of Nova Terra
Incognita.

2. An official newsletter blog, the contents of which are also
periodically released in paper format.

3. An open blog where WikiEducators can easily add posts and there's
light-handed moderation.

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[WikiEducator] Students paying the copyright tax

[Steve Foerster]

I thought this might interest some here.  It's American-centric, but the
principle is universal:

http://tinyurl.com/yzvw3kb

-=Steve=-


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[WikiEducator] Re: copyright and newspaper articles

[Steve Foerster]

Mary wrote:

 My name is Mary Ziller and I recently joined your wonderful group.
I hope to learn a lot with you. I have a question that I would like to
ask the group. I searched the group archives on copyright and found
only one thread that did not answer my question: How much of a
newspaper article can we use for online teaching and face to face
teaching? 

My approach to this would probably just be to have links in the course
that direct students to where the article is already hosted.  Does
your situation make that not possible?


 How does a site likehttp://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/get the
copyrights to publish its excellent materials which are based on real
news articles? 

I'm not sure, but it looks like they read news articles and then write
their own summaries.


 And the admirable works by Susan Heyer *True stories in the news*
series. How does the copyright law work allowing her to produce ESL
books based on actual articles? I would like to write materials using
published news articles, but don't know how to get the copyrights
permissions. Do they have to be purchased? 

You mean you want to read the news, then write your own materials
based on what you learned?  I don't think copyright is that stupid
yet, even in the U.S.  If that's what you want to do you don't have to
pay for that.  They don't own your brain!

-=Steve=-
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[WikiEducator] Re: [WE Teacher Collaboration] Taking OER remix to new levels: WikiEducator, Connexions and Mediawiki

[Steve Foerster]

Wayne wrote:

 With generous funding support from the William and Flora
 Hewlett Foundation, the OER Foundation is pleased to
 announce that we are able to take OER interoperability
 and remix potential to new levels.

That's very exciting!  I've been thinking about something not unrelated
to this.  I hope that as a movement, that OER people and those producing
open learning mangement systems like Moodle can work more closely
together on releases of our content that can be dropped into their
systems.  More about what I mean is here:

http://tinyurl.com/ydlxwgp


 Collaborating with OER projects which subscribe to licenses
 which meet the requirements of the free cultural works
 definition, WE aim to provide educators with greater
 freedom of choice to mix and match the best of two OER
 worlds, namely producer-consumer models with more
 traditional work flow approaches and commons-based peer
 production.

I'm glad there's an effort for producers with compatible licenses to
cooperate, although I can't help but think that it partially serves to
highlight the absurdity of needing licenses at all, especially for
educational use.

-=Steve=-


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[WikiEducator] Any WE academics within shouting distance of Washington, D.C.?

[Steve Foerster]

Dear All,

This is marginally off topic, but I can't think of a better place to ask 
this, so I'll risk incurring collective wrath.

I am considering switching doctoral programs, in part so that I can have 
a topic that's more related to my interests in OERs, educational 
technology, distance learning, and the developing world.  I've been 
speaking with the Dean of Informatics at a university in South Africa 
who is willing to let me enroll as an external student, but he's said if 
I do that he'd like me to have someone on my committee who is physically 
local to me.

These days I live primarily in Northern Virginia, right next to 
Washington, D.C.  So, I'm curious whether anyone is or knows a doctorate 
holder who (1) has a research interest in OERs, educational technology, 
distance learning, and/or the developing world; (2) is somewhere 
reasonably close to Washington, D.C.; and (3) would potentially be 
willing to serve on my doctoral committee even though the only 
remuneration would probably be my undying goodwill.  If you're reading 
this and are such a person, or know one, I'd greatly appreciate speaking 
with you!

Thanks much,

-=Steve=-


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[WikiEducator] Re: Any WE academics within shouting distance of Washington, D.C.?

[Steve Foerster]

Joyce wrote:

 I live in the Adirondacks in New York State so I am not sure it
fills your bill.  I have a doctorate in Adult Education an interest in
the subjects you are interested in and am a graduate of Pennsylvania
State University where Dr. Michael Moore who is well known in distance
education was my advisor.   I would be willing to work with you if you
can't find anyone closer to DC. 

I appreciate the offer.  I think, though, that the dean really wanted
me to find someone who is actually local, like sit down and meet in
person local.  But I'll remember your offer in case I've
misunderstood him.

Thanks much,

-=Steve=-


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[WikiEducator] New Year's Resolutions

[Steve Foerster]

Anil,

Interesting post!  I agree that New Year's resolutions are in order, but 
that we shouldn't lose sight of our mission, even if it's to acknowledge 
other important issues.

So given that our mission is to develop open educational resources, what 
might be great to hear is what content each of us resolves to complete 
and add to WE in the coming year.

That way, for example, those who share your concern about environmental 
matters can resolve to use WE as a platform for building educational 
resources that address that issue.  I believe Edward Cherlin indicated 
he was already doing this.

I suppose I shouldn't suggest this without being willing to go first? 
So, I've meant for some time to get Marshall's Principles of Economics 
wikified so that it can updated to serve today's students.  With the 
WYSIWYG editor now available at least in beta, I resolve to get at least 
this much done in 2010.

-=Steve=-


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[WikiEducator] CIDER: Invitation to present your research

[Steve Foerster]

Hello all,

I thought this might interest some here.

Best,

-=Steve=-


 Original Message 
Subject: CIDER: Invitation to present your research
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2010 14:03:12 -0600
From: CIDER cider-webmas...@athabascau.ca
To: cider-webmas...@athabascau.ca

Dear CIDER member:

We are looking for distance education researchers interested in sharing
their research in an online CIDER session.

CIDER sessions are targeted at researchers, graduate students, and
practitioners. Each session features an active researcher talking about
their project, methodologies used, and their results. The sessions
usually include 40-45 minutes of audio presentation accompanied by
PowerPoint slides. Interaction with the audience is encouraged and
facilitated through text, audio and polling features. The sessions are
sponsored by CIDER and our technical host Elluminate:
http://www.elluminate.com  The sessions are presented free of charge and
recorded for playback from the CIDER site.

If you are interested in presenting your research in a future CIDER
session, please submit a brief description of your proposed presentation
to session coordinator Lynn Anderson at:
lyn...@cogeco.ca

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[WikiEducator] Re: OpenClipart Images

[Steve Foerster]

Wayne wrote:

 Ethically -- you should not apply any license to the original public
 domain image -- (because all materials dedicated to the public
 domain should remain in the public domain.

Indeed you cannot apply a license to works in the public domain.  Even
if someone says they've done so they can be safely ignored.  Otherwise
I'd have copyrighted the works of Shakespeare and retired off the
royalties by now. :-)

-=Steve=-

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[WikiEducator] Re: Thoughts about 2011

[Steve Foerster]

Anil wrote:

 As the New Year waits at the threshold of 2011, shall we plan more
 online courses on a variety of subjects? I think the time has come!

Sounds good to me -- what course will you be offering? ;-)

-=Steve=-

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[WikiEducator] Re: Happy New Year -- Did you know?

[Steve Foerster]

Wayne,

What a great way to start the new year for WE -- I'm particularly
excited about the training initiative on open content licensing for
educators!

Happy new year to all,

-=Steve=-

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[WikiEducator] New U.S. federal grant program requires CC-BY license

[Steve Foerster]

I thought this might be of some interest to people here.  Basically,
there's a new grant program for two-year colleges that requires that
any curricular materials produced with the grant money be released as
CC-BY.

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/01/21/u_s_releases_guidelines_for_new_community_college_grant_program

I've always thought that it makes no sense for taxpayers to fund
development of materials that they have to pay again to access.  Now
for a mandate for all taxpayer-funded research to be open access

-=Steve=-

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[WikiEducator] Canvas LMS Goes Open Source

[Steve Foerster]

This is mildly offtopic, but I demoed and reviewed Canvas LMS today
and I thought it might be of interest to some here since the company
that makes it, Instructure, announced today that they were opening its
source.  I'm used to teaching through Moodle, which I like, but I have
to say that I *really* like Canvas:

http://community.elearners.com/all_blogs/the_elearners_news_blog/b/elearnersnews/archive/2011/02/01/canvas-lms-goes-open-source.aspx

Teachers can use it for free just by signing up, so that's cool too.

-=Steve=-

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[WikiEducator] Khan Academy Videos + BitTorrent = Awesomeness

[Steve Foerster]

It seems that Khan Academy, the makers of those awesome (if
insufficiently freely licensed) educational videos, has teamed up with
BitTorrent as a distribution mechanism:

http://blog.bittorrent.com/2011/02/10/khan-academy-education-videos-arrive-in-the-app-studio/

In a practical sense, the big deal is that such uses for BitTorrent
poke holes in the corporate culture argument that BitTorrent is
nothing but a vector for copyright resistance.

In an aesthetic sense, as a free culture geek it's a big deal because
it feels sort of like the special issue where Superman and Batman team
up. :-)

Anyway, thought I'd share.

-=Steve=-

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[WikiEducator] Re: Khan Academy Videos + BitTorrent = Awesomeness

[Steve Foerster]

Hi Jim,

All I meant was that it's cool to see two things I like -- Khan
Academy and BitTorrent -- working together in a way I wouldn't
necessarily have expected.  I wasn't really trying to liken either
project to either of those specific characters.  (Besides, if I were
I'd probably have gone with Batman and Green Arrow.)

-=Steve=-

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[WikiEducator] Important: Unesco Replaces OER Acronym

[Steve Foerster]

Unesco has announced that they are discontinuing the OER acronym in
favor of a longer but more inclusive term!  More information is
available here:

http://hiresteve.com/2011/04/01/important-unesco-replaces-oer-acronym/

Cheers,

-=Steve=-

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[WikiEducator] Re: Important: Unesco Replaces OER Acronym

[Steve Foerster]

Chris wrote:

 That was a good one, I laughed pretty hard.
 The link to your own article was a nice touch.

I'm glad you liked it -- it was meant all in good fun, of
course. :-)

I'd say the joke's really on Unesco, though, since so many people
thought this was eminently believable!

Cheers,

-=Steve=-

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[WikiEducator] Nightmare scenario for higher education

[Steve Foerster]

Bad news of the day:

http://blogs.library.duke.edu/scholcomm/2011/05/13/a-nightmare-scenario-for-higher-education/

It's past time for universities to devote more of their considerable
resources toward developing OERs to prevent this sort of foolishness.
Commercial publishers need universities, not the other way around!

-=Steve=-

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[WikiEducator] Bangladeshi teachers to lead content development

[Steve Foerster]

http://www.unescobkk.org/education/ict/online-resources/databases/ict-in-education-database/item/article/bangladeshi-teachers-to-lead-content-development/

I thought this was interesting.  Does anyone know whether these
materials will be openly available?

-=Steve=-

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[WikiEducator] Open Questions on Open Courseware

[Steve Foerster]

InsideHigherEd, an American news and commentary site that tracks
higher education, has an interesting commentary today called Open
Questions on Open Courseware by Eric Jansson, an affiliated fellow
with the National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education
(NITLE) and member of its advisory board.  I thought it might be of
interest here, because his remarks apply to all OER projects, not just
open courseware.

http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2011/07/07/essay_on_unanswered_questions_about_open_courseware

-=Steve=-

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[WikiEducator] Why Aren't Open Educational Resources Organizations Supporting Related Movements?

[Steve Foerster]

Why Aren't Open Educational Resources Organizations Supporting Related
Movements?

http://community.elearners.com/all_blogs/the_elearners_news_blog/b/elearnersnews/archive/2011/07/14/why-aren-t-open-educational-resources-organizations-supporting-related-movements.aspx

As you can see, this annoyed me to death.  I'm very proud that this is
something that WE get right!

-=Steve=-

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[WikiEducator] Re: Join WikiEducator also on Facebook

[Steve Foerster]

Simon wrote:

 Well, looking at their next get together, where CIO still play the high
 priests, it hasn't changed that much. But you know how it works. One
 can't change an institution from the outside.

Perhaps not directly, but you can set up a competing institution that
is too successful to be ignored.  That's how online learning has made
its way to the mainstream in the U.S.  Traditional institutions didn't
understand its potential, so for-profit schools made use of it instead
and drank their milkshake.

-=Steve=-

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[WikiEducator] Re: US-India Higher Education Summit at Washington DC

[Steve Foerster]

Anil Prasad wrote:

 See another crucial -perhaps the most important- area : various reports say,
 more than 10 Indian students study in US. This means, it’s high time the
 two nations thought about a Transnational Qualification Framework for better
 mobility of students and hassle free cross border acceptance of
 qualifications by respective national assessment and accreditation
 authorities and labour markets.

That would involve a major change to the way American higher education
deals with foreign credit, and a notable increase in federal
involvement in that area.  In the U.S., universities set their own
policies when it comes to accepting transfer credit (foreign or
domestic).  For foreign credit, usually they rely on a set of private
evaluators who have expertise in that area.  There's no one central
monopoly with which to negotiate, and while the federal government has
been muscling in a bit lately through regulation of the financial aid
system, for the most part the federal government still has only a
secondary role in U.S. higher education.

-=Steve=-

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[WikiEducator] Re: Launch of UNESCO Open Educational Resources Platform

[Steve Foerster]

Anil Prasad aplett...@gmail.com wrote:

 I hope the message from Abel Caine, UNESCO OER Programme, as added
below, regarding the launch of the UNESCO Open Educational Resources
Platform and UNESCO/COL Guidelines for OER in Higher Education on
Tuesday 1 Nov, will be of grater interest to most of you. The event
will be streamed live. See details in Abel's message: 

This may not be the reaction that UNESCO is going for, but it was my
honest reaction:

http://tinyurl.com/3c3dlpz

-=Steve=-

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[WikiEducator] Re: What should be the ideal pathway for establishment of virtual institute

[Steve Foerster]

Hi Ravi,

Can you tell more about what the project's goals are?  That might affect 
the answers.

Regards,

-=Steve=-

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[WikiEducator] A superior OER logo already exists in the public domain

[Steve Foerster]

Stephen Downes wrote:


Personally, I probably won't use the logo - I don't understand
why it was created or what it is supposed to signify, exactly.

I agree, it seems like a solution in search of a problem.

This is all the more so because there's already an existing logo that
not only actually emerged spontaneously from the community, but also is
in the public domain and therefore doesn't have these problems:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:OERlogo.svg

I'd use this existing one were I to use any.

-=Steve=-


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[WikiEducator] Re: Featured WikiEducator UPE (January 2014): Wayne Mackintosh

[Steve Foerster]

Nellie, Ramesh, and all,

What a great choice, and what a great way for us all to start off 2014!

-=Steve=-

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[WikiEducator] Re: WikiEducator User Page Expo (UPE) Winner for July 2014: Alison Snieckus

[Steve Foerster]

Congratulations!  I love your use of boxes! :-)

-=Steve=-


On Sunday, August 10, 2014 9:48:29 AM UTC-4, Ramesh Sharma wrote:

 Dear  Friends,

 The WikiEducator User Page Expo http://wikieducator.org/UPE (UPE to 
 its friends) is an ongoing event to acknowledge WikiEducator user pages 
 that are particularly informative, innovative, visually appealing, or 
 otherwise just plain clever.

 We are happy to announce the winner for July 2014. She is Alison Snieckus. 
 Lets meet her :-)
 July 2014 
 http://wikieducator.org/File:ASnieckus.jpg

 Alison Snieckus http://wikieducator.org/User:ASnieckus is a trained 
 educational measurement specialist. From 1986 to 2000 she worked at 
 Educational Testing Service (ETS, the makers of the famed SAT, TOEFL, 
 GRE). Later on due to personal reasons she gave up her job at ETS.  
 She, alongwith a fellow homeschooling parent started homeschooling,and 
 founded a local group for teens to have the opportunity to study and 
 collaborate together: E-cubed: Experience, Explore, Educate 
 https://sites.google.com/site/ecubednj/. Here once per week sessions 
 are designed around teen-led activities. Since the group was founded, it 
 has grown over the years. In 2009-2010, she taught a hybrid course in 
 Introductory Statistics to 5 secondary students who homeschool. The online 
 portion of the course was provided by Carnegie Mellon University's Open 
 Learning Initiative. The goal of the course is to encourage students to 
 think statistically, to communicate accurately and comprehensively about 
 data, and to use a critical framework to evaluate studies. In Fall 2010 and 
 Fall 2011, She taught Statistical Methods II for the Graduate School of 
 Education at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. She advocates for 
 an educational system which better recognizes and values the rich potential 
 of individual variation among human beings. She argues on why do we think 
 that all children should be force-fed a curriculum based on a narrow set of 
 common standards, devised, largely, at the beginning of the last century? 
 She has truly identified that every child (and certainly every teenager) 
 deserves the option to self-direct his/her own education with the help of 
 caring adults!

 Please join us in congratulating Alison 
 http://wikieducator.org/User:ASnieckus for being the UPE winner for 
 July 2014! 
 with best wishes,

 Dr. Nellie Deutsch http://wikieducator.org/User:Nelliemuller and Ramesh 
 Sharma http://wikieducator.org/User:Rcsharma


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[WikiEducator] Re: WikiEducator User Page Expo (UPE) Winner for August 2014: Kim Thomas

[Steve Foerster]

Congratulations Kim! :-D

-=Steve=-


On Wednesday, September 3, 2014 3:29:33 AM UTC-4, Ramesh Sharma wrote:

 Dear  Friends,

 The WikiEducator User Page Expo http://wikieducator.org/UPE (UPE to 
 its friends) is an ongoing event to acknowledge WikiEducator user pages 
 that are particularly informative, innovative, visually appealing, or 
 otherwise just plain clever.

 We are happy to announce the winner for August 2014. She is Kim Thomas.


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[WikiEducator] Re: WikiEducator User Page Expo (UPE) Winner for September 2015: Adum Joseph

[Steve Foerster]

Good use of images and lots of information!

-=Steve=-


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steve.foers...@newworld.ac | http://newworld.ac



On Sunday, October 4, 2015 at 9:49:16 AM UTC-4, Ramesh Sharma wrote:
>
> Dear  Friends,
>
> The WikiEducator User Page Expo  ("UPE" to 
> its friends) is an ongoing event to acknowledge WikiEducator user pages 
> that are particularly informative, innovative, visually appealing, or 
> otherwise just plain clever.
>
> Adum Joseph is the UPE winner for September 2015!
> Lets learn more about him, an active WikiEducator!!
>
> September 2015
> [image: Pictureadum.jpg] 
>
> Adum Joseph  is an Assistant 
> Lecturer at the Kampala International University, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. 
> He has special interest in Planning, Design and Management of Databases; 
> Internet Technology and web page Authoring, and Networking. He obtained 
> Master's degree (Msc.IS) from KIU Dar Es Salaam, and BSc.IT from Mbarara 
> University of Science and Technology. With the purpose to keep updated 
> himself, he regularly attends professional development programs like ICT 
> skills development training workshop conducted by CADD centre at Kampala 
> International University, Dar es Salaam College; Enhancing Learning and 
> Assessment; Pedagogy in higher education; Training in computer hardware and 
> software maintenance and repair; and on ‘Empowering Youth on Corruption 
> Eradication’ etc. He conducts research also, some of his work like 
> "E-learning Technology acceptance, utilization and opportunity at Kampala 
> International University Dar Es Salaam College", "The level of Utilization 
> and Opportunities of E-learning Technologies among selected Universities in 
> Tanzania" have been published by GRIN Publishing GmbH. 
>
> Please join us in congratulating him for being the UPE winner!
> with best wishes,
> Dr. Nellie Deutsch  and Ramesh 
> Sharma 
>
>
>

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[WikiEducator] New World University seeks an entry level, part time OER Coordinator

[Steve Foerster]

New World University has need for a part time *OER Coordinator* to assist 
with the university’s open educational resources initiatives. Our 
institution is based in the Caribbean regional his position will be remote, 
and applications are welcome from anyone with reliable Internet access 
regardless of country of residence. This position is entry level and is 
paid by the hour, and the number of hours required may vary from week to 
week.

Our OER Coordinator will:

   1. Assist with OER textbook curation, including evaluating the materials 
   we use currently, and exploring OER repositories for suitable materials for 
   academic programmes under development.
   2. Assist with our project to add value to existing OER textbooks by 
   finding freely accessible videos that might supplement those textbooks.
   3. Assist with our project to make existing OER textbooks more 
   accessible to students in economically developing countries by converting 
   PDF versions into EPUB files that display well on inexpensive mobile 
   devices.
   4. Other duties as assigned.

We would like to see the following from you:

   - Good command of written English.
   - Familiarity with and enthusiasm for open educational resources, 
   including related topics such as Creative Commons licenses.
   - Familiarity with HTML, CSS, and EPUB is preferred, but not required to 
   apply.

If you would like to be considered please email i...@newworld.ac 
, attach your resume or CV, and 
explain briefly why you would be the best person to fill this position. 
Note that if you do not include your hourly wage requirements that your 
application will not be considered.

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[WikiEducator] Good presentation on OERu by Marc Singer

[Steve Foerster]

I just wanted to say nice job to Marc Singer, who presented on OERu yesterday 
at the ongoing OpenEd conference in Richmond, Virginia, U.S.

-=Steve=-

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[WikiEducator] Re: New CC-BY book about Open Practices

[Steve Foerster]

Many thanks, Rajiv, and congratulations on the book!

-=Steve=-

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steve.foers...@newworld.ac | http://newworld.ac


On Monday, April 3, 2017 at 11:44:10 AM UTC-4, Rajiv Jhangiani wrote:
>
> Dear colleagues, 
> I wanted to share news of the publication of my new edited book, Open: The 
> Philosophy and Practices that are Revolutionizing Education and Science. 
> The book (which has been published by Ubiquity Press with a CC-BY license) 
> brings together global leaders from the open education, open access, and 
> open science movements, who share their motivations, insights, and 
> practical tips and help make explicit the shared values that are at the 
> foundation of these parallel movements. It includes a chapter by our own 
> Wayne Mackintosh in which he provides an excellent overview of the OERu 
> network and philosophy. 
>   
> Here is a direct link to the site from where it can be downloaded: 
> https://doi.org/10.5334/bbc 
>   
> I would be very grateful if you could share news of the book’s publication 
> among your colleagues. 
> With gratitude, 
> Rajiv

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[WikiEducator] Re: Mastodon social network instance set up for OERu

[Steve Foerster]

For anyone who's taken advantage of this, please feel free to follow me at 
https://mastodon.oeru.org/@stevefoerster as I am using it actively. 

-=Steve=-


On Sunday, July 8, 2018 at 1:09:28 AM UTC-4, Wayne Mackintosh wrote:
>
> Hi everyone
>
> The OER Foundation has set up a Mastodon instance 
> <https://mastodon.oeru.org/> which is a federated and open source social 
> networking alternative.  (This short video <https://youtu.be/IPSbNdBmWKE> 
> provides a good overview of what Mastodon is.)
>
> At the OERu, we do not want any learner to be forced to use any 
> proprietary hosted technologies in order to participate in our learning 
> opportunities, and this is why we have set up an OERu instance 
> <https://mastodon.oeru.org/> of the Mastodon software. 
>
> It's primarily intended to support OERu learners rather than forcing 
> learners to join, services like Twitter. Most conversations on our instance 
> will be focused on OERu and OER related topics, however as open technology, 
> WikiEducator users are free and most welcome to create accounts on our 
> instance (thanks Steve Foerster for suggesting that I post this 
> announcement on the WikiEd list).
>
> As a federated technology there are many different instances and 
> communities you can join with the advantage of being able to interact with 
> users on difference instances.
>
> If you need a little help in setting up an account and finding out how 
> Mastodon works - you can consult the OERu support site 
> <https://course.oeru.org/support/studying-courses/oeru-social-network/>.
>
> Happy tooting!
>
> Cheers
> Wayne
>   
>
>
>
>
>
> -- 
> Wayne Mackintosh
> Director OER Foundation and OERu facilitator
> UNESCO - ICDE Chair in OER
> Mastodon: @mack...@mastodon.oeru.org
>
>

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[WikiEducator] Delay on New WikiEducator Accounts?

[Steve Foerster]

Does anyone know whether there is a human approval component to new accounts 
being established on WikiEducator, and if so who those humans are? A colleague 
has tried to create an account, has confirmed his email address, but has not 
received his password and it’s been a couple of days.

Thanks,

--
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President | New World University
steve.foers...@newworld.ac <mailto:steve.foers...@newworld.ac> | 
http://newworld.ac <http://newworld.ac/> 

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Re: [WikiEducator] Delay on New WikiEducator Accounts?

[Steve Foerster]

Many thanks, Wayne.

Deterring spammers through verification is entirely reasonable! Do you want 
help? I'm sure I'm not the only one who would be happy to lend a hand.

Cheers,

-=Steve=-


On Saturday, February 23, 2019 at 8:55:11 PM UTC-5, Wayne Mackintosh wrote:
>
> Hi Steve,
>
> Sadly we needed to introduce a human approval loop for new accounts a few 
> years ago to manage spam more effectively. There are only two of us 
> overseeing new accounts and sometimes we fall a little behind. The 
> outstanding account requests over the last week have been approved and I 
> apologise for the delay in approving your colleague's account.
>
> Best wishes
> Wayne
>
> Wayne Mackintosh
> Director OER Foundation and OERu facilitator
> UNESCO - ICDE Chair in OER
> Mastodon: @mack...@mastodon.oeru.org
>
>
> On Sun, Feb 24, 2019 at 10:11 AM Steve Foerster <
> steve.foers...@newworld.ac> wrote:
>
>> Does anyone know whether there is a human approval component to new 
>> accounts being established on WikiEducator, and if so who those humans are? 
>> A colleague has tried to create an account, has confirmed his email 
>> address, but has not received his password and it’s been a couple of days.
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> --
>> Steve Foerster
>> President | New World University
>> steve.foers...@newworld.ac | http://newworld.ac 
>>
>

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[WikiEducator] Re: Million Pillars Economy Theory Development Project

[Steve Foerster]

Hi Anil,

Do you have a sense of what you would specifically like participants to do?

-=Steve=-


On Sunday, October 27, 2019 at 11:36:20 AM UTC-4, Anil wrote:
>
> Friends,
>
>  Million Pillars Economy theory development project on WikiEducator is 
> getting enriched  every day at 
> https://wikieducator.org/Million_Pillars_Economy-_theory_development_project 
> Please drop in to contribute ideas for a better world. 
>
> Warm regards
>
> Anil
>
> www.wikieducator.org/User:Anil_Prasad
>

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