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
Great to have you steering this Charles.
From my view as someone who has been editing for less than two years and
did it in isolation from any other wikimedians I would like to ahre a few thoughts.
1. For me the BIG leap was to understand that I COULD edit. Many, many people think we are a major corporation with edit slaves in lines at some giant warehouse. I found out we were a volunteer project from a French regional newspaper.
Lesson : we need t get the message out there as a movement, and especially as WMUK.
2. The next BIG moment was when I spotted something on WIkipedia that I knew was wrong and dared press the edit button.
Lesson - we need to be getting to people at or before this stage as much as possible to create our future generations of editors.
3. I can still remember how scary the htmllike text was but I was determined, found the offending bit and changed it. I can alos remember the 'wow' factor. 'Look at me - I edited Wikipedia and it didn't break!'
Lesson - this is what we can harness in training sessions and on-line through support.
4. I didn't know anything about reverters, policies, attributions, references etc etc. I just spotted something that was wrong and wanted to make it better. Now approaching my 1000's edit I know so much more and am a better editor but that first edit was important not just to me but to Wikipedia.
Lesson - Help people feel the joy before overwhelming them with too much policy and too many rules. Make the on-line resources simple, in plain English and bite sized.
5. I am lucky not have had an edit reverted (or innocuous perhaps) if my first edit had been destroyed that might have been my last and my huge wealth of obscure knowledge would have been list to the world.
Lesson - we need to support and protect our newbies. On-line support material can do this to some extent.
So let's find the best that exists already, create our own and help Charles achieve this.
We can use video, utube, all sorts of things.
This is to the side but have a look at this 'how to' vid that helped me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfUNxbSNGjw
On Wed, Jun 13, 2012 at 7:46 AM, Charles Matthews < charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com> wrote:
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
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
I agree with everything that Jon said. Editing for the first time is a bit daunting, especially for people with zero online publishing experience. I was quite lucky in that my first edits (of not very many at all, granted) were removing vandalism and I'd worked as an online editor so felt comfortable taking the plunge. However, from speaking to friends and family that most of them wouldn't dream of editing at all, or even realise that they could. I didn't realise that there were so many policies behind Wikipedia either (the first time I saw the admin noticeboard was an eye-opener, I can tell you).
This is where good communication comes in and I think it has a valuable role in supporting the work of the trainers. Charles, it would be great to come and meet with you to discuss the work that's taking place in a bit more detail and share some ideas on how we can share the work that's being done. Perhaps we could try and find (or invite) a couple of high profile newbies to get involved who can then share their experiences. I'd love to be involved in supporting this project.
Stevie
On 13 June 2012 09:19, Jon Davies jon.davies@wikimedia.org.uk wrote:
Great to have you steering this Charles.
From my view as someone who has been editing for less than two years and did it in isolation from any other wikimedians I would like to ahre a few thoughts.
- For me the BIG leap was to understand that I COULD edit. Many, many
people think we are a major corporation with edit slaves in lines at some giant warehouse. I found out we were a volunteer project from a French regional newspaper.
Lesson : we need t get the message out there as a movement, and especially as WMUK.
- The next BIG moment was when I spotted something on WIkipedia that I
knew was wrong and dared press the edit button.
Lesson - we need to be getting to people at or before this stage as much as possible to create our future generations of editors.
- I can still remember how scary the htmllike text was but I was
determined, found the offending bit and changed it. I can alos remember the 'wow' factor. 'Look at me - I edited Wikipedia and it didn't break!'
Lesson - this is what we can harness in training sessions and on-line through support.
- I didn't know anything about reverters, policies, attributions,
references etc etc. I just spotted something that was wrong and wanted to make it better. Now approaching my 1000's edit I know so much more and am a better editor but that first edit was important not just to me but to Wikipedia.
Lesson - Help people feel the joy before overwhelming them with too much policy and too many rules. Make the on-line resources simple, in plain English and bite sized.
- I am lucky not have had an edit reverted (or innocuous perhaps) if my
first edit had been destroyed that might have been my last and my huge wealth of obscure knowledge would have been list to the world.
Lesson - we need to support and protect our newbies. On-line support material can do this to some extent.
So let's find the best that exists already, create our own and help Charles achieve this.
We can use video, utube, all sorts of things.
This is to the side but have a look at this 'how to' vid that helped me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfUNxbSNGjw
On Wed, Jun 13, 2012 at 7:46 AM, Charles Matthews < charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com> wrote:
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
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
-- *Jon Davies - Chief Executive Wikimedia UK*. 07976 935 986 tweet @jonatreesdavies
Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513 Registered Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT. United Kingdom. Telephone (0044) 207 065 0990. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation (who operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects). It is an independent non-profit organization with no legal control over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.
Visit http://www.wikimedia.org.uk/ and @wikimediauk
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
On 13 June 2012 09:30, Stevie Benton wrote
This is where good communication comes in and I think it has a valuable role in supporting the work of the trainers. Charles, it would be great to come and meet with you to discuss the work that's taking place in a bit more detail and share some ideas on how we can share the work that's being done. Perhaps we could try and find (or invite) a couple of high profile newbies to get involved who can then share their experiences. I'd love to be involved in supporting this project.
All good. Write to me offlist and we'll try to fix up something.
On 13/06/12 09:30, Stevie Benton wrote:
I agree with everything that Jon said. Editing for the first time is a bit daunting, especially for people with zero online publishing experience.
That's why I have been promoting editing skills on a Mediawiki website first before going into the lion's den that is the English Wikipedia.
BTW, has anybody done an equalities impact assessment of the training, distance learning and outreach programmes?
Gordo
On 13 June 2012 09:55, Gordon Joly gordon.joly@pobox.com wrote:
On 13/06/12 09:30, Stevie Benton wrote:
I agree with everything that Jon said. Editing for the first time is a bit daunting, especially for people with zero online publishing experience.
That's why I have been promoting editing skills on a Mediawiki website first before going into the lion's den that is the English Wikipedia.
Quite right, from the point of view of the learning curve. The issue would be motivation.
Relevant to this discussion is my own experience. I joined WP almost exactly nine years ago. But for the previous year I had been intensively editing the wiki at http://senseis.xmp.net/ . So I stepped up to a community maybe 100 times larger, but with quite a lot of savvy. Very helpful to me, but not a representative arrival.
Indeed you'll forgive me an anecdote about "How Wikipedia Works" got written. My co-author Phoebe Ayers got her newbie story on p. 302. Where's mine? Well, the editor we were working with, otherwise very good, thought I'd made a mixed message of my arrival story, and it got cut; in compensation I got a box with two of my jokes on p. 351. That is why Gordon's correct observation is muffled in the book, if there at all. (BTW you can't win all the discussions of this kind in co-writing a book, and if you think you can, don't extrapolate your attitude to WP ...)
What had I been doing for the previous nine years? Teaching and playing go. I believe this is something to do with the "contrarian" view I'm pushing, and I did run this idea past the trainer-trainer at the weekend.
Charles
On 13 June 2012 09:19, Jon Davies jon.davies@wikimedia.org.uk wrote:
Great to have you steering this Charles.
Thanks for your input Jon, as well as support so far.
<snip>
Lesson - we need to support and protect our newbies. On-line support material can do this to some extent.
100% agree. In my reply to Gordon I also suggested that the project has a "new take", and here's a sample:
A: "I learn best by doing. I wanted to learn about notability, and so I added {{CSD A7}} to many articles. If you look at my User talk page ..."
B: "I learn best by what I would call a scientific approach. I wanted to learn about notability, so I hung around at [[Category:Speedy deletions]] for a while. Interesting: there is a triage going on. Some tags, such as that idiot A's, are quickly removed, or contested with {{hang on}}, and those articles are saved. Some articles are obvious rubbish and are zapped pretty much instantly. But there is a third class that hang around for quite a while, and obviously the first few admins who look think they are tricksy decisions. I'd like to know more about this third type."
While B is clearly doing a whole lot better, that's not my point. If the default explanation is that they both should start by reading WP:N - then the default explanation can be criticised. The new project is more about gathering up what we learn by thinking about A and B, and C, another fellow, who did learn by reading WP:N. Etc. And writing the lesson.
Charles
I'll read this in full layer (on first glance it looks fine, but I'm mobile).
How does it relate to Wikiversity?
On 13 June 2012 15:46, Andy Mabbett pigsotwing@gmail.com wrote:
How does it relate to Wikiversity?
That's another good point. Wikiversity is a repository of teaching material about all sorts. Moodle is a course management system, and so various things can be done with it (e.g. embed a video clip, set quizzes). If we start here on Moodle we'll never hear the end of it, but a Moodle developer assures me that it is likely to able to do all we have in mind right now, and if not we scare up some PHP programming (playing to our community strength in software engineering).
What I call "wikimodule" (silly name because no actual wiki involved, but still) is figuring out how to get a typical system for managing modules run by a community with our values. If this works out for modules about Wikimedia stuff, there is no reason why it should be restricted by subject matter, of course. So you could get a fancier version of Wikiversity by transcluding bits into a Moodle site run in a "wikimodule" way, I guess. All pie in the sky right now. The real point seems to be that each subject matter area needs a separate "trainer" status class.
I think the serious training point I'd like to make is the extreme "passivity" of the wiki model of distance learning. In the form "encourages curiosity" (where does this link lead?) I would never want that changed. But framed as "WP rather relies on people being curious about reading the instructions" you start to see the issue.
Charles
On 13 June 2012 07:46, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
I have been asked to be project leader for Wikimedia UK's distance learning project. Early days.
[snip]
This sounds like a fantastic project. Thank you Charles for agreeing to lead it and thank you WMUK for agreeing to support it.
I have a question that really applies to the whole training initiative, not just the VLE, but I'll ask it in this thread anyway. Have you given any thought to external accreditation of the courses? We have some good relationships with several universities and could approach them about providing such accreditation (I'm not talking about a degree in Wikipedia, just a certificate with the university's logo next to ours).
This is something that I've been thinking about for a while, and someone else mentioned the same idea at the London meetup last weekend, so I figured it is probably a good enough idea to be worth mentioning.
Thomas
Good question - it was part of my very initial conversation with the CIPR (Chartered Institute of Public Relations). That body has certified training programs for PR professionals all across the United Kingdom in a number of universities. They were desperately keen (after this initial post-May WMUK AGM dialogue about how the hell Wikipedians and PR professionals could ever work together) was over - to build a ethical use of Wikipedia training program that could form part of their own university modules for PR professionals. The initial discussion was that they then wanted to eventually include such a course in a certificated university based programme. Talk was of September 2013 or beyond.
I don't know who is right now responsible for this initiative at Board level, as I've moved back to the land of the paid-for wage slave stuff, but whoever it is could have a chat with Stevie Benton, who knows all the right CIPR people and the idea could be reactivated? Either with a link to the CIPR or in isolation and separately.
A good place to start would be talking with the guys at the CIPR as they would be able to put whichever Board member was responsible for course accreditation in touch with the relevant University person.
Hope helps
Steve
-----Original Message----- From: wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Thomas Dalton Sent: 13 June 2012 16:03 To: UK Wikimedia mailing list Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Distance learning project
On 13 June 2012 07:46, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
I have been asked to be project leader for Wikimedia UK's distance learning project. Early days.
[snip]
This sounds like a fantastic project. Thank you Charles for agreeing to lead it and thank you WMUK for agreeing to support it.
I have a question that really applies to the whole training initiative, not just the VLE, but I'll ask it in this thread anyway. Have you given any thought to external accreditation of the courses? We have some good relationships with several universities and could approach them about providing such accreditation (I'm not talking about a degree in Wikipedia, just a certificate with the university's logo next to ours).
This is something that I've been thinking about for a while, and someone else mentioned the same idea at the London meetup last weekend, so I figured it is probably a good enough idea to be worth mentioning.
_______________________________________________ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
On 13 June 2012 16:12, steve virgin steve@mediafocusuk.com wrote:
Thomas
Good question - it was part of my very initial conversation with the CIPR (Chartered Institute of Public Relations). That body has certified training programs for PR professionals all across the United Kingdom in a number of universities. They were desperately keen (after this initial post-May WMUK AGM dialogue about how the hell Wikipedians and PR professionals could ever work together) was over - to build a ethical use of Wikipedia training program that could form part of their own university modules for PR professionals. The initial discussion was that they then wanted to eventually include such a course in a certificated university based programme. Talk was of September 2013 or beyond.
It would certainly be a very good case study, to see what the Guide on the UK wiki would look like made into actual course material. Based on what we were hearing over the weekend, I would say the conclusion of the study would be roughly that, told to write the cheatsheet for PR folk, we didn't fail to do that, but are left with the weaknesses of any cheatsheet as teaching material.
Charles
On 13 June 2012 16:02, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
On 13 June 2012 07:46, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
I have been asked to be project leader for Wikimedia UK's distance learning project. Early days.
I have a question that really applies to the whole training initiative, not just the VLE, but I'll ask it in this thread anyway. Have you given any thought to external accreditation of the courses? We have some good relationships with several universities and could approach them about providing such accreditation (I'm not talking about a degree in Wikipedia, just a certificate with the university's logo next to ours).
No, having started seriously Monday early I haven't got to everything yet ... let's just say getting quality into teaching material is probably harder than getting recognition of quality once it's there.
Charles
On 13 June 2012 16:23, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
No, having started seriously Monday early I haven't got to everything yet ... let's just say getting quality into teaching material is probably harder than getting recognition of quality once it's there.
It might be worth talking to potential accreditors earlier rather than later in the process (although not having already spoken to them two days in is forgiveable!). One thing you'll need to agree with them in the learning objectives, and they should be worked out before you get too far with producing content.
If our CIPR contacts can put you in touch with the right people at some universities, that would give you an excellent foot in the door.
If it's useful and relevant, I also have a very good contact with someone at the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development (CIPD) who is very much an advocate of training of this kind and is well connected and pretty influential. It may be something that he'd be interested in supporting on a voluntary basis.
Do let me know if this is something that might be of interest and I'll arrange a meeting.
Stevie
On 13 June 2012 16:38, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
On 13 June 2012 16:23, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
No, having started seriously Monday early I haven't got to everything yet ... let's just say getting quality into teaching material is probably harder than getting recognition of quality once it's there.
It might be worth talking to potential accreditors earlier rather than later in the process (although not having already spoken to them two days in is forgiveable!). One thing you'll need to agree with them in the learning objectives, and they should be worked out before you get too far with producing content.
If our CIPR contacts can put you in touch with the right people at some universities, that would give you an excellent foot in the door.
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
On 13 June 2012 16:38, Thomas Dalton
It might be worth talking to potential accreditors earlier rather than later in the process (although not having already spoken to them two days in is forgiveable!). One thing you'll need to agree with them in the learning objectives, and they should be worked out before you get too far with producing content.
So getting into more detail: what I'm proposing to do for WMUK myself includes four "baseline" tasks. One of those I didn't mention as a subproject, but it is the step of taking the baseline list of topics and rendering it into a baseline list of specifications of modules. So the spec here will be a standardised "what you will learn" at least. Technically you'd work with separate "aims" and "objectives", and having been told by a Board member that "objectives" should be at least potentially measurable, getting that deep at the baseline stage might be too much. I think I have to work out version control and categorisation of modules before knowing everything about what to do here. Spec might just mean a sensible two-category system first.
By the way I intend to use A, B, C and X for assumed Wikimedia knowledge, for a coarse audience categorisation. So A = entry-level, B = intermediate, C = advanced: merging two articles appears first at B level, with added history merge at C level with some indication that the audience is admins or those who want to be. X is for self-styled expert. One thing that would fun would be the "So you think you know about?" series of quizzes. Think copyright mavens ...
Charles
On 13 June 2012 17:11, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
It might be worth talking to potential accreditors earlier rather than later in the process (although not having already spoken to them two days in is forgiveable!). One thing you'll need to agree with them in the learning objectives, and they should be worked out before you get too far with producing content.
So getting into more detail: what I'm proposing to do for WMUK myself includes four "baseline" tasks. One of those I didn't mention as a subproject, but it is the step of taking the baseline list of topics and rendering it into a baseline list of specifications of modules. So the spec here will be a standardised "what you will learn" at least. Technically you'd work with separate "aims" and "objectives", and having been told by a Board member that "objectives" should be at least potentially measurable, getting that deep at the baseline stage might be too much. I think I have to work out version control and categorisation of modules before knowing everything about what to do here. Spec might just mean a sensible two-category system first.
I suspect there might be some confusion here caused by there being two different meanings of "objective" that are relevant to this project. There are the learning objectives of the course, ie. what should the student know/be able to do by the end of the course that they didn't know/weren't able to do at the start? Then, there are the objectives of the project, which the chapter uses to judge whether the project is a success. I suspect the board member was saying that the project's objectives need to be measurable (for example, you might have an objective to teach 150 courses to at least 100 different students with a pass-rate of at least 80% and a student satisfaction of at least 75% - I'm picking numbers out of thin air, of course, the real numbers need to be based on what is realistically achievable).
Assessment of the students is a separate question, and another one that any accreditor would want to discuss. You can fix problems with assessment later, though. Problems with learning objectives need to be fixed before people spend too much time creating learning materials, which is why I mentioned them.
On 13 June 2012 17:37, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
On 13 June 2012 17:11, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
It might be worth talking to potential accreditors earlier rather than later in the process (although not having already spoken to them two days in is forgiveable!). One thing you'll need to agree with them in the learning objectives, and they should be worked out before you get too far with producing content.
So getting into more detail: what I'm proposing to do for WMUK myself includes four "baseline" tasks. One of those I didn't mention as a subproject, but it is the step of taking the baseline list of topics and rendering it into a baseline list of specifications of modules. So the spec here will be a standardised "what you will learn" at least. Technically you'd work with separate "aims" and "objectives", and having been told by a Board member that "objectives" should be at least potentially measurable, getting that deep at the baseline stage might be too much. I think I have to work out version control and categorisation of modules before knowing everything about what to do here. Spec might just mean a sensible two-category system first.
I suspect there might be some confusion here caused by there being two different meanings of "objective" that are relevant to this project.
Kind of a red herring, but no need for mystery. At the workshop I prepared the presentation on "talk page etiquette" with Doug Taylor and we gave it jointly. Doug is immensely experienced in all this stuff: he said "measurable objectives", whatever the trainer-trainer had said. So ours were signing, colon indents, and ability to create new section on talk pages. And, yeah, you can count contributions of those types. Shame I skimped on saying out loud while we were presenting what exactly the objectives were, but I did say we had three (I think) (getting to this sort of detail you need a video).
Charles
On 13 June 2012 17:51, Gordon Joly gordon.joly@pobox.com wrote:
On 13/06/12 16:02, Thomas Dalton wrote:
This sounds like a fantastic project. Thank you Charles for agreeing to lead it and thank you WMUK for agreeing to support it.
What is the current budget?
I'm making business cases for deliverables individually. The overall training budget is 20K?
Charles
On 13/06/12 18:05, Charles Matthews wrote:
On 13 June 2012 17:51, Gordon Jolygordon.joly@pobox.com wrote:
On 13/06/12 16:02, Thomas Dalton wrote:
This sounds like a fantastic project. Thank you Charles for agreeing to lead it and thank you WMUK for agreeing to support it.
What is the current budget?
I'm making business cases for deliverables individually. The overall training budget is 20K?
Charles
So the distance learning is a fraction of £20K?
I believe you said that there would be volunteer effort, but in any case, I would not expect much from such a small budget for such a difficult and technical area (that is distance learning).
Regards,
Gordo
On 14 June 2012 07:41, Gordon Joly gordon.joly@pobox.com wrote:
On 13/06/12 18:05, Charles Matthews wrote:
On 13 June 2012 17:51, Gordon Jolygordon.joly@pobox.com wrote:
On 13/06/12 16:02, Thomas Dalton wrote:
This sounds like a fantastic project. Thank you Charles for agreeing to lead it and thank you WMUK for agreeing to support it.
What is the current budget?
I'm making business cases for deliverables individually. The overall training budget is 20K?
Charles
So the distance learning is a fraction of £20K?
I believe you said that there would be volunteer effort, but in any case, I would not expect much from such a small budget for such a difficult and technical area (that is distance learning).
That comment being written in an expectation-lowering way, and also not being within my remit to answer, I'll make some remarks. Firstly I held off sending Jon Davies any concrete and costed proposals until I had attended the "Training for Trainers": I thought it was premature. I then hit the ground running about 74 hours ago; and posted to this list as soon as I had figured out what I called the "interlocking" in my first post.
I question the assumption that money is likely to be the limiting factor in building the online community: I think "some things money can't buy" is a really good general explanation of Wikimedia's success.
And the other point is this: the genesis of this project was my unsuccessful tender to train WMUK's trainers. In it I basically suggested WMUK clone the Open University's OpenLearn project. I consulted two people associated with the OU before doing that. The OU are world leaders in distance learning. Against precedent, as I have noted, my direction is to assume we can lift and adapt what they do, conditional only on making sure that our community values are placed front and centre.
I could go on, but we don't have necessarily to buy in advice except the trainer-training. There is a Moodle community who may take it very well if WMUK endorses Moodle rather than saying someone should reverse-engineer it and write a MediaWiki extension, even if that means junking years of development of the features that educators have actually asked for. The OU possibly do not see WMUK as a rival, but as on the same side. Who knows.
Charles
On 14/06/12 08:28, Charles Matthews wrote:
I question the assumption that money is likely to be the limiting factor in building the online community: I think "some things money can't buy" is a really good general explanation of Wikimedia's success.
Indeed. But not in the complex task of distance learning with accreditation.
Spend the money on people in rooms! More bangs for the buck!
Gordo
On 14 June 2012 08:31, Gordon Joly gordon.joly@pobox.com wrote:
On 14/06/12 08:28, Charles Matthews wrote:
I question the assumption that money is likely to be the limiting factor in building the online community: I think "some things money can't buy" is a really good general explanation of Wikimedia's success.
Indeed. But not in the complex task of distance learning with accreditation.
Spend the money on people in rooms! More bangs for the buck!
I do value your input; and this thread seems me at the very least one of the most constructive we have ever had on this list. I'd like to say that I'm not currently thinking of the VLE project as a vehicle for accreditation. The WMUK plan to accredit trainers is an input to the VLE idea; I think perhaps regarding accreditation as a significant output of the project ought to wait just a little while. Presumably the trouble with accreditation systems is that they are only as good as their weakest link.
Charles
15k for the whole project, I believe?
Richard Symonds, Wikimedia UK On Jun 13, 2012 5:52 PM, "Gordon Joly" gordon.joly@pobox.com wrote:
On 13/06/12 16:02, Thomas Dalton wrote:
This sounds like a fantastic project. Thank you Charles for agreeing to lead it and thank you WMUK for agreeing to support it.
What is the current budget?
Gordo
______________________________**_________________ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/**mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-lhttp://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
Train the Trainers Budget is actually 20K.
The bulk is for the weekend training sessions then some for setting up the Virtual Learning Environment, some for organising sessions requested by external organisations and the change goes for paying travel, accommodation (hostel OR hotel!) etc.
Our aim is to get three tranches of trainers trained in this financial year and, if we can, hold training out of London which would be good.(Suggestions for location that would attract people please). If we go a bit over budget Martin and I will grovel to the board but I think this is soooooooooooo important if we are to grow new editors and enthusiastic Wikiepedians.
Jon
PS Agree with Charles that this has been a useful discussion.
On Wed, Jun 13, 2012 at 6:13 PM, Richard Symonds < richard.symonds@wikimedia.org.uk> wrote:
15k for the whole project, I believe?
Richard Symonds, Wikimedia UK On Jun 13, 2012 5:52 PM, "Gordon Joly" gordon.joly@pobox.com wrote:
On 13/06/12 16:02, Thomas Dalton wrote:
This sounds like a fantastic project. Thank you Charles for agreeing to lead it and thank you WMUK for agreeing to support it.
What is the current budget?
Gordo
______________________________**_________________ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/**mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-lhttp://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
I had a further series of useful discussions on the VLE project at the editathon. Andy asked about details, and so I have posted all there is, really, on
http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Charles_Matthews
General discussion can proceed here, of course. If you think I should edit that document please go to the User talk page so I can respond in our time-honoured fashion.
Charles
wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org