Chinese try is here http://wikieducator.org/TESOL
2010/1/19 kirby urner <[email protected]> > On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 5:50 PM, valerie <[email protected]> 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 > > > > -- > 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] > -- Leo Wong -------------------------------------- http://helpsuzhou.blogbus.com/ HELP There is something very special and powerful about engaging directly with the real teacher and real Kids
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