Hi Jim, Great post! I too hope that WikiEducator will evolve in ways which support the unique demands and character of educational resources.
Already WE is demonstrating organic growth in a variety of pedagogical approaches, for example: * Leigh Blackall's innovative course on Designing for Flexible Learning Practice, which is a unique combination of activity based learning where the course activities are guided with the help of wiki pages and learner self reflection using individual learner blogs (See: http://www.wikieducator.org/Designing_for_flexible_learning_practice ) * Open Textbook approaches as exemplified by the OER Handbook for Educators (See: http://www.wikieducator.org/OER_Handbook/educator_version_one ) * Independent study designs building on distance education design approaches as illustrated by the WikiEducator Tutorials (See for instance: http://www.wikieducator.org/Wikieducator_tutorial/What_is_a_wiki ) * The development of glossaries to support multiple OER projects within the wiki --- like the Math Glossary (See: http://www.wikieducator.org/MathGloss ) That said, I think that the potential that the wiki platform can offer us for remixing pages to support multiple audiences and pedagogical approaches remains under utilised. It is conceivable that we could build multiple learning sequences from collections of wiki pages that are combined (transcluded) in interesting ways. It would be great if we could develop a few examples of transclusion (i.e. creating pages / courses which are remixed from other pages in the wiki). mmmm - As our wiki-design experience matures we could think about developing a tutorial on remixing resources for effective learning. Thanks for your insightful post :-) Cheers Wayne On Tue, 2009-02-10 at 10:28 -0800, jkelly952 wrote: > While one can appreciate the time and effort that goes into collecting > information from Wikipedia to develop the mathematics pages which are > in SCHOOL-WIKIPEDIA.ORG , I hope that WikiEducator will not follow the > same path. Only machines learn from definitions; human beings need > examples (sometimes a lot!) to learn. For example “I am the cat” and > the opposite is “I am not the cat”. Does more to create the > foundation for understanding the term “negation”; than “Negation is > the process that turns an affirmative statement into its opposite”. > Beginning and developing conceptualization of terms and ideas is what > primary and to some extent secondary school learning is all about. > Everyday situations generalized to become definitions is what learning > is about at these levels. > > To help nations develop their own mathematics programs WikiEducator > would be wise to go beyond the usual definitions provide by other > Wiki’s, and concentrate on providing examples and illustrations. This > way educational leaders can select terms and ideas that meet their > nation’s needs for mathematics. And strangely even in the so called > “mathematically rich nations” with their multiple mathematical > programs need to have a mechanism so that they can rethink about what > mathematics concepts should continue and what new terms and concepts > should be brought into elementary and secondary schools. The world’s > need for mathematics is changing > > Jim Kelly > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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 [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
