My dear Midwife, Can we go through this point by point. There's a bunch of stuff going on in different points of the world in trying to develop the kind of facilities which you and other global facilitators need. So get some agreement on them is very important. Helping the old National institutions marry with the new global one needs a bit of clarification, especially if we are to find its sustainability.
The enrollment process elements are pretty well there at the moment. I'm sure if you look at WE's "donate" page with a good interface designer, they'd be able to figure out how to marry the course's pages with the payment gateway and enrollment database. That said, I think they'd find it difficult as the approach you're taking doesn't abide by the new model for sustainability. i.e. It doesn't represent a course which is accredited by a number of institutions (in different countries). You're also precluding potential students from the important bit = the comms; a place where they can get some idea of the inter-institutional community - their language, their culture, - so they can see whether it's worth joining. Let's start there and work backwards. We know that WE want a global community, in this case one of facilitators from the .edu community. We also know that we want a combination of "services". (For more about the difference in language between facilitator's language (e.g.tools) and facility builders (services) read that UNESCO discussion). OK. Let me give you an idea of what one global community of we designers use. I'm pointing you at their bulletin board. http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/forumindex.php? Now, it's only in English, so it's a bit limited. But it gives you what seems to be the most important thing - a structure where a web designer can read most of the (course) elements. It is the "orientation place". You'll "see" the number of members and "potential students" down the bottom. You'll find the global team under 'forum support'. http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/forum-support-87/ Your present structure can't work because you don't have a global team to start with. Sustainability is about having a small global group collaborate, split the load and (preferably) have a midwife around the site 24/7. Using a BB (or even a Moodle) is a bit dangerous as you'll always get spammers - both real and automated. So, like every institution, you do need a curator (librarian) around to nip things in the bud, and answer questions. If this institution is to be open 24/7 then you need someone around for that time. You'll see that this group sustains itself by advertising, a marketplace and book sales (I think they sell some code as well). Yo obviously won't want to do that, so the "conversion" is more likely to be an entry into some reading area, which has more support. This might make it easier, so far as converting the unwashed, as you've only to preclude site roamers from particular areas, and when they "convert', you simply gear up the personalization (i.E "Welcome, xxx, to the inner sanctum. Here's the team. Here's the library, If we can help let us know") I've suggested that WE might use a tool like Google sites as it appears to have this (http://sites.google.com/support/bin/answer.py? answer=142483 ) functionality built in, and some storage/archive space. (not enough for videos but adequate for new facilitators). But the main things here, and I was alluding to it by talking about "clouds", is that if yu run this kind of an operation on an institutional server, It'll fall over, and/or be too slow to serve a global audience. Clouds, firstly, put the content close to the user demand, globally, and secondly, should you get a big "spike" - say an event - it can "spread the load" on demand. That means institutions don't have the expense of buying a lot more servers and bandwidth, which is the main economic argument of the new computing model. (and why I suggested to Wayne that WE need a cloud provider as an anchor member. This is a new computing model and non of them is sure how they should be charging, for bandwidth use AND storage) > Good point about needing a librarian. If an artefact is created that I think > is really useful, I integrate it into the next course. But I don't do that > too much because I do not want to over-whelm students. Understand. I just wanted to flag this early. The wiki approach - the "creative archive" - will be something which facilitators and converted students will share. The most important thing is to have someone who knows, when someone says, "I can remember seeing something, somewhere" where it's located. Real time stuff. This is probably the most important thing (for the network managers (NM) in the NRENs) as most of WE have a good idea of what asynchronous tools they prefer to use. And an Elluminate, adobe virtual room, etc, cost real money. At the moment there's a NM discussion about coming up with something which will give facilitators what they want, while keeping the bandwidth costs to a global minimum. This means NMs in different countries establishing relationship with a "virtual room" provider and getting a deal which says, "no cost for our .edu users". You can imagine the trade off = "NRENs will market your tool and help in its development". Here's the Aussie version of this movement. http://www.aarnet.edu.au/Projects/2010/05/12/aarnet-anywhere.aspx > I am struggling at the moment with figuring what access informals have to > course communication and how much I can contribute as the paid facilitator. > With this iteration of FO2011, I am not giving informal access to the email > group - they only get access if they pay. I am feeling uncomfortable with > it, but will see how it goes. I'm glad to see you're uncomfortable with the idea. If a midwife feels this way it's normally because their "gut instincts" (excuse the pun) are leading them in the right direction. I think you'll find that the "community building" approach will make you feel more comfortable. The "service delivery" model is something we would expect of interventionists. But I think that Cesareans are beginning to understand that this new model is not another 'machine that goes ping' which they bolt on to their hospitals, individually. So you take it easy.You know that births come in their own time. All WE can do it assist. My best, simon > > Love this video...I use it when teaching students and we look at > medicalisation and technology in childbirth. Whilst the skit is funny, sadly > there's a lot of truth in it...far too many "machines that go ping' in our > hospitals :) > > cheers Sarah > -- 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]
