User:Wanderwits

Mediawiki has a good beginning. If it were not, we would all be paying a toll to some corporate entity, with a tax, and most of us would be excluded based on economic status.

Although this is the worst possible medium for expressing creative ideas we must begin somewhere. What is the consensus on open source education? What resources do we have to create a place where free people can ride information paths to a certificate or a degree? Open source education is the only way to free ourselves from the commercial grip of public bureaucracies. Education is not a commodity. Education should be a free right available to everyone equally. Think about that a moment. To liberate ourselves from ignorance, we must build an open source university, and then we must ensure everyone in the world has access.

How do I see Mediawiki's role in education? Let's not re-invent the wheel. The question is how to convert commercially published educational content into open source content. Mediawiki has broken through the information barrier. Companies can copyright their content, but they can not copyright information. Education requires information, and skill building. The challenge is to make pathways and filters using MediaWiki resources focusing on the course content. To build skills, student utilities are needed to master the content. There are different challenges for each of the three R's. Mediawiki needs to extend many more software tools to reach this goal. Examples of software oriented learning are rampant in the commercial markets. New Wiki utilities are needed in the Wiki editing environment to serve the purpose of grouping sets of standardized course content. Tools are needed to build the sets, and tools are needed to build the sections which are found in any advanced scholastic text. We only need to look at latest edition school textbooks to get ideas. We might call these MediaWiki tools, "Wiki Digital Textbooks". The model is there in every textbook. The method the texts use for learning are already there. All WDT's follow a frame. This spurs endless ideas for a WDT open source interface, editors and user platforms.

A school consists of many parts; buildings, books, teachers, principles, standards, and students. I truly believe all the parts of our community may be represented digitally to build social communities with common goals, and may potentially solve the core problems of civilization. Is it not obvious the service which MediaWiki has served with Wikipedia? Let's take a hint, there is much more work to be done in the open source direction. The lesson of digital social engineering has to be,"that which works are digital tools where people participate willingly, and there is a mutual benefit which satisfies us on some emotional level." Our aseptic idea of digital information management is only a small part of much greater biological reality. Think of the digital world as a place which increases our choices and extends our reach. Wikiversity is a natural direction for us all.

I am Wanderwits. I am not sure how I may contribute to the effort, I know I am all for it. Wikiversity will not replace schools, but it will be one more avenue for people to find their dream. It is no doubt one day college professors will be directing us to the Wiki Digital Textbooks instead of the college bookstore. Sorry to the major textbook publishers, but either get in and get involved or go extinct like the dinosaurs.

So, we may not succeed without ingenuity and cooperation. As Wikipedia served editors and users, we might conceive of a platform which serves all the participants of a school system. Look at a school and include them in every way. Look at the services a school provides and include those services in every way. Look at the providers to a school and include them in every way. Look at the goals of a school and include those goals in every way. Then, Wikiversity may not only be accepted it will be embraced by our community.

I may be reached at yahoo folks.