This sounds rather interesting Charles. Please do bear in mind that Wikinews can be a good way of opening doors. If you can put together a good article on a major cultural event (Examples [1], [2]), then the relevant institutions will be more than happy to keep talking to you.

[1] http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/National_Museum_of_Scotland_reopens_after_three-... [2] http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/A_portrait_of_Scotland:_Gallery_reopens_after_%C...

Brian McNeil -- Wikinews, Accredited Reporter. Personal: brian.mcneil@o2.co.uk "Facts don't cease to be facts, but news ceases to be news."

-------- Original Message -------- Subject: [Wikimediauk-l] Distance learning project From: Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com Date: Wed, June 13, 2012 7:46 am To: UK Wikimedia mailing list wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org

I have been asked to be project leader for Wikimedia UK's distance learning project. Early days.

Let me try to clarify what all this is about. It is a subproject of the training effort, which already has the actual training and outreach calendar events, and the Training for Trainers (TfT) strand. It is another piece in the jigsaw. The desired outcome is an online community with a virtual learning environment (VLE) that is hosting and developing teaching modules that will effectively teach Wikimedia topics (in English, as of the moment).

So far the distance learning project (VLE project for short) has three subprojects I want to announce:

(1) Content (i.e. topic policy and content scavenger hunt)

To start with there will be a defined scope, divided into two unequal sections: Core and Outreach. For example at the first TfT workshop last weekend there were four presentations: on talk page etiquette, dispute resolution, GLAM and Wikipedia in Education. Of these the first two are Core and the second two Outreach. The main thrust of the project will be to get to the point where anyone can learn all the Core topics in decent teaching modules that are designed to common educational principles and standards. But Outreach is not going to be off-topic.

This is an area where anyone can help right now. All content will be CC-by-SA. Initially existing CC-by-SA text can be used to seed modules. E.g. the whole Help: namespace on enWP: I'm talking to Peter Coombe (User:The wub) about this, who is on a WMF fellowship working over that material.

What I really need help with is with (a) FAQ-like material (what people tend to ask us about) and its subset (b) standard OTRS queries. There are lists of OTRS standard answers, I know. Please write to me offlist with suggestions: "how to start an article" and "how to reuse material" are typical. This is pretty basic to make sure the VLE teaches what people want to learn.

(2) Moodle. Free-source course management system. When there is something to discuss, moodle.org would be the place. If you have Moodle expertise and would like to be involved, please let me know offlist.

(3) Community. The acronym MBWL (i.e. Moodle-based but wiki-like). and hashtag #wikimodule now exist: that was the easy part.

You will be glad to know that there are some policies too. There will be "modules" and "good modules" and "featured modules". MBWL:GOOD says that only good modules go public, and that pure lesson plans, or pure distance learning modules without IRL notes, don't qualify as good. It also says the procedure of grading an article good and so publishing it will be under the control of the whole account-holding community, and will be a box-ticking exercise. MBWL:FM states that grading a module featured will be a threaded review process under the control of the account holders who are also accredited via WMUK and TfT (this is where things start to interlock). The rationale for this policy states that the VFL regards debates on how people learn as off-topic there. They are on-topic in other places, such as a page on uk.wikimedia.org where anyone can debate the quality definition on the talk page, but which is edited by trainers who have done the TfT course and so are at least starting from common ground.

There is an existing education email list that may prove helpful for detailed thrashing-out.

I shall be available at the WWI Editathon on Saturday if anyone wants to chat about all this, or let me near a whiteboard.

Charles

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