On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 6:57 PM, Wayne Mackintosh <[email protected] > wrote:
> Hi Maria, > > Really appreciate your reflections on the initial barriers (real or > perceived) relating to WYSIWYG editing. I suspect that once we implement > Rich Text Editing in WikiEducator we'll see our community grow even more > :-). In my view technology should not be a barrier to collaboration. > > The data we have with reference to wiki skills and training is interesting: > > - 45% of all educators who register for voluntary training through the > Learning4Content training initiative achieve a wiki certification. > - 62% of these educators achieve the levels of competence required for > developing OER in the Mediawiki environment. > - 64% of our users confirm that WikiEducator is the first wiki account > they have created > - 70% of our users confirm that they have joined wikieducator to learn > wiki skills and to develop OER. > > You can read the full report on the L4C project here: > > http://wikieducator.org/images/a/ac/L4C_Report_Aug09.pdf > Wayne, This discussion is immensely useful for me, in light of the future projects. Thank you for the comments! This report shows great success in terms of WikiEducator's stated goals of capacity, community (connections) and content. It works, it works! > When thinking about community and OER productivity, the website stats are > also interesting. In the case of Curriki the three month average on Alexa > records 2.14 page views per users spending 2.9 minutes on the site. In the > case of WikiEducator we have recorded a three month average of 8 page views > per user and an average of 21.8 minutes on the site. I suppose you could > argue that the wiki syntax requires users to spend more time on WE :-). > I will argue that WikiEducator has a tighter, more action-oriented community with fewer people just checking the site out because they saw it mentioned in their networks, or otherwise being onlookers. I think it is the direct result of publicity strategies. Some communities invite a lot of people to check them out, and some to collaborate and work together. The later type will have stickier page data and other community measures showing that people actually work there. I'm not sure whether I agree with the analysis that projects involving large > numbers of people for quick (wiki-wiki?) collaboration would be more > successful using other platforms. Wikipedia is a case in point. > I'd like to look, again, at the degree of collaboration, maybe using a scale similar to Shirky's sharing-collaboration-community action. A project synchronized in time, where all participants "pledge" (register) to spend hours a week working is different from the "slight participation" Wikipedia invites (though some people undoubtedly spend tens of hours a week contributing). L4C projects have dedicated time, but then people go there to learn wiki skills. The consideration of content vs. tech skills is very important, as I learned from that Family Multiplication Study pilot I did, where many people felt that the platform development and the resulting "lack of ease" was too much. Retrospectively, it almost felt like a "bait and switch" - the project being "advertised" as a content project, while so much of it was devoted to technology. As a result, I am being extra careful this time around, both with descriptions of what is involved technologically, and with choices of project tools that have a potential to tip the scales toward "learning the technology" and away from "developing math content." This may be a mere dream for any current platform, but one can hope - here are the numbers I just made up that I would like to see: - 90% of the project's time to be about content, with the rest being the slight, casual attention to easy 2.0 tools and personal communication within the community - 100% of registered people contribute to OER creation weekly - 85% saying they learned new web 2.0 tools without meaning to, or realizing it Maybe I just want users who have been through your wiki training? :-) Cheers, Maria Droujkova Make math your own, to make your own math. http://www.naturalmath.com social math site --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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] -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
