On 8/15/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
Cormac Lawler wrote:
Yes, I think
you've got me, Birgitte :-). I just
think that NPOV (as I
conceptualise it) is not a useful concept to apply
to Wikiversity.
Don't get me wrong - I wince just as much as anyone
if someone will
try to teach people that the world began 10,000
years ago ;-), but
surely the point of education is to try to get
people to think for
themselves? I see no problem with provocative, even
biased,
educational materials - so long as people are given
the wherewithal to
critically evaluate them. I think we need an analogy
to NPOV -
"completeness" sounds better, but just not catchy
enough :-)
Cormac
Yes I agree and your response just sparked in my mind
a very realistic example. I always thought WV would
find an audience developing homeschooling materials.
Now in the US many people who homeschool do this
because they do not like the lack of religion in
public schools. How will WV handle the develpoment of
science teaching materials for homeschoolers which are
based in "creationism"?
Birgitte SB
Well, Wikipedia, for example, has an article about a given topic, say
[[Earth]]. Wikiversity, I would imagine, will have many learning
resources on the Earth - geared toward particular learner levels, or
styles of teaching. So, much as I wouldn't like there to be a
Creationism school on Wikiversity, I could tolerate it as long as it
was categorised properly - for that level, within that
pedagogical/theoretical framework. I hope that materials will be
searchable for teachers and learners, sop that they can find materials
that suit their needs, quickly. This is one reason we're working on a
metadata patch to be added to wikiversity - though I don't know just
how developed it is yet.
Cormac