Merry Xmas Wayne, You know I agree with all you are trying to achieve. The problem with progressing these things is how WE might be able to collaborate with other communities (like Moodle) in achieving them. The main thing you point out is that the wiki MODEL is the right one (not the technology -; the MODEL of having one spot in cyberspace where disciplinary groups can come to work on the same content and leave behind (a long term archive of) some useful free content.
I also agree that 'a directory' is sooo important. It's just a matter of how you consider this directory being used. If you take the Europeana (the "content only") approach, WE'll end up with (say around) 4 million items (from Euro museums, art galleries, etc, in their original domains) which can be searched from one head directory (called Europeana), so long as you understand the language(s) and know of Europeana. Meanwhile the techs in each NREN will (are now) working on a directory of various Real Time online tools (like Video Conferencing). They duplicate as far as their National borders as well. So while global 'content' communities like WE are thinking 'metadata', globally-minded Real Time (all IP) techs are likely to be thinking about a new Global Dialing Scheme (GDS). This doesn't further the cause of aggregating both info & comms, which a directory to a bunch of online 'resources can point at - that a global community can find & use, and then leave their content in situ as 'their' long term archive. Today, a user who visits (say) the Open CourseWare's site, views their membership list, and considers the massive duplications which the (national) institutional domains represent, can't find a discipline's global community (or see the list of resources which they use). All they MIGHT find is one course duplicated endlessly and poorly. No one can stop a more open, global, education framework being developed. The question is how to help institutions (and their economic managers) understand what benefits there are in using a new media model - one which builds (i.e. aggregates) around global (disciplinary) groups' urls rather than (National) institutional urls. We already know that eduroam is the first service/product which opens the path between National institutions here. i.e. reciprocal arrangements, between institutions and their National networks, where a user can get access to 'their' stuff, regardless of where they may be in the world. Eduroam is, in effect, the world's largest wireless.edu network. The question now is, as we know there is a beginning of reciprocal arrangements between National networks, how WE may work with 'our' National (NREN) techs, so they understand what tools/services the global groups, which span 'their' networks, may prefer to use; and then systematize/standardize the paths between them/us/WE. You'll be glad to know 'they' are also trying to reach out. Merry Xmas, simon P.S. Innovation, according to Drucker, is always about shifting habits to take advantage of the lower costs thrown up by new stuff like technology. So you might like to consider three questions. 1. If, rather than using (the PSTN when you used) your mobile, you used a widget like Skype and the institution's wireless network to talk/conference with your global peers, how much would it save your institution? 2. If, rather than institutions paying a third party publisher for aggregating 'their' authors papers, they offered a(n open access) url where global peers could aggregate their papers/build their content, how much would this save your institution? 3. Why would you need/want two directories? A happy new year to all. -- 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]
