Talk:Learning to learn a wiki way

Introduction
I think we should keep the discussion pages for discussions about the content of the pages and what changes need to be made. Discussions about the project and its methods should be subsections of the main article as they are part of the project. So I've moved the answers to Why I want to join this learning project? and  What specific outcomes do I want from this learning project? onto the main page as thay are content rather than comment on the contents of the page.


 * Good move. Wikiversity needs to develop efficient ways to integrate discussions into learning projects. One problem is that discussions quickly become large and the context of what is being said is hard for new-comers to sort-out. We need ways of summarizing discussions and integrating those summaries into central pages...the bulky discussions can ultimately be archived on subpages. --JWSchmidt 16:05, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Interventions
Under subheading "What is to be Done", it is all about "interventions". What is an "intervention" in this context? Mirwin 08:47, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Hi Mirwin and welcome to this project. I've added an explanation of this at The second step is to plan a set of interventions on the main project page Mystictim 13:24, 11 December 2006 (UTC)


 * The section "What is to be Done" has now become The second step is to plan a set of interventions and the explanation of interventions has become a practical description of what they are.

I would like to under take some critical reflection on this subject. On the surface of things making an intervention or taking a particular course of action is just a simple mater of course and effect. It can all be explained away by the application of the laws of physics. However using the laws of physics it would be horrendously difficult to establish the exact chain of events leading to a specific intervention and even more difficult to establish the full consequences of that intervention. Further it is quite conceivable that such an analysis is impossible even in principle for a number of reasons including Quantum uncertainty as outlined in The Emperor's New Mind, chaotic dynamics or that the whole system acts as a Universal Turing machine as described in A New Kind of Science... be back later to finish this of.

Assessing interventions and implementations
If I understand PAR correctly, "interventions" are contributions to parts and pieces of Wikiversity content that are aimed at driving the learning processes toward more effective practices in a deliberate and collaborative way. The collective intention, then, for this project is to look at Wikiversity holistically to see where people's interests are and how we, as a group can better serve the needs. Additionally, we can look at the wider context of mainstream academia to model and set standards for our own online university.

I drafted my perspective of what an "Implementation" might be in my edit early this morning, following the lead presented by the person who came up with the structure of the project page via the section titles (Cormac?). I went ahead and filled in some detail about the assessment of these interventions and their implementations placing my "spin" on it.

I added a footnote-sized look at the Wikipedian example, Wikipedia:Version 1.0 as an example because from my experience, that program was quite successful, particularly in that it "caught on" well and solved a number of problems using a sort of "top down" approach. Meta-topical WikiProjects like Wikipedia:WikiProject The Beatles, Wikipedia:WikiProject Military History, Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life and Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemistry led the way in creating a valuable toolset consisting of consensus-driven methods for content quality assessment that became "standard equipment" for WikiProjects.

After years of watching, I witnessed the process morphing from a desperate struggle into a streamlined process. From my POV, it looked like a revolution. The bots, grading scales, wikipedia-wide classification structures, taskforce model and inter-project co-operation were indeed remarkable innovations. I don't see why this project can't inherit the properties and attributes of the w:Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team. We might even take it up a notch by assessing not only the product (Wikiversity content) but also the process that builds it.

I certainly don't wish to see some evil "cabalish" nature rearing its ugly head, but some responsible leadership is a must for what Wikiversity shall become. I'm thankful that leadership skills are illustrated at such a fundemental level even by the thoughtful and wise choice of the indefinate article, "a" in our title, Learning to learn a wiki way.

If this project is to assume a leadership role, I think it would be wise to examine the page histories of, particularly CORE TOPICS and WORK VIA WIKIPROJECTS. We might consider assessing parts and pieces of wikiversity from small learning groups (Topic: departments) to large teaching staffs (School: facultlies). We might assess them with variables:
 * Academic alignment - how well the project groups align with "standard" academic practice, convention and structure
 * Participation level - content growth and talk page activity percentiles
 * Collaboration - a measure and sense in which individuals and groups cooperates with other individuals and groups (things like accomodating diverse learning paths through relevant links to other projects and such)
 * Civility - maintaining ethical standards, dealing well with controversy, allowing diversity, and so forth.

To reiterate, this project should avoid taking on the nature of a "power structure" or "policing agency", but rather an open, participatory "village pump" styled gathering place for all, whether they simply wander in or enter with an agenda.

The wiki way (from my perspective): Anyone can intervene at any level on anything, implement 'till their heart's content and assess the socks off of anything they care to spend the time and energy on. OK. that's my schpeal. Your turn!

Happy Holidays! :)  19:52, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

User categories
I'm doing some fancy UML mapping in my own personal quest to apply Topic:Computational linguistics and sociology to Wiki-Versity. It is an enigmatic journey into the Deep Thought aspects of the MediaWiki Engine, which I am taking alone at this point despite my own faintness of heart. I'm working in what I call hard hat areas involving Computer Science and other technological high-jinks that I'm not qualified for, but hope to be, with a bit of feedback and guidance.

For this guidance, I've found w:Wikipedia:User categories helpful to locate experts in various fields and track their thought processes by following the breadcrumbs through the Wikipedia. I'm thinking that the new UML/MediaWiki page I'm putting together will offer some clarity about the way USER and GROUP "move" through TOPIC, reading and writing CONTENT as they go.

I'm formulating a strategy that uses Paragraphic illustration to map the primatives involved when a user creates a resource and how that resource is contained in a namespace (main, Topic: Portal: etc...) This methodology (pedagogy? epistomology?) expands to define or at least describe how the user herself or himself becomes an actor within a learning group. For example Schools have a stack of users interested in subjects, topics, areas, specialties and on down the line (general-to-specific).

When the user becomes a "doer" that is, an actual practitioner of some skill or craft, they may qualify to be a certain kind, type, sort... of person such as a musician, journalist, linguist etc.

This may become a method (pedagogical, epistemological, ...) for answering the question of who can, will, wants to, or should do that sort of work. Sure, the practice of claiming to "be something" is prevalant throughout Wikimediate communities, but displaying a userbox and adding yourself to a user category is a trivial, but helpful thing in the aggregation of a real societal entity.

Entity relationships are key elements in Object Oriented Software Design using UML. That's where I pretty much dwell these days in formulating my monsterous strategic map via Topic:Perl, Topic:Object-Oriented Programming, and my MediaWiki Project involvement. Applying this majick to things like Jamming Online and a Sonic user interface for MediaWiki are local current manefestations of my obsession. Unfortunately, I'm learning not to expect a reply – I'm just venting and thinking out loud. I'm nothing. Participation is everything. 00:31, 6 January 2007 (UTC)


 * A major problem we face is that Wikipedia culture has always emphasized the content of the encyclopedia over the expertise of contributors. Wikiversity is in position to shift some emphasis from wiki content to the wiki participants themselves since it is in our mandate to support communities of learners within Wikiversity, not just create static learning resources. The Wikiversity community needs to find ways to identify participants who have expertise and find ways to support participants with expertise as they contribute to the community. As far as I know, the most advanced steps in this direction are the "wikiprojects" that were invented within the Wikipedia project. Some Wikipedia wikiprojects have elected "directors" who can act as stimulants for content development in particular topic areas. Wikiversity has positioned itself well by creating our system of "School:" and "Topic:" content development projects, but it may be wise for Wikiversity to invent a new type of "functionary" who is recognized by the community as having expertise and who is called upon by the community to apply that expertise for the good of the Wikiversity project.--JWSchmidt 01:19, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Action/intervention
A thought is buzzing round my mind - what do we mean by "action" (or "intervention") in an action research design, particularly in a wiki? Action research is generally about planning a set of actions, and then reflecting on these actions in order to set up the next phase of planning and action etc. But what I want to know is how, specifically, does an action fall within the action research design, and is not simply an action that anyone might take at any time (which is the wiki way). Do we simply act, and then, if we feel it's appropriate, retroactively include the action within our action research design (ie our observations and reflections)? Or do we need to specifically plan and agree on an action/intervention before it is to be considered part of the research? I'm posting this also on Talk:Developing Wikiversity through action research - we might discuss this question in a general sense, and also how it could relate to individual projects. I'd be very curious to hear what people think, and to continue the "Interventions" section above. Cormaggio beep 15:28, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Peer Mentoring
This article at Wikibooks implies that various forms of peer mentoring might be useful in wikis where peer groups can easily form. Mirwin 03:30, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Feedback Requested
If the participants of this project could check out the new learning project Self Paced Reading Labs and leave some thoughts on the discussion page or pitch in I would appreciate it. Watching how it evolves when it starts to successfullyt attract more students than content developers might teach us something about how to use wiki effectively. Mirwin 04:36, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

New interventions; a personal approach
--Jolie 15:56, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Generality 4 almost too specific
 * Engaging  3 neutral.  (I fear my objectivity on this criteria)
 * Clarity   3 (I think the plan can be followed but the analysis is vague)
 * Relevancy 2 (I'm not so sure I understand the goal and the previous methodology)
 * Comments: (none)
 * I'm not sure I understand your review scale. The Jade Knight (d'viser) 18:39, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Ah, just read new comments on page. I see.  I'm not sure about the generality scale, however:  the other scales are 1 (worst) to 5 (best).  The generality scale is 1 (worst) to 3 (best) to 5 (worst).  Doesn't fit with the others.  The Jade Knight (d'viser) 18:48, 7 October 2008 (UTC)


 * correct... engaging, clarity and relevancy, the scale goes from 1 to 5


 * I need to know if I hit a 'good balance' between too general and too specific read it as
 * 1 Too general
 * 2 a little too general
 * 3 balanced
 * 4 a little too specific
 * 5 too specific
 * --Jolie 19:19, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Perhaps, for consistency, the scale should be considered "scope", and 1 = inappropriate scope, and 5 = appropriate scope? That would be consistent with the other scales, and the user could comment on whether or not the scope is too general or too specific?  The Jade Knight (d'viser) 19:35, 7 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I love it! thank you.  we'll call it scope.--Jolie 19:49, 7 October 2008 (UTC)