Self Paced Reading Labs

This project attempts to provide a place online with tools where peers, mentors, and colleagues of all ages can experiment with reading and comprehending each others materials. From summaries of JuniorWiki articles created with cartoons for preschoolers to book reports to technical papers under peer review. If people are having trouble figuring out the best reading practices for themselves we wish to help individuals develop knowledge about alternatives which can experimented with to learn what works well pursuit of personal play or work goals.

There exist off line some self paced study materials for reading and grammar using interesting material to capture the students interest. One method uses a box of color coded 2-4 page articles. Once the student has read these they then answer the questions provided. You score yourself and then review your errors. Finally you consult the program's guide or your instructor and proceed to material designed for your current and ever adjusting learning envelope. Using Wikimedia all can experiment with how to best create, modify, track, find and deliver these types of resources to our new and experienced users and content developers.

It is important to develop multiple menus of approaches for participants to experiment with because everyone learns differently and will be in different phases of personal development, responsibilities and capabilities .... and yet we must all learn to play and work together effectively.

This is a large challenge that will probably lead us into some serious scholarship and even some original research in the long term.

Starts Small and Fast
If we can quickly establish this capability on a preliminary basis with a set of self paced assignments, self evaluation, and then the next proposed lesson the kids and adult readers themselves (probably in conjunction with their teachers and mentors) will perhaps start to improve the materials.

It Can Work Like This
For reading comprehension and speed practice we pick a fairly complete high quality Wikipedia article and then make it available to be read. Then using tests and quizzes we help the student to review the material with specific questions. There are several templates available or in development that could be used to point the student to the next appropriate range of suggested lessons. Obviously we will need some education experts to help us sort the material appropriately and develop a consistent comprehensive program that can be effectively used by self study students and small study groups and classes. That is for later when we attract more participation. Initially we start with individual lessons and linked lists and instructions.

These can also be broken out by categories such as astronomy or biology etc. so people can practice their reading comprehension using materials involving subjects they like. We can use not only Wikipedia articles but excerpts (using historical pointers for stability perhaps) from Wikibooks and other material around the web.

Lesson Example
Card Title Manufacturing Cheese  <--- use this for link in linked lists and charts of links to next lesson

Assignment: Read from Wikipedia, Cheese  <--- Notice that today's article is hard coded so we have a stable version. Student is working on same page we wrote quiz for. We could establish a queue where requests for lessons to be updated to reflect egregious errors get priority and shifted to newer corrected versions of the assigned article with an associated up to date quiz for self evaluation.

/quiz

Where next?

If you answered less than two correct retreat to level X or color y and practice comprehending the material. Perhaps try reading slower and more carefully to see all the material or reading faster to maintain your interest in the material being read.

If you answer all questions correctly then either continue on this level if interesting modules remain or advance to the next level for more challenging reading and rigorous testing.

Further examples of lessons

 * /Manufacturing Cheese
 * /Uses of Whey
 * /Spaceflight

Matrix of Self Selection links to guide student to next lesson
Insert here a grid of five or six categories by five or six levels. 25-36 lesson briefs is all I am going to do to illustrate the concept ---> When others get involved we migrate to actual project space and design the organization appropriately to allow us to evaluate and sort the lesson plans effectively into the index for users.

Category


 * /Food Processing
 * /Biology
 * /Human Spaceflight
 * /Super Bowls
 * /Computer Science
 * /Engineering

There will ultimately be hundreds and then thousands of the above in categories and levels. In a way this is a miniature section of Wikiviserity within Wikiversity to allow easy focus on easy related modules that poor readers (kids and adults) can work through to practice their reading skills while absorbing material they enjoy from the encyclopedia. We may need to help the Kidpedia or juniorpedia project get rolling to have material appropriate for lower reading levels.

To Do to complete draft proposal:
 * Pick categories
 * pick individual Wikipedia articles
 * create matrice
 * create lessons
 * classify level of lessons
 * fill in missing levels by new lessons or modification (forking and tailoring) of previously classified lessons
 * discuss organizational challenges with some of Wikiversities web designers
 * design portal page
 * link into the browsing pages icon maze
 * link in from other appropriate schools, divisions, etc.
 * fix subpage links so they do not directly edit

Multi-Language Support
For any language that this project does not already exist we need to make contact with someone fluent in that language to create the program and materials in that Language.


 * http://es.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikichicos A proposal for children's texts?
 * Obviously of great potential use in reading lessons.

Standalone CD or DVD
Perhaps using the techniques used to publish Wikipedia on CD we could make a reading comprehension improvement disk that would allow people to work on reading skills offline?

Other Resources

 * http://www.soschildrensvillages.org.uk/charity-news/education-cd.htm
 * Aimed at kids 8-15 Cleaned up and completed files from Wikipedia 2006. Zip file for GFDL test available at web site.  Anyone using this please figure out a way to get the attribution correct.  Perhaps a standard with all required information on the discussion page?  Mirwin 02:32, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

External References
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/One_Laptop_per_cjild

Google search{online reading instruction}