School talk:Education

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Older discussion from Wikibooks

The text in this section came from Wikibooks.

suggestion

I suggest more and more poeple to join this part, for Education is the way who we transfer our knowledge and who we influence the future.

I use the "Educating", "Teaching", "Answering" to envolve the differnt School of Education, mainly Authoritic Education and Democratic Education; but as believing the democratic way, I cannot write objectively.

This topic of 'Education' is so vast, that it might be too imposing for people to start. I would love to start a sub-topic, say 'Distance Education'. If that was possible. - anyway, just a suggestion.

---

I moved the topics of elearning, instructional design, blended learning, and (new) learning management systems to the Instructional Technology page, thinking these were properly sub-topics.

For the next few weeks (April, 2005) my students have an assigment to contribute to this section. We welcome your comments and additions.

Tspannaus

Planning Proposal

Introduction

I think some serious planning is needed to get the School of Education up and running. There are many methods for this and I'd like to suggest one particular approach. You can thank Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories and in particular the poem that comes after "The Elephant's Child"

I keep six honest serving-men

(They taught me all I knew);

Their names are What and Why and When

And How and Where and Who.

Creating a strategy for the School of Education

First we need to ask why a School of Education is needed. Then taking into account the answer to the why question we need to look at what outcomes the School of Education should provide. We need to answer this question in the context of what technology will be used, who will be involved in the project, where they come from and the time frame for the project. Then we can work out how to achieve these outcomes. At this early stage it's important to clarify why the School of Education is needed. Without a clear motivation for the project people are unlikely to commit time and energy into building this project. If there is no clear reason for the project it's likely to get bogged down in the myriads of possible outcomes for the project.

A method of deciding why we need the School of Education

There is a two part method to clarify the reason for the project. The first step is to generate a long list of as many reasons as possible. This should be done without any constraints as to what is feasible or even sensible. The second step is to priorities this list and select the reasons that participants feel are most important. The reason for the long list is to explore a wide range of possibilities for the project. Things out of the leftfield sometimes produce a wining combination.

Fantasy School of Education

To generate a long list of reasons to setup the School of Education we could ask as many people as possible to describe their fantasy School of Education. This could be a description of the School 10 years from now or the kind of School they would want to study or teach at. We can then conduct a pole or some other voting system on this list to identify the most important reasons. Mystictim 01:43, 4 August 2006 (UTC) 01:43, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

My Fantasy School of Education

Please add your version of a fantasy School of Education below:

Our approach to learning hasn't changed much since Plato's Academy. The School of Education will lead the coming revolution in learning. With the massive changes in technology we need a new approach to learning and the School of Education will be where this change takes place. The School will be a cutting edge center of excellence for the study of learning through out the world. It will lead the way in developing and implementing learning strategies and tactics focusing on virtual delivery but with application to traditional methods. It will lead they way in promoting a truly international curriculum for world citizens of today and the future. Education needs to move from a proprietor and authoritarian approach to a shared and egalitarian one. The School of Education will work with all the other schools to identify and promote the best methods for learning and the appropriate use of technology. Any institute running teacher training course at all levels will come to this site for the best teacher training learning materials. The School of Education will be the place for research into education and learning. Mystictim

Newer discussion after the move from Wikibooks to Wikiversity

Do you think the School of education is better under Social Sciences or Professions? IMHO, I believe it should be under Professions.--Ningbojoe 05:22, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

I am new to Wikiversity, but as a student of education (and hopeful future school teacher), I don't think Education should be under professions. Education goes way beyond a profession. Education is a part of life. Everyone in the world is both a student and an educator, whether in a classroom or not. Fokion 02:16, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

What about ESL teaching?

I started a "lesson" page for ESL teaching and didn't know where to put it. For now it's under English as a Second Language, under Foreign Language Learning. But theoretically it should be under the teaching school, shouldn't it? Where can I put it? I'm a teaching assistant teaching English as a second language, and would love to see more material to help untrained ESL teachers everywhere, and am willing to help create it. Where should I look? This unsigned comment was added by Laserenite 13:29, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

You're referring to the page English as a second language, I presume? Or ESL for Primary School perhaps? (I found the first through Topic:Foreign Language Learning, and the second link through the first one.) Generally, if it's a lesson, it's fine as long as it's in the "Main" namespace - both those first two links are in the Main namespace and Topic:Foreign Language Learning is in the "Topic" namespace. (See Wikiversity:Naming conventions for more.) But, you're asking where it should be in terms of school-affiliation - well, I would ask you what you feel to be the most appropriate place ;-). Would it be better served by a school or portal do you feel? My own feeling is that it's probably best to keep it within the subject area, rather than type of activity - but we will hopefully find better ways of cross-referencing these descriptors - through metadata perhaps. An idea for now might be to use categories to label your material and have them findable that way. In any case, the important thing is that you have a space to develop your materials, and that other people can find them easily. This is still something we're working on throughout wikiversity - so feel free to help us out, and make suggestions on how we could improve. Overall, though, I'm very happy you're working on this subject - it's such a vital area and could be really useful. I'd like to be able to help you in any way I can. Cormaggio 15:33, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

A final comment - I predict it will be standard practice to have material like this which will fall into different categories and so will be pointed to from different schools, portals, and/or departments (ie "Topic:"s). In other words, you should probably point to this material from any organiser pages that deal with, for example, "English", "Language learning", "TEFL", "TESOL" etc, and/or "Teaching". Hope this helps. Cormaggio 15:40, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

The importance of this school

This school is, without a doubt, the most important one in Wikiversity. Every school/department/community will be about implementing ideas that should be accessible here, both for reading and discussion. The model for learning that has been drafted for Wikiversity so far at Wikiversity:Learning is only a start (see also Portal:Education), but we need to go much further in actually spelling out and co-constructing what kinds of learning we are actually providing for in Wikiversity (eg. from didacticism to equal participation). I'm encouraged by the "fantasy" thoughts above - though they were developed before Wikiversity separated from Wikibooks. I hope the people who contributed above will pitch in here again. But, in any case, I'd ask everyone who is interested in education - and surely this includes everyone who is interested in developing Wikiversity? - to help out with the brainstorming, discussing, debating, and critiquing of the various dimensions of education, both relevant within Wikiversity, and also to the wider world - outside the wiki :-). I'm extremely motivated to help out - and I very much hope others will join me in sharing this enthusiasm... What are your visions of education? Cormaggio 12:23, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm there with you Cormaggio! It's really exciting to be able to share ideas and work together with others who are excited about learning and education! I've been thinking lots over the past year or so as we've worked on the Web Design course (and previously at WikiBooks) and used it for a Web Design course. We've tried lots of things, some work, others dissolve into nothing, but two points are standing out as important for me when creating resources on Wikiversity: (1) Providing learning activities - not content. The importance of Learning by doing just grows and grows for me (as outlined in Wikiversity:Learning). In our Web Design course, it's been the Javascript Challenges, XML Challenges, PHP Challenges, that have drawn people into doing webdesign (rather than reading about it). There's plenty of stuff to read on the net, but not much in terms of doing. (2) Connecting learners with qualifications in their country - and helping them understand them. It's only in the last few weeks that we've started thinking about this again, but we've updated the Web Design qualifications to encourage people to add qualifications from their country. The idea being that the learner can see exactly what skills they need to demonstrate (or collect evidence for), if they choose to work towards a formal qual (see Cert IV Websites Australia for an example). This has become increasingly important to help learners match their skills and learning against the requirements of a formal qual (if they are wanting to do so!).

Hope these ideas/experiences might be useful to others in other areas! (If you're interested to read more about the thinking behind the ideas above, see Demonstrating Webdesign. Cheers, Michaelnelson 23:55, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

This is fascinating. So, first of all, when you say "we", do you mean the people who are contributing to the Web design pages on Wikiversity and/or Wikibooks, or does it refer to people you are connected with through work? Or is it some sort of amorphous network that combines all of these spaces? :-)

Also, when you say you've "tried lots of things", what do you mean? Where and by what means have you tried things? And what things? And, crucially, how have you figured out what works and what doesn't? What does 'not working' mean? Have you asked people about their perceptions of your materials?

Phew! I'll save my million other questions for another time, perhaps. I'm just trying to tease out some sort of experiential perspective on your work here and how these experiences can be learnt from - hopefully, by anyone who is interested. I really feel that we need to lay out our practices, and open them to discussion, and possibly even collegial critique, in order to really engage with what learning is in the context of Wikiversity (or wikis in general), and how we can provide for it. And likewise, I'm delighted that there are other people who are willing to have this conversation - and hopefully we can begin to widen and deepen this conversation into something really meaningful. Glad to see another blog too - I'll add it to mine now ;-). Cormaggio 00:28, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi Cormaggio... I'm probably just being really ambiguous and unspecific! By "we" I meant the amorphous network that combines all these... I try to get lots of feedback from my students in class, but they don't edit the wiki much (yet... a few do, but I wish more did!). So their feedback goes in, but atm usually through me :(. There's a few of us (from around the globe) who edit WebDesign... maybe 3 including me atm. But I'm hoping that will continue to grow... I'm learning myself how to foster growth and participation (not something I'm great at!).

By "tried lots of things" I mean lots of things to help students learn, and specifically, learn towards a qualification. When I initially setup the Webdesign wikibook, I hoped that we could easily connect the learning resources to the competencies for a qualification... but this had lots of issues. Main one being that learning needs to be fun - and often the qualification documents sound incredibly boring. So I left the qualification aspect for the past year, and focused on trying to create fun challenges that are inherently useful and practical (see links above to the Challenges). These were used much more (by my students anyway) than the other resources that I'd created in the past. Often resources (that I've created) in the past have "taught" a subject using categories that make excellent sense to a person who already understands the subject (see any intro to programming to get an idea, categories like "control structures" etc.), but just overload the brain of a person who's new.

Other things we're trying - using the wiki just for learning resources, students also use an email group (to connect with each other and facilitators), an RSS Reader (to connect with professionals and each other alike), their own blogs (not a huge take-up there, only a few passionate ones!), and a course blog (ours is http://designwebsites.blogspot.com) for relevant news and announcements. We use Basecamp to manage our learning (a project management tool, that is a real tool that professional web designers use). So the wiki plays is one tool (for learning resources) in a wider context. There's been a lot of trials, failures and successes along the way (you can read about them on the post that I linked to previously if interested for more detail!).

On the idea of opening up our practices, maybe it would be a good idea for each course to have a page about how (different) people are using the resources there? I'll put it on my todo list for the Web Design course.

Great! Just added your blog to Google Reader :) (need to update my wordpress template so I can include a blogroll!)

Wiki teaching support

I would like to ask, if you are going to support a wiki teaching by anyway. To the future, there might be a need to have a special lessons for carer teachin, such as botany teaching, history teaching...--Juan 20:41, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Cooperation

Hi, I have just founded Pomology Teaching Tools Project, under Department of Pomology, School of Agriculture, where people from the School of Education may cooperate.--Juan 16:45, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Navigation

The school of education is hard to navigate.

• Wikiversity:Naming conventions should be strictly followed so that people can navigate the site well. Incorrectly named pages should be moved to a correct page names without delay. Even incorrectly capitalized page names should be moved because MediaWiki page names are case sensitive. --Rogerhc 23:43, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
• Navigation would be easier if MediaWiki were modified so that all page names were *case insensitive.* --Rogerhc 23:43, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Can you give a specific example of a navigation problem? --JWSchmidt 00:15, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/03/03/hunter

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/03/03/hunter --Remi 08:07, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Volunteer education experts for new initiative?

Anyone interested in helping with this? http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:ImprovingTechnicalContent#Making_Technical_Wikiversity_Topics_Better_Teaching_Tools_by_Utilizing_the_Skills_of_a_Hyper-Multidisciplinary_Team

Daviddoria 18:38, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Editor Here

Hi there, I'm looking to contribute to the writing and usability quality of this page. It's very "meta" (learning about teaching, teaching about learning, etc. etc.), and has the potential to become huge if it's done right. I'm opening a sandbox and I hope people will comment on my changes there, before made to the main page!--User:Romistrub, 15:46, 15 February 2011, signature added by Abd 17:00, 15 February 2011 (UTC)]]

The sandbox page Romistrub created is at User:Romistrub/sandbox/School:Education. However, that page is an exact copy of permanent link. Certainly any user may use the Sandbox or a private sandbox to test changes, but it is much easier to check the changes through page history. These are the changes Romistrub made. As can be seen from the permanent link, there are some serious formatting problems. --Abd 17:00, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Some ambiguity in the key purposes

I notice that a lot of this school's activity was consumed by the overall dimensions of learning through Wikiversity. There is a constant ambiguity between a Wikiversity focus and a pedagogical focus. It makes sense to throw out non-pedagogical references or push them away from the main Education subject's pages. The education school could have a rule for all contributors to use references to Wikiversity only in terms of case study or operational instruction. Many instances of pedagogy lessons don't even need to be run through the portals or schools. It makes no sense to establish a grand vision of Wikiversity from within what should be predominantly pedagogical resources. I'm planning to make edits according to this ambiguity dilemma wherever possible. However, I'm still open to noticing if pages should be flagged as archived for historical purposes. Brett Johnston (discuss • contribs) 10:56, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

@Brett Johnston: There tend to be two types of Wikiversity content contributors: those who have a big vision for what Wikiversity should be, and those who have a specific interest in one or more learning projects. Those with a big vision come in and create organizational resources with lots of red links that no one else ever follows up on. Those with specific interests focus on those interests and generally ignore the big picture.

At its peak, Wikiversity had more than 300 "schools", most of which had little content and drew few visitors. In 2017 an effort was made to eliminate schools with less than one visit per day. See Wikiversity:School Review for more information.

While low-interest school pages were cleaned up and eliminated or moved to portals, the remaining pages were not modified significantly. I can run the MaintenanceBot listing again if you'd like current data on school interest and usage. Anything you'd like to do to clean this and other schools up would be appreciated. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 17:26, 22 April 2020 (UTC)