Wikiversity talk:Wiki as a tool for learning

I really appreciate for your help to educate the people who is interested in learning. I believe that knowledge will be the most valuable material for living in the future. This kind of work that I've never seen before, will also provide and/or back up the self rd-studies. Thanks a lot. I will use it as I can. (The preceding unsigned comment was added by 88.230.17.135 (talk • contribs) 18:17, 27 May 2007 (UTC).)

I've been roaming WV for a couple of months now in order to understand what it is to the people who have contributed content and I am coming to the conclusion that there are really three kinds of editors/ teachers. One editor is a professional educator that brings a class of students to WV to engage in "collaborative learning". The second would be the students that are engaged in this learning program. They too are editors, and even educators, considering that they are providing information that will be presumably useful to a learning audience. The third editor is modeled after the typical Wikipedia editor, someone who is a solo contributor, an afficionado or professional in the field that is happy to express some authority on a subject. (I didn't write the unsigned paragraph above this one by the way). I'm just making this point because I am doing some preliminary organization of WV's identity in my mind. The framing of this topic indicates that this is clearly about using wikis to learn, and excludes the third editor (the one that only wants to teach without guiding physical students to contribute). There may be a topic that addresses this editor as well. I am finding new sections hidden about all the time. I will remove this as soon as I find or create the topic. This is also a breadcrumb I am using for organization. Mbrad 17:59, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

The Problems of Online Education
According to the study Alive in the Swamp: Assessing Digital Innovations in Education, Micheal Fullan and Katelyn Donnelly state... "On pedagogy, study after study has concluded that the impact of digital technology has been stifled when there is no emphasis on the pedagogy of the application of technology as used in the classroom."

On the other hand, a participant of the forum, Historum, said the following in it's thread on Teaching History to Children: "I think at a certain point, we must start teaching children to be historians themselves--how to analyze primary sources and construct an argument. They also need to learn that the narrative fed to them in younger years, from textbooks, is not always the best interpretation."

'''U.S. News reports that 30% of first year college and university students drop out and half never graduate. The problem is that each year one million students are ill prepared for the task or the commitment.''' I know I was one of them. Another factor to consider is that according to BJ Gleason's 2004 paper on Retention Issues in Online Programs: A Review of the Literature, online programs have a high drop out rate and a low retention rate. That students do not have the motivation or self-discipline. As a result for profit education institutions are heavily indebting students they know most of whom will never graduate, and those that do struggle to be able to buy a home when they are so over their head in debt. Creating a situation where they will do anything, including fraud, to get that big bonus to pay off their loans, like in the Goldman Sachs mortgage scam.

Now as a retired art director and marketing communications manager, who was responsible for typography and reading comprehension, I know long lines of type like this make reading comprehension difficult. It is a matter of too many characters and too little space between the lines. So Wikiversity does not have great typography. Also paragraph length also plays a role. In addition, copywriter like me also knows early in the copy to make the discussion relevant to the reader. With all the talk about short concise copy being better, some of my most effective writing was long form. The trick is to keep it compelling. There I believe is why educational text is so boring to students and is of little interest to many students. Before we start spewing educational and historical facts at them, first make it relevant to their interest and needs as they see it. Who am I to talk about the effectiveness of online education? I am the creator of a free online educational web site that is a personalized Self-Organized Learning Environment (SOLE) that uses Google Maps of historical and scientific events to create maps that are essentially a directory type of portal to high quality information from all over the Internet via concise placemarker copy based on being able to see the actual ancient ruin, shipwreck, fossil site, or undersea fracture zone or hydrothermal vent. Many of my Google Maps were recently placed as external links on Wikiversity. For example, see the History of Architecture, Renewable Energy Systems, Structural Geology and others. I am not looking to compete with you, but rather to work with you. Wikiversity comes at students who see online courses, I come at them because as entertainment learning because it interests them and then hope to redirect them to great educational content. My goal is not to spew facts at students, but rather to teach them to learn to learn, provide them with examples of excellent communication of complex subjects that combine seemingly unrelated subjects like why the Industrial Revolution was so vital to the American Revolution, or showing the actual submarine fracture zones, hydrothermal vents, surmounts and mid-ocean ridges associated with the edges of plate tectonics.

I was also the chairman of the Education Committee of then Common Council for the city of Norwalk, CT. And as a corporate creative person I interacted with a lot of highly educated professionals who had to rely on me because they could not communicate their highly technical subject to a wide variety of audiences. Thus, from my point of view, while their schools succeeded in educating them at one level, it failed to make them effective communicators.

Getting back to pedagogy, online education fails in another way because it fails to interact with the student to identify the frustrations the student is having with the technology and understanding the text course. There is no face-to-face interaction or observation of the student while they learn. It does not help when Wikiversity has a page on Biome that the only content on the page is my externally linked maps. On my site, the only way I can tell how students are doing is via my Google Analytics. I spend a lot of time examining the data and making tests and changes.

So what can I do to help? --Pragmaticstatistic (discuss • contribs) 12:13, 25 February 2015 (UTC)


 * I don't mean to offend, but you can help us first by not promoting your website. You are the creator of a free online educational website.  Wait for someone to ask which one, if they care to, or put a link to it on your user page as factual, rather than promotional, background information.


 * it's great that you have such a strong background in pedagogy, but I'm initially struck by a discussion on pedagogy that is more than 50% about the author rather than about pedagogy itself. You have wonderful credentials, but so do most of the other dedicated contributors here.  Add your background information to your user page, and we'll look there if we want to know more about you.


 * You're absolutely right about online resources needing an emphasis on pedagogy. Unfortunately, that requires educating the educators, particularly in an environment where everyone is invited to share what they know and teach others.  The current focus in education is on critical thinking skills, and teaching students to teach themselves rather than just giving them information.  Many Wikiversity learning projects attempt to address this through a learn by doing approach, but there are many other projects that still have an information-dump approach rather than a learn-by-doing approach.


 * The paragraph on retention and indebtedness isn't really relevant here. At Wikiversity, users will continue learning if the resources are helpful, and they'll leave if they aren't.  We set learning free.


 * So, let's get to the point. What can you do to help?  There are many possibilities, depending on your interests.  First on my list would be to learn the culture.  Wikis have their own way of operating, each one with a local flavor and approach.  Here we use the Discussion page to discuss specific issues, and the Colloquium to share general ideas.  Posting on a page like this without any other alert often goes unnoticed.  Only a few of us look at Recent changes to see what else is happening.


 * From there, the question really becomes, what do you want to do to help? I would encourage you to be strategic.  Look at Statistics.  There's no point spending time improving resources that only one or two people a month will see.  Look at some of the most popular and featured resources.  Do they follow good and current pedagogy?  What can be done to improve them?  As you have ideas, share them on the Discussion page for that resource.  If you don't get a response, there may not be anyone monitoring that page, so check in the Colloquium.


 * If you feel a better overall template could be developed that would promote improved pedagogy, develop such a template. Or, develop or improve an existing learning project that shows how to develop Wikiversity learning projects using good pedagogy.  Focus on the practical, and provide links or background information to the more academic aspects that support the approach.


 * Finally, be bold. We welcome your enthusiasm, and you clearly bring much to our adventure.  -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 14:18, 25 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Pragmatic, Wikiversity is, among other things, for learning by doing. If you want to help, start by understanding what a wiki is and how wikis work. From my review of your Wikipedia history, and from what little you have done here so far, you do not understand wikis, and wiki communities. It is not essential, normally, that someone have much knowledge of this to edit a wiki. However, when you become highly active, making many edits, it starts to become more important. So my first answer to your question is "Slow down." Most users will not notice your work at all. They are focused on their own.
 * Your idea to collaborate with Marshallsumter is great. Has he responded yet?
 * Part of your lack of knowledge as to how to collaborate is that you don't make specific links. Above, for example, you refer to History of Architecture, Renewable Energy Systems, Structural Geology. You did not make it convenient for users to look. History of Architecture, Renewable Energy Systems, Structural Geology. Wikilinks. Had you made the links, you would have noticed that two are not pages, as written.
 * The History of Architecture page is an utter mess. You added links to it.. Those links are going to be removed, at least temporarily, because you added links to a rambling essay that replaced a prior page of possible value, and you did not notice it. The page was massively vandalized in 2011, and it wasn't noticed. I just fixed it.
 * Those links can be placed on individual pages. They will be proper as external links, if it's the right page. If you are careful about where and how you place them, I consider them acceptable, even quite useful. Be careful about rate. Adding many links can attract the attention of antispammers, and they tend to shoot first and ask questions later. On wikipedia, your adding of links to your own web site would have been grounds to block you and blacklist the site itself. We will allow it, usually, if you are working on building resources, which does require that links be placed appropriately. The pile of links on that page wasn't appropriate, my opinion.
 * Where should the links go? We don't have the more specific resources where they would be useful, AFAIK. (I have not made an exhaustive search.) Accordingly, I am creating a subpage History of Architecture/Maps. I will place all those map links there.
 * Recommendation (for here and Wikipedia). If you have a conflict of interest, which includes being the author or owner of external material, disclose the COI and ask on an attached talk page, before adding the material. And wait at least a week for a response, before going ahead. If there is a later objection, be cooperative. One of the tricks is a self-reverted edit. I.e., add the link, self-revert "in order to discuss", and then ask, and with the question you can point to a diff or permanent version showing what you want to do. Non-disruptive. Efficient. Do not do it a hundred times a day. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 15:59, 26 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Okay, those page links. It's Renewable energy systems. I left one link of three. One was iffy, burning waste. Toxic dumps is not renewable energy.
 * And it is Structural geology. Nice map. Now, create a publicly-editable map and we would be home free. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 16:27, 26 February 2015 (UTC)