Good afternoon,
Thanks Wayne/Randy. I have indeed started thinking about how we could create a place on WikiEducator that would hold a series of culture related projects in a "one-stop shopping kind of place" (pardon my casual language but it best describes what I am trying to do). This let me to create the Culture Wiki at www.wikieducator/Culture. Culture has always been very dear to my heart, which is why I went back to school several years ago, to increase my knowledge base and working with the developing world, but with this being said, I also know that the learning process will never end. National Folkore, an Indian organization is currently developing free content under Culture and ICTs. I am also communicating with some people in India on the issue of Culture and Gender related issues and are hoping that this is something they are interested in. In the Culture Wiki you will see that I have created several headings, to give people an idea of what I was thinking about. It would be fantastic, if we could rally up some support and interest in the community, to develop free content for the Culture Wiki, to drive this area forward. I believe culture is at the bottom of most of what we do in one or another form. Some people consider this unimportant, but I do not share their views as I see how it effects our work on a daily basis. Diverse cultures can only be brought together through mending the differences, educating each other, increasing awareness and building up the knowledge about other cultures within the communities. I may be a bit of an idealist here, but haven't given up hope that this is possible, if one could find like-minded institutions and individuals that feel, this is important in today's world. Picking up on I think it was Bee's/Alison's comments regarding a culture node on each country page, I think this would be fantastic. We would have to decide how this should look like. Maybe a country culture template would be an idea. The information put into the Wiki should have a relationship with Education. With this being said, maybe some background statistics: How many girls/boys attend primary/secondary/high school/college/university, length of studies, age groups, population: male/female. Just a start/thought? Any other thoughts? Cheers, Patricia ________________________________ From: [email protected] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Randy Fisher Sent: Thursday, March 06, 2008 11:21 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [WikiEducator] Re: Userpages and Cultural Identity Hi Folks, I'm all for a cultural node - and yes, Patricia has a good start with Culture Wiki - what's needed is a few folks to rally 'round it, with some ideas and energy, and who knows where it can go and develop. Ahh, the twin themes of complexity and self-organization! I am particularly interested in this - first introduced by Wayne, and now building on it with two courses in my Masters Program in Organization Development (Fielding Graduate University). One of them is about Culture and Intercultural Processes in, and among diverse groups, and the other is Self-Organization and Complexity Theory. I am particularly interested in how both converge.... Here's one of the topics we've been talking about in the course: We're wondering what is required for self-organizing behaviour to manifest among people of different cultures, or if it simply dependes on the purpose or a given project's rationale. Prof. Gary Fontaine points to a raging discussion about the cultural diversity of perceptions (values, norms, expectations etc.) and the impact of cultural diversity in communication (verbal, nonverbal, level of context, etc.) on both self-organization and particle swarm optimization. (his area of research interest). As well, this is a neat area to twin the Culture Node with the Research Node in WikiEducator, and see what's possible in terms of facilitating dialogue and the creation of open educational content resources. Thoughts, feedback? - Randy On Wed, Mar 5, 2008 at 11:09 PM, mackiwg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Alison -- Great suggestions - and smart thinking. -- I really like your suggestion of the the inverse of the Ambassodor/neighbour, ie. instead of taking wikieducator to your neighbours -- bring your neighbourhood to wikiEducator. Nice! Sure -- we should include a section in Tut 13 about sourcing free content images. Good idea. Also my assistant Patricia has an active interest in matters cultural and is working on a culture node in WE: http://wikieducator.org/Culture So maybe there is a connection opportunity here? eh -- don't stop - keep those good ideas flowing! Cheers Wayne On Mar 5, 9:36 pm, "Alison Ruth" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Prescriptive is no good in a wiki environment, you're right there. > > More thinking aloud: A cultural node and/or a new level of wiki mastery that > people can opt into, not a compulsory level but a kind of cultural > ambassador to wikeducator, almost the opposite of the wiki > ambassador/neighbour - instead of taking wikieducator to your neighbours, > bring your neighbourhood to wikieducator ... > > Definitely give permission for the expression of cultural identity which I > think seems a bit constrained/restrained at the moment, we don't have to be > grown up all the time, do we? > > Perhaps as part of tutorial 13 - sourcing and using free images - the > challenge could be to find or bring in images representing your cultural > identity, oh and create a new subpage of your user page to do it, then link > that page from the cultural node! Just a thought. ... I should have > stopped earlier, eh? > > Alison > > On 06/03/2008, mackiwg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > Yeah I see what you mean -- > > > mmm thinking out loud here .... would a "tutorial" on tips and ideas > > to express cultural identity be the way to go? > > > Not so sure that I like the "tutorial" concept in this context because > > it seems a little too prescriptive and "paint-by-numbers" -- if you > > know what a mean. But rather to give folk the tools to express their > > cutural identity. > > > I really like the concept -- one of the most rewarding aspects of my > > job at COL is the amazing exposure to culture in many nuanced ways. It > > would be very powerful if we could find was of capturing some of this > > dynamic in WE. > > > Cheers > > Wayne > > > On Mar 5, 9:00 pm, "Alison Ruth" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > Hey again people > > > > Wayne: From what I remember, there are some people who have used their > > > userpages to show where they come from and special parts/aspects of > > their > > > > countries. A couple of examples are: > >http://wikieducator.org/User:Gabrielahttp://wikieducator.org/User:Mad. <http://wikieducator.org/User:Gabrielahttp:/wikieducator.org/User:Mad.> .. > > > > There seems to be a more personal touch to these userpages while many of > > us > > > go for more formal identities (like we're playing grown-ups in > > > WikiEducator). > > > > What happened in my course was that many international students took the > > > opportunity of their userpage to include an almost complete history (or > > > seemingly so) of their country. It was totally unexpected within the > > > course, but maybe shouldn't have been given their distance from home. > > > > One of the outcomes of what happened in my course was more recognition > > that > > > we need to provide space for cultural identity somewhere. This is also > > > being taken up at my colleague's university. > > > > How we could implement something like this beyond individually created > > > userpages would require some thinking (lots of cc licensed images from > > all > > > over the world would be a start - cultural icons eg our opera house, > > > kangaroos etc). It's an interesting leap you made there. > > > > Just a random thought: perhaps a part of the tutorial could be to > > include or > > > start a page about individual perceptions of their home country with a > > link > > > to the formal country page. It's almost another aspect of educational > > > information - providing personal insights into different cultures, > > > perspectives etc. This alone would provide a great resource for and > > about > > > cross and inter-cultural learning. > > > > Leigh: You have my sympathies but I'm sure we will welcome you back ;) > > *runs > > > away laughing maniacally* > > > > Alison > > > > On 06/03/2008, mackiwg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > Hi Alison, > > > > > Do you have any pointers to tips from what you remember from the > > > > WikiEd pages regarding cultural identity? > > > > I may be able to help some of these. > > > > > I do like the idea of a visualisation or some kind of association with > > > > cultural identity -- we could certainly think about developing > > > > specific User boxes for different identities? > > > > > Suggestions most welcome and we'll do our best to get these > > > > implemented. > > > > > Cheers > > > > Wayne > > > > > On Mar 5, 6:15 pm, "Alison Ruth" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > Hey All > > > > > > A few years ago, I used a wiki for teaching a course of culturally > > > > diverse > > > > > students. One of the (unexpected) outcomes was wonderful displays > > of > > > > > cultural identity on userpages. Due to policies at my university, > > these > > > > are > > > > > no longer available (a huge tragedy). I know I've seen similar > > pages in > > > > > WikiEducator, but I cannot seem to find them today. > > > > > > A colleague from another university here in Aus is asking about > > these > > > > types > > > > > of pages, and I was wondering if anyone can point me to some in > > > > WikiEducator > > > > > I can show her? > > > > > > I'm slowly trolling through userpages (usually looking for other > > Aussies > > > > to > > > > > get our country page going), but am not being very successful. > > > > > > Thanks in advance > > > > > > Alison -- ________________ Randy Fisher aka "Wikirandy for WikiEducator" http://www.wikieducator.org/User:Wikirandy + 1 604.684.2275 [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.hirerandy.com Skype: wikirandy --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "WikiEducator" group. 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