Re: [WikiEducator] Free micro courses: Digital literacies for academic purposes (starts 7 August 2019)

[kirby urner]

Digital Math is growing more popular in Silicon Forest (Portland area
especially).

http://wikieducator.org/Digital_Math

I've been freely sharing School of Tomorrow curriculum materials and
teaching online.

I'm in my 3rd version of field testing the components (Martian Math
especially) in a summer school.

The students are middle school aged, but they get to use college computer
lab equipment (we discourage scientific calculators as unsuitable for any
serious 21st century curriculum).

Kirby Urner




On Mon, Jul 22, 2019 at 7:55 PM Wayne Mackintosh 
wrote:

> Hi everyone,
>
> Commencing on 7 August 2019  (together with the national Centre for Open
> Education Practice in New Zealand) we are offering a series of free online
> courses to support the development of digital literacies for academic
> purposes.
>
> Please share the gift of knowledge with your networks and prospective
> learners who could benefit from these oer-enabled courses.
>
> *Link for expressions of interest*:  *https://oer.nz/lida2019*
> <https://oer.nz/lida2019>
>
> (I include a poster you can use to promote these free micro-courses for
> the benefit of your community.)
>
> Many thanks.
>
> Wayne
>
>
>
>
> Wayne Mackintosh (PhD)
> UNESCO / ICDE Chair in Open Educational Resources
> Managing Director,  OER Foundation and OERu facilitator
>
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Re: [WikiEducator] Abridged summary of wikieducator@googlegroups.com - 1 update in 1 topic

[kirby urner]

On Sat, Apr 30, 2016 at 3:07 PM, kirby urner  wrote:

>
> This course looked like an interesting way of dividing through a huge
> volume of material, providing a unifying heuristic, a set of categories,
> from using it, to finding it, to sharing it (with more steps in between).
>
> Plug for my own site:  http://wikieducator.org/Digital_Math (up to 11K
> views since inception), many blessings to Wikieducator for allowing
> me to showcase my wares (curriculum writing  designs).
>
>
FYI, here's a recent post to the publicly archive MathFuture with an
appreciative citation back to Digital Learning Literacies:

http://wikieducator.org/User:Vtaylor/Learning_literacies

http://bit.ly/1ZoOr2u  <-- goes to Google Group public archive

(to Protect It in particular)

Kirby


Background about me, from CERM Academy blog:

*Bio:*

Kirby entered the world stage near the campus of the University of Chicago,
where  his dad was getting a PhD in Urban Planning, and soon moved to
Portland, Oregon,  a city known for its city planners.  However Jack wished
a blanker canvas, a developing  country or region to work with, and the
family soon moved to Rome, Italy from where  Jack could plan for Libya.
The family continued globe hopping, to the Philippines, Egypt,  Bangladesh,
Bhutan, Lesotho and South Africa (where Jack died).  Kirby obtained his  BA
from Princeton, under the tutelage of Richard Rorty and peers, and focusing
on  the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein (thesis topic).  He was always
interested in  computers ]devoted many hours to their study.  Programming,
along with teaching,  have been the pillars of his technical career.  He
partnered with his wife to be in  1990 to form a consulting business, Dawn
Wicca and Associates (DBA 4D Solutions)  which thrived until she died of
invasive breast cancer (IBC) in 2007.  Kirby has two  daughters.  His
mother Carol, is a world famous peace activist and his sister Julie lives
in Whittier, Greater LA.  Kirby currently teaches computer programming for
a variety of outfits (his resume is at Grunch.net <http://grunch.net/>).

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Re: [WikiEducator] Abridged summary of wikieducator@googlegroups.com - 1 update in 1 topic

[kirby urner]

On Sat, Apr 30, 2016 at 3:07 PM, kirby urner  wrote:

<< SNIP >>


> To incentivize around the integrity of the individual makes for a
> strong beginning, with protecting a company's perimeter, a team's,
> a family's, a part of the follow-on logic.  The code schools are looking
> for ways to share about cyber-security and Protecting It is all about
> protecting identity theft.
>

Protecting *against* identity theft I should have said, hah hah.

Just to flesh out the picture a little more, here in the US we have
rising concern that the conventional education system is falling
short of aspirations, especially when it comes to "STEM" subjects.

The "code school" phenomenon is somewhat amorphous and is
typified by such as Codeacademy and FreeCodeCamp in cyberspace,
and by brick and mortar schools on the ground.

I've been working with a virtual school named O'Reilly School of
Technology which shut down earlier this year, leaving some traces
but not many. [1]

Since then, I've been checking out the more "brick and mortar"
implementations, where people actually show up for "boot camp"
or whatever courses.  Here's an album of photos giving some
impressions of what that's been like for me:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/kirbyurner/albums/72157664250599655

Since teaching Introduction to Programming (Accelerated), I've
switched to attending evening free-for-all meetups, and networking
through there.  I have another album giving a view of what that's
like:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/kirbyurner/albums/72157664766721643

The age range is very wide.  We get some high school aged
refugees, concerned their home school curriculum is denying them
access to the kinds of topics we teach.

Kirby

[1] http://archive.oreilly.com/oreillyschool/index.html

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Re: [WikiEducator] Abridged summary of wikieducator@googlegroups.com - 1 update in 1 topic

[kirby urner]

This course looked like an interesting way of dividing through a huge
volume of material, providing a unifying heuristic, a set of categories,
from using it, to finding it, to sharing it (with more steps in between).

Plug for my own site:  http://wikieducator.org/Digital_Math (up to 11K
views since inception), many blessings to Wikieducator for allowing
me to showcase my wares (curriculum writing  designs).

I likewise attempt to break a huge volume down, into just four categories
in my Heuristics for Teachers:

* futuristic math (martian math): murky future, bucky fuller influenced
* past math (neolithic math): murky past, astronomy, geological time

as one axis, and then in each time period:

* sharing / distributing (supermarket math):  eCommerce, logistics
* taking risks (casino math): investing, probability, statistics

Lately, I've been teaching virtual classrooms of students mostly in the
Bay Area, Silicon Forest, those selecting from a menu of offerings
to pursue Python, the computer language.

I'm actually not in California but in Portland, Oregon, with head-
phones and microphone, optical fiber, shared screen,

I'm able to host what amounts to a call-in radio show, or "text in" as
the case may be.  Check my LinkedIn profile for more clues.[1]

California proactively provides professional upgrade courses to its
already-employed, the goal being to improve the quality of their existing
jobs.  I've done 3x 40 hours teaching that material in recent months,
with a company called Saisoft (based in Irvine).

I bring this up as a segue to your "Protecting It" category, which
translates in my namespace to "cyber-security".  You're wise to
focus on protecting the integrity of one's own identity and insisting
on getting credit for one's original work (be that monetary, or in the
case of other reward systems, simply reputation points for having
made a difference in some field, the academic currency aside from
cash (it's not either/or)).

To incentivize around the integrity of the individual makes for a
strong beginning, with protecting a company's perimeter, a team's,
a family's, a part of the follow-on logic.  The code schools are looking
for ways to share about cyber-security and Protecting It is all about
protecting identity theft.

You'll find I've been blogging for CERM Academy [2], one of several schools
aimed at training up "risk managers" per new ISO standards.  The role
such standards play in the business world is fascinating to study and not
without its detractors.  Bah humbug standards.

As someone who follows the story of JavaScript [tm] fairly closely
(an ECMA standard) I'm aware that standards committees have a
non-trivial role to play in some circles.

CERM Academy is about training folk in "risk based thinking"
which is more than simply responding, reacting, to breaches of
security.  That's too behind the curve.

Sorry if I seem to ramble, just circling a domain I'm focused on, one
could summarize "optimal code school curriculum" where a "code
school" is a semi-new institution growing up to share IT skills with
those seeking to break in, sometimes in a hurry, with high hopes
of fulfilling dreams.

For more on Code Schools, I'll cite this blog post from today:
http://controlroom.blogspot.com/2016/04/code-school-gift-shop.html

Kirby

[1]  https://www.linkedin.com/in/4dsolutions

[2]  http://insights.cermacademy.com/tag/kirby-urner/


On Sat, Apr 30, 2016 at 4:26 AM, Valerie Taylor  wrote:

> DeAnza College funded the development of a course called Digital
> Learning Literacties.
> http://wikieducator.org/User:Vtaylor/Learning_literacies
>
> The Digital Learning Literacies course not offered as a stand-alone
> course. The activities and resources are used within other courses
> with great results.
>
> We have been surprised by the feedback. Our students live, work and
> study in the heart of Silicon Valley, California, and yet, many have
> little or no prior knowledge or experience with many of the concepts
> and tools. For many, the notion of a Personal Learning Network (PLN)
> is an abstract concept.
>
> The course resources are update continuously - great app smashing
> thanks to Jim Tittsler. As new resources are identified by the
> instructors and students, they are bookmarked and tagged in diigo.
> With the clever little one liner in WikiEducator, the most recent
> items in the diigo rss feed get plopped into the resources page list!
> Older, less appropriate resources are removed based on student
> recommendations. Great critical thinking activities.
>
> The proposed outline for the Learning in a Digital Age course
> specifically addresses many of the same issues that we cover as
> objectives. Looking forward to seeing this course develop as it will
> provi

Re: [WikiEducator] K-12 teachers in resource rich environment

[kirby urner]

I was at an EduSummit with Bender in Santa Clara not long ago.

We're still gaga for turtles although at O'Reilly I've phased in the
Tractor as the new turtle, just for some variety in what we call
the avatar.  Sounds more grown-up and lets me take advantage
of social realism as a marketing tool.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/kirbyurner/9026566473/in/album-72157625646071793/
(no tractors here, but you get the idea)

Speaking of which, positive mention of Wikieducator in the Python News
post I just published:

https://mail.python.org/pipermail/edu-sig/2015-May/011242.html

Kirby



On Tue, Apr 28, 2015 at 5:33 PM, Jim Tittsler  wrote:

> Walter Bender's OLPC roundup this week mentions an interesting article
> in The Atlantic about the future role of K-12 teachers in the face of
> readily available and accessible resources:
>
> http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/03/the-deconstruction-of-the-k-12-teacher/388631/
>
> I think I side more with Walter's skepticism, but am equally excited
> with the quality of some of the resources available. (The license
> terms of some of them are still quite off-putting, but impressive work
> nonetheless.)
>
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Re: [WikiEducator] HTML5 and eLearning

[kirby urner]

Always good to hear from you Ed.  Sugar Labs was high profile with Bender
keynote at edusummit at Pycon.

Keep on keepin on.

Kirby

On May 7, 2013 8:41 PM, "Edward Cherlin"  wrote:
>
> The Sugar Labs developers who support One Laptop Per Child are also
> developing HTML5 applications, including versions of our Sugar
> education software. I expect to be able to use this technology in our
> Replacing Textbooks program

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Re: [WikiEducator] HTML5 and eLearning

[kirby urner]

Thanks for the link.  I agree that HTML5 is helping a lot.  The new
Mozilla smartphone, of which I've so far seen only one, is based on
it.  JavaScript has to pick up a lot of the slack, as the HTML
controller, versus ActionScript inside of Flash.

I work in eLearning as an instructor.  Sometimes our students use a
remote desktop client and we do everything on the server, bypassing
the client-side browser.  Other times we're in-browser.

I also hold out hope for the dedicated eLearning appliance one might
call it.  Think of video arcades with custom peripherals or booth-like
environments.  At the higher end, think of flight simulators.  I can
well imagine a large room full of "learning machines" (like a gym)
where each is a custom experience.

Kirby



On Tue, May 7, 2013 at 6:55 AM, dhinckley  wrote:
> What technology is the future of elearning? and how do you account for
> legacy and unsupported systems?  This article provides some insight:
> http://leanforward.com/elearning-development-and-html5/
>
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Re: [WikiEducator] Re: Why classrooms are important?

[kirby urner]

"The classroom" is like "the stage" in theater, a space that may be filled
(temporarily) by any number of dramas.

Some classrooms are specialized to a specific subject and/or age group.
Some "belong" to a specific teacher.

Sometimes teachers, trainers, workshop leaders "reserve a classroom" (might
be in a hotel, church, university or office building) and people meet
there, but there's no sense of ownership on the part of the students or
teacher.

Some classrooms are small and intimate.  Others large and crowded.

Many classrooms have special furniture, called desk-chairs, with writing
surfaces.  Sometimes these desk-chairs are sized for small people such that
most adults could not sit in them.

In some classrooms, the writing surface gives way to a tablet (an
electronic one, not clay), and up front there may be a projector screen or
an HDTV (back lit),  on more than one.  There may be one or more web cams.

Some classrooms feature more than one teacher.  There may be an assistant
who wanders the room, helping individuals.  There may be a two or three
teachers.  They converse with each other as well as with students.

Sometimes classrooms are a place where treasured memories are formed and
where one comes to respect and bond both with the teacher and with one's
classmates.

Sometimes a classroom is a living hell, where some nasty buffoon lords it
over the smaller people, those with fewer rights and no authority.
Sometimes the teacher is little more than a bully.

Some classrooms are more like studios, where the teacher contacts experts,
professionals, storytellers, and interviews them on-line in front of
students, encouraging students to jump in with questions or comments.

In some classrooms, the teacher is younger than any of the students,
because the subject area is one that the younger person knows better.

Some classrooms provide just a component of the education, and perhaps not
the most important component.

In flight school, you need classroom time and time in an airplane.  Same
with scuba diving.

Learn about Boyle's Law in the classroom, but then actually dive in the
ocean as well, to get the credential.  Many skills and types of knowledge
cannot be taught in classrooms alone.

Many whole cultures as well as individuals have bad memories of
classrooms.  When Anglophone immigrants came to our area, people already
living here had their children herded into boarding schools, where they
were taught that the ways of their parents and grandparents were wrong
and/or backward.

These students did not learn the language of their people and were made
mentally handicapped and physically awkward, more like the Anglos
themselves.

The classroom is many times a tool of the state, used as a bully pulpit to
instill the values of a particular ruling elite.

In some of these dramas, the ones to romanticize and respect are the
students who rebel and say "no" to the status quo.  We probably all know
such dramas.  The students walk out, boycott.  We applaud.  Gandhi was a
master of the organized boycott.

Nowadays, we have classrooms *and* we have so much more.  We are blessed
with more freedoms.

Today, if you live in a state where the classroom ethics and etiquette are
not to your liking, you may band with other parents and home school,
creating classrooms in different homes or finding space in churches and
sympathetic office buildings.  You may even form your own school and get it
chartered.

I have been a classroom teacher (full time) and a distance education
teacher (full time).  Each has its pluses and minuses, nor is it either /
or.   The classroom is not going to disappear, but nor is education the
exclusive monopoly of the classroom based.

I look forward to many more interesting configurations for learning as time
goes on.  The classroom with one teacher and 30-40 students is a familiar
format / template, but is just nevertheless but one of many staging
options.

Many well educated people will not and/or have not spent much time in such
rooms.  More power to 'em.

Kirby


On Fri, Feb 1, 2013 at 4:34 AM, Sraban Bag  wrote:

>
> Classrooms are important in-fact plays an important part in the whole
> process of education.
>
>
> It is so because classroom helps the child to learn the social etiquette
> and nurtures him all the attributes that helps him to adjust in the
> society, which reflects the true meaning of education. No doubt collection
> of information can be possible through different ways and sources to expand
> wisdom but it is in this setting that instills the true spirit of
> education. Where the child is not a passive listener but an active
> participant making the use of his cognitive, affective and psycho-motor
> skills. (Of course teacher has a very crucial role to play). In the present
> society where there is tough competition and rapid slow down in the human
> values making the child ‘stereotyped’ classroom are important but with
> proper setting in terms of curricula, methods of teaching,

Re: [WikiEducator] Re: Why classrooms are important?

[kirby urner]

I think from a student's point of view, one should think in terms of a
mix of on-line and in-person classes.

The pitfall is to think it's either / or.

The notion that we need to decide "which is better?" depends on the
student's specific circumstances.  It's just wheel spinning to try to
decide "which is better in general?" (not a useful question).

Both are useful (and each comes in many flavors within those broad categories).

Kirby


On Thu, Jan 10, 2013 at 11:06 AM, gene loeb  wrote:
> This is a very valuable discussion. I have been stidying various
> non-traditional ways to learn, and heard the claim that online classes are
> the best. Yet, I see that in-class learning is very valuable. There are
> several reasons, first, the element of meeting people in person and
> interacting in person. teaching in class may be more effective for certain
> learners. And some teachers are very effective, as much as or more effective
> then other environments for learning.
>
> The value of this discussion threat is it does discuss the VALUE OF IN-CLASS
> LEARNING which I haven't seen elsewhere.
> Thanks,
>
> Gene
> Gene Loeb, Ph.D.
>
>
> On Thu, Jan 10, 2013 at 12:08 PM,  wrote:
>>
>> I agree that young people and probably not so young people need a teacher,
>> mentor or coach to guide them but that person might be an academic advisor
>> available on the web or perhaps even better an on-site mentor/coach who
>> could work with students to choose OER resources that will best suit their
>> learning needs and build logically toward appropriate learning outcomes.
>> One of my community organizing students (working in Haiti) suggested that
>> such "coaches" might be located in schools or some other kind of
>> "educational resource sites"...they could provide face-to-face guidance
>> for
>> those who could access the site physically and perhaps telephone coaching
>> for those who cannot.   Even the addition of voice contact through cell
>> phone might give inexperienced students the confidence they need as well
>> as
>> guidance through the often confusing world of academic preparation.   I
>> wonder what people think of this idea.   Joyce McKnight, Associate
>> Professor, Empire State College (US)
>>
>>
>>
>> From:   jim kelly 
>> To: wikieducator@googlegroups.com
>> Date:   01/10/2013 12:40 PM
>> Subject:[WikiEducator] Re: Why classrooms are important?
>> Sent by:wikieducator@googlegroups.com
>>
>>
>>
>> Agree. There is no doubt that interactions between a young (or beginning)
>> learner and an educator are very important. Failure here guarantees that
>> knowledge will be misused. The value and enthusiasm to learn require the
>> presents of an educator. But a lack of qualified educators in many
>> learning
>> communities, money to obtain an education and a world in which the human
>> knowledge base has gone global is requiring communities to redefine how a
>> learner learns.
>>
>>
>> Examine the observation made in the  Youth Version of the 2012 UNESCO
>> Education for All Global Monitoring Report (
>>
>> http://www.unevoc.unesco.org/e-forum/Be%20skiller%20be%20employed%20be%20change%20generation.pdf
>>  ) by Ali Zayaan a 19 year old from Maldives "Even right now, many young
>> people that can’t afford full schooling are able to access the internet.
>> They can use the internet (whether at home or somewhere public like a
>> library) to learn at their own pace for free, even if they have to work in
>> the daytime or can’t afford or access regular schooling. If they want to
>> get a qualification like a high school diploma, then they just need to
>> afford time and money for one or two days to attend an exam. This lowers
>> the cost barrier of pursuing an education a lot."
>>
>>
>> Traditional educational approaches need to adapt.
>>
>>
>> Jim Kelly
>> ( www.k-12math.info)
>>
>>
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>>
>>
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>
>
>
> --
> With Sincerest Best Wishes ,
> Gene
> Gene Loeb, Ph.D.
>
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> To po

Re: [WikiEducator] Why classrooms are important?

[kirby urner]

I teach one-on-one by means of comments, cues, other feedback, but it's all
in writing.  This was the old idea of a "correspondence school" but with
the Internet it all happens much faster.

Such distance education schools are in addition to traditional classrooms
where people meet a teacher face to face.  They are not a replacement.
 Traditional classrooms are not going away.  It's not either / or.

Only some subjects and only some types of student (and/or teacher) are
amenable to such schooling methods.  I teach computer programming, which is
all about keyboard and screen anyway.

Having the teacher be physically distant does not mean there's no personal
attention.  One need not remain anonymous.  On the other hand, if one is
shy, or has no local access to such teachers, but does have Internet
connectivity... technology here offers a sympatico (congenial) solution.

Kirby


On Sun, Jan 6, 2013 at 1:10 AM, atsker  wrote:

>
> Formal Education is imparted to the students  through educational
> institutions, which  acquire life in its classroom through the process of
>  actual  transaction between the  teacher and the students. ’ According to
> Mahatma Gandhi,True Education ‘has to be directed towards the formation of
> the human person in view of his final end and the good of the society to
> which he belongs, and in the duties of which he will as an adult have a
> share.’ When keeping this view,classroom transaction has a paramount
> importance in the process of moulding the future generations for a
> purposeful life based on values.
>   What are the things that should be
> transacted? The blind rule is to  follow the curriculum. The word
> ‘curriculum ‘ comes from the Latin word ‘currere’ which was the name for
> definite marked roads arranged to run chariot races in Rome.In schools,
> children are given the readymade curriculum, of course framed by eminent
> educators. Education is the chariot, curriculum is the road, and the
> teacher is the charioteer. But why these definite roads?Each student has to
> go through a different road inevitably,atleast that is what life teaches
> us.Each of them may be coming from a different background and equipped with
> a different psychology.So how can a common coursework fit the frame?While
> neglecting the ‘thought of the flaw of the system’ the answer to the
> question lies in the hands of the teacher.It should be the flexibility and
> serviceability of the teacher to find those distinct paths,perhaps for all
> the students he or she handles.And for that to happen effectively,the
> teacher should have a dominant role in selecting his or her students.
>  Regarding the technical handling of the
> classroom,the teacher, playing the role of an effective communicator ,is
> urged to devise newer strategies for stimulus variation,focusing,prompting
> questions,redirecting and for overcoming various barriers he confronts.He
> should be with  constant preparation to avoid a banal class.He has to be
> decisive every movement and should use psychological principles  for proper
> management of the class, rather than resorting to oppressive methods. There
> can be negative comments  and naïve judgements on the students part.He has
> to manage the individual temperaments of the 35 or 40 students , as well as
> maintain  a ‘collective thinking ‘of the class.
>   A symptomatic  world  , demands all
>  people to be teachers .It is the duty of the society to its social
> environment. .The field demands audacity and a lot of patience but the real
> adventure in  the classroom transactions,  is in the unforeseen result  it
> can bring about in the future.
>
>

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[WikiEducator] Link to research on Wikipedia / other thoughts

[kirby urner]

This snippet of HTML (below), mailed to me as an "infographic" is a
way of pulling the jpg, tall and narrow, into a web page, where your
browser gives scrolling access.

However, if you're already in your browser, just opening the jpg file
would be an option.

I'm ambivalent about what seems to be a mixed message.

For my part, I do not side with teachers who forbid access to
Wikipedia on the grounds it's of low quality.

The statistic that 56% of students will halt research if Wikipedia
proves a dead end on the topic suggests creeping early brain death
syndrome (EBDS) among students (I've long suspect its advance). **

HTML re Wikipedia:

http://open-site.org/wikipedia/";>
http://opensite.s3.amazonaws.com/wikipedia.jpg";
alt="Wikipedia" width="500" border="0" />
Via: http://open-site.org/";>Open-Site.org

In any case, thought I'd pass it along, maybe Facebook it later.

The jpeg is just a lot of graphics and stats.  What would be the Tufte take?

Very much a black and orange theme.  What's the implication there?



The switch by Prineville (Facebook) to a "timeline view" of each user
profile is much more in line with my anticipated medical records /
chart of the future, where you-the-patient are also well-educated
(like a doctor) on your particular conditions (practicing physicians,
on the other hand, need to be up on more conditions than just their
own).

http://worldgame.blogspot.com/2011/02/open-secrets.html  (stuff on the
future of the electronic medical record in the middle)

Just back from us.pycon 2012 == 2500+ geeks in Santa Clara brought
together by a computer language:

http://blog.oreillyschool.com/2012/03/us-pycon-2012.html  (my article
-- before the fact)



Kirby
http://wikieducator.org/User:KirbyUrner


** sources:
http://dictionary.reverso.net/english-french/brain-death%20syndrome

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Re: [WikiEducator] Problem Based Learning

[kirby urner]

On Sun, Feb 26, 2012 at 1:55 PM, Ravi Limaye  wrote:
> As a researcher, I am in process of developing Problem Based Learning
> approch for Engineering subjects. Please visit my wiki
> http://wikieducator.org/Problem_based_learning. Your valuable
> suggestions and advice would be of great help.
>

Thanks for sharing that.  I've been actively posting to some other
groups regarding a problem based approach I've been taking with mostly
young adult learners.

As you may know, people in the USA have been malnourishing themselves
with fast food and are now suffering from record levels of obesity and
diabetes.

Our program involves bicycles, pulling bicycle trailers with heavy
loads, as well as yoga and meditation.

Our students tend to become fit if they stick with the program.

There's a national program that doesn't cost money to join, wherein
adult learners develop food prep and cooking skills, event logistics,
meal planning.

Adding to the mathematical content has so far involved meetings with
regional government and discussions with engineers.

We may need to pilot the more technological versions in different
cities than Portland.  I'm thinking Detroit.

We have college programs checking us out, as urban waste is a real
issue, especially where food is concerned.

The ability to feed people using fresh healthy food that would have
otherwise gone in the trash compactor helps build community spirit and
a sense of empowerment.

This program has a lot in common with scouting and programs involving
camping.  This fall / winter, the camping aspect became paramount.

Our hope is to collaborate more closely with some of the higher
education programs dealing with environmental monitoring.  Adults who
know how to camp, cultivate, feed themselves, are more deployable to
remote areas.

Training with web cams, sensors, setting up wifi, are the kinds of
skills needed to engage in different kinds of environmental
monitoring.

Kirby

Related posting:
http://groups.google.com/group/mathfuture/msg/ef21df758d1cc25b

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Re: [WikiEducator] Re: Stream insect site is up and runing

[kirby urner]

I gather the red swish "no picture" pictures are like NULL in
the database in that not all columns have data.

Or maybe there were no missing pictures and it was my
Shockwave that crashed (in Chrome, happens often).

I don't know enough about Wikis to know if there's back
ending through queries.

The front end viewers to deal with noSQL databases are still
prototypical I understand (e.g. Facebook, a SQL / noSQL hybrid).

One could have Meet Me, Call Me post-its around the edge
of a frame, left by Wiki users and timing out every 24 hours,
with a central rectangle containing an ever refreshing
departures / arrivals matrix for an airline terminal, with live
updates.

In the context of insects (bugs), the Wiki might display
butterflies on a rotating basis, or might key to the user's
personal collection of photos (the text is shared, about
difference species, but the pix are ones taken by each
student -- some paragraphs are also by the student, so
its a textbook you personalize yourself, like a "baby book".

Anyway, just musing on the capabilities of Wiki front ends,
vis-a-vis our evolving back ends these days.

Kirby

On Mon, Feb 20, 2012 at 2:05 PM, Alison Snieckus
wrote:

> Hi Declan,
>
> I have contacted both of my local nature centers. One you may have heard
> about: Stony Brook Millstone Watershed as they have an active stream
> monitoring program: 
> StreamWatch,
> including chemical and biological monitoring. I'll be in touch directly if
> either of the centers would like to pursue creating stream-specific WE
> resource pages.
>
> But as for data--I see you've noticed my recent work in the math glossary
> :D--please yes. I am very interested. There is a dearth of openly-licensed,
> pre-prepared datasets available for use in hands-on learning activities.
> I've often thought that it would be useful to organize a collection of
> datasets on WE for use in learning statistics. Let me know how you are
> interested to proceed.
>
> Alison
>
>
> On Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 8:27 PM, Declan  wrote:
>
>> Hi Alison,
>>
>> Thanks for the encouragement!  I'd welcome any expanded use of this.
>> Send me a New Jersey sample and we'll tailor a site to your favorite
>> stream!  There will be large overlap in the fauna.
>>
>> With your interest in stats, there may be other opportunities to
>> colaborate.  We have insect community data along with water quality
>> and land use data from over 60 streams.  I currently use the resource
>> to provide real data and fodder for analyses for my own courses, but
>> I'd like to expand on that at some point.  As you can imagine, there
>> are all sorts of data available to suite nearly any analysis you may
>> be interested in teaching.  Continuous/discrete/categorical.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Declan
>>
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Re: [WikiEducator] Re: [WE Teacher Collaboration] children philosophy curriculum

[kirby urner]

My sister is a grad of a philosophy for children program in Montclair,
New Jersey, got her degree quite awhile back.  Seemed a very
innovative program.

I fall back on Wittgenstein's philosophy of mathematics a lot, when
introducing the possibility of a tetrahedral model of 3rd powering,
actually more obvious than the cube-based in many ways.

Teaching philosophy to children is a subversive activity because it
improves their debating skills and defenses against curriculum
material the state mandates and which teachers have limited ability to
defend.

I think snuffing out philosophy has been an important development in
academia, where there's a pale form of rhetoric / logic, a remnant,
but the computer science people have really taken that over already.
Philosophy has been extinguished.

Ergo, bringing it back among children may be somewhat difficult.  I'm
encouraged by the work of Rev. Billy in this regard and his Church of
Stop Shopping.  I just watched the documentary last night and have
rarely met a philosopher I respect more.

Kirby

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Re: [WikiEducator] reluctance of using wiki

[kirby urner]

Hi Ntsoaki --

I suggest a lore-based approach, getting at skills through stories,
rather than leaving context to chance. [1]  Too many workshops
neglect lore and dive into technical details with no overview.
Stories / history actually help glue the details into memory
structures with staying power, plus provides the individual with
more of a sense of where to jump in, at least potentially.

For example, what is the history of the Wiki, where does the
word come from etc.  I happen to know the inventor of WikiWiki,
Ward Cunningham.  You might, for your own purposes, tour
the first /original wiki.

http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WikiWikiWeb

Then there's Wikipedia and the controversies, and Wikileaks...

I think it's a good policy in workshops to openly address
"connotations" and create an environment in which people
feel safe enough to express their concerns, as well as
confess their ignorance.

Finding successful / happening Wikis on the internet that
really appear to be doing a social service would be another
task to complete in advance of any Wiki Workshop.
Wikieducator is a great example of the latter I should
think.

Oft times it's a matter of culture (office culture). Leading
by example becomes important, not just by one person
but a core group or team...

Kirby Urner
Portland, Oregon
http://wikieducator.org/User:KirbyUrner

[1] lore vs. skills as two axes of andragogy:
http://www.4dsolutions.net/presentations/p4t_notes.pdf (Fig. page 3)

On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 9:48 PM, Ntsoaki  wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> I have just been appointed as a Knowledge Manager at SAQA (South
> African Qualification Authority).
> My main responsibility is to design, develop and execute knowledge
> management strategies that will enable CAS (Career Advice Services)
> our unit to have access to high quality up-to-date information that is
> easily accessible and will enhance our business success.
>
> In light with that we have different tools such as Wiki, website and
> other internal systems that we are using to facilitate that process.
> However we are facing a challenging situation whereby our staff
> members are reluctant to use Wiki or share information on it because
> they believe it is difficult to navigate or to find information there.
>
> I have been tasked to conduct a workshop/training for our staff member
> to have a positive response towards Wiki so that they should be
> willing and confidently use Wiki as our knowledge base. I am also new
> on Wiki and currently familiarising myself with it hence I assigned
> myself to wiki tutorials and the forums to get a better understanding
> around the subject.
>
> Any pointers on how to convince my colleagues that Wiki is they way to
> go, I find it interesting and convenient for the purpose of our
> project, the trick is how do I get my colleagues by the idea.
>
> Thanks
>
> Ntsoaki Kala
>
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Re: [WikiEducator] Call for Mathematics teachers !

[kirby urner]

On Tue, Oct 4, 2011 at 6:01 AM, rash Kath wrote:

> Dear Patricia,
> Thanks for making the work simpler.
> Regards
>
> Dear Kirby,
> I visited your page. Its impressive and full of loads of information.
> Thanks for sharing the link. Are you interested in working on hands on
> Mathematics?
> Regards
> Rashmi Kathuria
>
>
Hi Rashmi --

I'm happy to share curriculum writing, lesson plans, could even see
exchanging personnel down the road.

Our family lived in Thimphu for many years, and Dhaka, both closer to your
neck of the woods, and I still have contacts roaming in those areas, mostly
in the religious studies department (less so in maths).

My on-the-ground work in Portland has shifted from teens to college age and
older adults, with an emphasis on open source and computers, as this is what
Portland, Oregon is known for, is a capital of. **

As you perhaps saw from Martian Math, our geometry is rather deliberately
non-compliant with what's in the state standards these days.

We find that with our demographic (e.g. college age), an up-start
non-cooperative attitude vis-a-vis state standards actually inspires more
brand loyalty and more commitment to study hard.

Kirby


** sorry for dangling participles.

Old news about Portland:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1128/p03s02-ussc.html

Ancient newspaper clipping about me (text only, would like to get a framed
version someday (smile)):

http://coffeeshopsnet.blogspot.com/2009/02/in-news.html

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Re: [WikiEducator] Call for Mathematics teachers !

[kirby urner]

Greetings Rashmi --

I was checking your blog.  Impressive awards and write-ups.  You are
obviously a talented teacher.

I'm another mathematics type using Wikieducator to vector content to teachers.

However, our program is deliberately out of compliance with a great
many standards (on principle) -- not sure how useful in your context.

Thought I'd mention it anyway.

http://wikieducator.org/User:KirbyUrner

Kirby


On Mon, Oct 3, 2011 at 11:45 AM, Rashmi Kathuria
 wrote:
> Dear all,
> I am a Mathematics teacher working in India. I am interested in
> developing an open resource for learning Mathematics through hands on
> activities. This is a call for all Mathematics enthusiasts to come
> forward and contribute. Please visit my page 
> http://wikieducator.org/User:Rashkath
> and share your ideas on this project.
> Regards
> Rashmi Kathuria
> http://mykhmsmathclass.blogspot.com
>
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Re: [WikiEducator] math project as free content

[kirby urner]

Sounds like fun.

I've contributed some materials on numeric sequences, with link to the
On-Line Encyclopedia of Same (Integer Sequences).

1, 12, 42, 92... is one I write about most, and my name appears in the
OEIS links section under that entry.

The work I've posted is cast in a contemporary computer language and
is used along a college level training track run from California.

We charge money for the courses, but the courseware is free and
copiable via Wikieducator and elsewhere.

We find that if the free stuff is good, they're more likely to sample
the for-trade stuff (not a new idea).

Kirby


On Wed, May 11, 2011 at 4:32 AM, Sebastian Panakal
 wrote:
> Shijna,
> COUNT ME IN.
> Regards
> Sebastian Panakal
>
> On Wed, May 11, 2011 at 11:26 AM, shijna  wrote:
>>
>> I wish to do a project in math as part of free content in wikieducator
>> as my contribution.If anyone interested in joining this project please
>> contact me
>>
>> Thanks
>> Shijna
>>
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Re: [WikiEducator] checking in

[kirby urner]

I think that's messed up and any edu should be able to compete for a
domain name via an onshore footprint service that creates nominal
stateside status for domain name NGOs.  Dot mil is already riddled
with proxies and anyway what's the point in keeping a global service
in a parochial box?

Kirby

On Wed, May 4, 2011 at 7:46 PM, Wayne Mackintosh
 wrote:
> HI Kirby,
>
> We would like to map to the .edu domain, but this is reserved for American
> registered institutions. As our non-profit is registered in New Zealand, we
> are not legally entitled to map to the .edu domain. However, perhaps one of
> our American contributing partners would be able to assist with mapping to
> this domain.
>
> Appreciate your work in growing the Wikieducator family.
>
> Cheers
> Wayne
>
> On Thu, May 5, 2011 at 6:15 AM, kirby urner  wrote:
>>
>> any plans to map wikieducator.edu ?  down the road, it's make a good
>> mirror.
>>
>> i've continued to point clients to resources on wikieducator as a good
>> site of OER materials.
>>
>> When you're trying to throw stuff together in a hurry, you need to not
>> get bogged down in "permissions".
>>
>> kirby
>>
>> http://wikieducator.org/User:KirbyUrner
>>
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>
> --
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> Director OER Foundation
> Director, International Centre for Open Education,
> Otago Polytechnic, New Zealand.
> Founder and elected Community Council Member, WikiEducator
> Mobile +64 21 2436 380
> Skype: WGMNZ1
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[WikiEducator] checking in

[kirby urner]

any plans to map wikieducator.edu ?  down the road, it's make a good mirror.

i've continued to point clients to resources on wikieducator as a good
site of OER materials.

When you're trying to throw stuff together in a hurry, you need to not
get bogged down in "permissions".

kirby

http://wikieducator.org/User:KirbyUrner

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Re: [WikiEducator] Important: Unesco Replaces OER Acronym

[kirby urner]

I'm noticing the date: April Fools Day.

If that's not intentional, it should be.

I'm thinking it's intentional.

Kirby


On Fri, Apr 1, 2011 at 4:09 AM, Gita Mathur  wrote:

> Thank You Steve for the information.
> OER's to “FOERSTER”
> “Open Educational Resources”, or OERs.
> From 1st April on, they are to be known as “Freely/Openly Enabled
> Resources Supporting Training, Education, and Research”.
> The change will include resources related to training and research.
> Warm wishes
> Gita Mathur
>
>

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Re: [WikiEducator] Wayne's planning meeting

[kirby urner]

On Thu, Dec 9, 2010 at 2:42 PM, Wayne Mackintosh  wrote:

> Hi Kirby,
>
> Absolutely! I Agree -- I think the open web is the Global U -- it will
> continue to grow, innovate and flourish as a non-institutional phenomenon
> and should be preserved and protected imho.
>
>
I'm thinking of Planet Earth as our Global U.

When I see students languishing in substandard housing, eating substandard
food, I think:  what a broken curriculum!

Goes back to Herbert Marshall McLuhan and has Global Village (Global V).

We might as well equate them, at the literary level.  Global U = Global
Village = Spaceship Earth etc.

I've recently been in touch with an influential McLuhanite about doing that
more concertedly:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/synergeo/message/63780

In defining the Global U (in terms of Food Services etc.) we're also
brainstorming new curriculum writing (a positive feedback loop).


> The concept of the "OER University" is not a replacement for the "Global U"
> -- just a node of formal institutions in the ecosystem who want to
> collaborate and provide formal credit for "informal OER" learning. The "OER
> University" will gift all its learning resources back to the global
> community as free content for the continued support and growth of the Global
> U.
>
> Cheers
> Wayne
>
>
>
At the heart of the Global U is this institution we call The Library.

With the invention of digital technology, the idea of "borrow and return"
has been replace by simply "making and keeping a copy".

This is disruptive to the status quo, which is all about scarcity.

There's still scarcity of course (of gold and silver, of safe drinking
water), but to create scarcity artificially because we can't figure out how
to really take advantage of our new capabilities... that's symptomatic of
our broken (sinful, unethical) curriculum.

This spanking new Global U Library is a puzzler for economics teachers.  I
don't think they get it yet.

Kirby



>
>
>
>
> On Fri, Dec 10, 2010 at 11:26 AM, kirby urner wrote:
>
>> My rhetoric for a number of years has featured our Global U (global
>> university).  That's a metaphor though, on the level of Spaceship Earth --
>> which is only a metaphor in the sense that humans did not architect /
>> implement this particular "spaceship" (or "spherical campus" if you will).
>>
>> It's good to have a non-institutional backdrop to establish "prior art"
>> lest any confused person think they have a lock on the "global university"
>> idea.
>>
>> Kirby
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Dec 9, 2010 at 2:14 PM, Wayne Mackintosh <
>> mackintosh.wa...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Richard
>>>
>>> Yes the Tapscott & Williams paper encompasses a number of thoughts and
>>> ideas for the "OER university" -- now to mainstream this. Thanks for posting
>>> this to the list :-).
>>>
>>> The Peoples-uni is an exemplar initiative of the power of volunteerism
>>> combined with open content licensing. Hopefully we can start scaling
>>> institutional buy-in and formal credit for "informal OER learners". Already
>>> Otago Polytechnic and USQ are moving down this path, others have expressed
>>> keen interest and we are serious about getting this right.
>>>
>>> We're hosting a strategic planning meeting in Dunedin on 23 Feb 2011.
>>> Organisations and individuals who are committed to building sustainable OER
>>> ecosystems are welcome to join us. Those who can't attend in person, can
>>> watch and collaborate on building these futures. All planning will be done
>>> openly in the wiki:
>>> http://wikieducator.org/OER_for_Assessment_and_Credit_for_Students
>>>
>>> Onwards ...
>>>
>>> Cheers
>>> Wayne
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thu, Dec 9, 2010 at 5:14 PM, Richard Heller >> > wrote:
>>>
>>>> Supporting Wayne's thesis is an interesting contribution from Tapscott
>>>> and Williams - Innovating the 21st century university: It's time! at
>>>> http://www.educause.edu/EDUCAUSE+Review/EDUCAUSEReviewMagazineVolume45/Innovatingthe21stCenturyUniver/195370and
>>>>  similar in their Macro Wikieconomics new book.
>>>> Delighted to support the idea of a planning meeting to get the idea
>>>> moving . At Peoples-uni (http://peoples-uni.org) we use OER for Masters
>>>> level education in Public Health, with a faculty from 19 countries and
>>>> students fr

Re: [WikiEducator] Wayne's planning meeting

[kirby urner]

My rhetoric for a number of years has featured our Global U (global
university).  That's a metaphor though, on the level of Spaceship Earth --
which is only a metaphor in the sense that humans did not architect /
implement this particular "spaceship" (or "spherical campus" if you will).

It's good to have a non-institutional backdrop to establish "prior art" lest
any confused person think they have a lock on the "global university" idea.

Kirby


On Thu, Dec 9, 2010 at 2:14 PM, Wayne Mackintosh  wrote:

> Hi Richard
>
> Yes the Tapscott & Williams paper encompasses a number of thoughts and
> ideas for the "OER university" -- now to mainstream this. Thanks for posting
> this to the list :-).
>
> The Peoples-uni is an exemplar initiative of the power of volunteerism
> combined with open content licensing. Hopefully we can start scaling
> institutional buy-in and formal credit for "informal OER learners". Already
> Otago Polytechnic and USQ are moving down this path, others have expressed
> keen interest and we are serious about getting this right.
>
> We're hosting a strategic planning meeting in Dunedin on 23 Feb 2011.
> Organisations and individuals who are committed to building sustainable OER
> ecosystems are welcome to join us. Those who can't attend in person, can
> watch and collaborate on building these futures. All planning will be done
> openly in the wiki:
> http://wikieducator.org/OER_for_Assessment_and_Credit_for_Students
>
> Onwards ...
>
> Cheers
> Wayne
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Dec 9, 2010 at 5:14 PM, Richard Heller 
> wrote:
>
>> Supporting Wayne's thesis is an interesting contribution from Tapscott and
>> Williams - Innovating the 21st century university: It's time! at
>> http://www.educause.edu/EDUCAUSE+Review/EDUCAUSEReviewMagazineVolume45/Innovatingthe21stCenturyUniver/195370and
>>  similar in their Macro Wikieconomics new book.
>> Delighted to support the idea of a planning meeting to get the idea moving
>> . At Peoples-uni (http://peoples-uni.org) we use OER for Masters level
>> education in Public Health, with a faculty from 19 countries and students
>> from 30 - but have also found institutional buy-in almost impossible (we use
>> a 'social model' staffed by volunteers).
>> Dick
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>  Topic: Transcending OER's "valley of death" -- From OER advocacy to
>>> mainstream 
>>> adoption.
>>>
>>>Wayne Mackintosh  Dec 08 03:58PM +1300 
>>> ^<#12ccd33808512485_12cc9568fddd0581_12cc8ca5fda7cc9c_digest_top>
>>>
>>>Hi Everyone,
>>>
>>>Stephen Downe's is absolutely right: "The dichotomy is not between
>>>proprietary content and open content, ... but between institutionally
>>>
>>>
>>
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>
>
>
>
> --
> Wayne Mackintosh , Ph.D.
> Director OER Foundation 
> Director, International Centre for Open Education,
> Otago Polytechnic, New Zealand.
> Founder and elected Community Council Member, 
> Wikieducator
> Mobile +64 21 2436 380
> Skype: WGMNZ1
> Twitter  | 
> identi.ca
>
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[WikiEducator] Re: [WE Teacher Collaboration] Transcending OER's "valley of death" -- From OER advocacy to mainstream adoption.

[kirby urner]

On Tue, Dec 7, 2010 at 6:58 PM, Wayne Mackintosh 
wrote:
> Hi Everyone,


<< abbrev >>

> We extend an open invitation to international agencies like COL and UNESCO
> to join us. We extend an open invitation to all formerly registered
tertiary
> education providers of the world to join us. We expect collaborators to
play
> by the rules of the game because we are serious about the mainstream
> adoption of OER and getting this right.
>
> Let's make OER futures happen :-).
>
> Cheers
> Wayne
>

Greetings Wayne --

Your entreaties made for interesting reading.  As you may recall,
I'm somewhat new to Wikieducator, having committed something
from the Oregon Curriculum Network called:  Digital Mathematics:
Heuristics for Teachers.


When I got started on this project, I was not yet aware of
*Mathematics for the Digital Age and Programming in Python *
(by Litvins, used in several schools), which is not an OER
(order from Skylit Publishing).

The two co-exist (the OERs and the texts with a price tag).

Likewise I use Free Open Source Software (FOSS) on my
Windows computers, and these co-exist as well.  However,
there's still lots of competition going on in the software
"solution space".  Cost is an issue, maintainability is an
issue, the likelihood of a resource simply going away is an
issue.

I hope Wikieducator has a long half-life.

Anyway, in addition to (1) co-existence, between FOSS
and not-FOSS (i.e. OER and not-OER), I am aware of
(2) high quality FOSS that's best in show.  In other words,
in some categories, the free solution is actually also the
best.

The more expensive alternatives might come with built in
support, whereas with the freebie you need to recruit a
geek who believes in what you're doing.

The latter is what many would rather not try.  They need
someone to yell at, at the end of the day, even if the
commercial off the shelf solution is less capable, more
breakable, than the free version.

What I'm seeing in STEM education, K-16, is the free
sector is often simply better than the pay sector at offering
relevant educational materials.  OERs rule in some areas.
In that sense, they have a double edge versus less
worthy more expensive brands.

These better free wares may also optionally positively
affiliate with some sister brands in the commercial sector.
The OER is the flagship, but those wanting to buy extra
have that capability.  The extra may not mean better,
just more of the same (more time at the web site?). The
extra may be certification, since that's asking your peers
to evaluate your performance, to offer coaching and judgment.
There's always an opportunity cost, then.

To end with one more concrete example, I mentioned
Python the computer language up top.  It's a language of
choice among geeks around the world, taught formally
at MIT, proudly used by Google, NASA and many others.

I'm not saying it's the best language as that would be
meaningless, just that it fits the needs of many a
course in computer science or semantic web.  Some
of the best alternatives, are also free.

Engineering really has come a long way in disentangling
from counter-productive intellectual property games.
Much of the world does not recognize "software patents"
per se  (as distinct from "copyrights").  Plus a lot of the
best ideas are already in the public domain, even in
places where the workers believe in patents, because
true innovators got tired of seeing their hard work
owned by others (talking about the GNU Project
especially -- lots of good lore).

My guess is a similar pattern will occur with OERs.
(1) the best of the best will float to the top and (2) it
will be a mix of pay-per-view (fee-for-service) and truly free.

The quality of the free stuff will be very important, as that's
how a curriculum will be judged by the public.  Only
those who sign up get access to the for-pay stuff, and
that's much harder to evaluate publicly.  Testimony will
vary.  Some students will be disappointed by how much work
it is, now that it's not just on Youtube.  These are ancient
patterns, unlikely to just go away.

Conclusion:  it's prudent to have some free content available
that is as good or better than most of the for-fee stuff
out there.  Wikieducator could be a good host for some of
that.

In some areas, such as STEM, this is actually happening i.e.
the free Web is doing a better job than any of the costlier
sources.

Kirby

PS:  in the meantime, there's a lot of push back from
mediocre writers and publishers spinning myths about the
free stuff.

Check out this poster from a local high school.

I'd say these are outright lies in some cases, plus the
message is all too clear:  because the free web is free,
we will say lots of bad things about it, because free
scares us.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/17157...@n00/5236862304/in/photostream/<%20http://www.flickr.com/photos/17157...@n00/5236862304/in/photostream/>
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17157...@n00/5236861850/in/photostream/

[WikiEducator] Fwd: Greetings re Python.org Community

[kirby urner]

FYI, making contact with OpenStudy.

There's been subsequent message traffic and an uptick in visits to
Martian Math / Wikieducator as a result.

Kirby


-- Forwarded message --
From: kirby urner 
Date: Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 8:16 PM
Subject: Greetings re Python.org Community
To: jon.birds...@openstudy.com



> From: Jon Birdsong
> Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2010 16:31:43 -0500
> Subject: OpenStudy Introduction to Python.org Community
> To: webmas...@python.org
>
> Hi Webmaster,
>
> My name is Jon Birdsong and I am writing you from the educational startup 
> OpenStudy. At OpenStudy, our goal is to make the world one big study group. 
> To do this, we have partnered with many open content and Open Course Ware 
> programs, including MIT (http://bit.ly/ajYjrd). We are reaching out 
> to python.org to see if you all would be interested in learning more about us 
> and how we could benefit the python.org community for free.
>
> Another reason for the email is the growing community of python learners on 
> our site already. Our MIT OCW Intro to Comp Sci 6.0 Study Group has over 4500 
> students asking questions, doing problem sets together, and learning the 
> language.
>
> I look forward to hopefully hearing from one of the members of the Python.org 
> community.
>
> Best,
> Jon Birdsong
>
> P.s. If you want learn more about us, you can view the coverage we received 
> from CNN or Read Write Web.
>
Greetings Jon --
I'm one of the many PSF members who engages in Python mentoring.  I'm
sure there are a great many ways the OpenStudy group might interleave
with "Python Nation" (I call it that because we have a government of
sorts).
Likely the 4500 have some overlap with edu-sig, our Python in
education cite w/ discussion list.
My own focus is called Martian Math and is an Open Education Resource
(OER) on Wikieducator, which might be construed as a "competitor" to
MIT's OCW, but what would that even mean?
Kirby Urner
Portland, Oregon
Institute for Science, Engineering & Public Policy (isepp.org)
4dsolutions.net
Holden Web (Portland)
Python Software Foundation (2009)

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[WikiEducator] "First run" OERs (venues for original material)

[kirby urner]

As a part of a much longer reverie, which won't make a whole lot
of sense because I'm brainstorming about local talent and assets,
I conclude with the paragraph below.  I'm looking at Wikieducator
was a "window" through which new content flows and enters the
"meme pool" as OERs.

Making a school a center of excellence may sometimes mean
making it a "first run" venue.  The movie theater talk, a "first run
theater" is a place where new movies are first seen by a public.
"Second run" theaters have a lower admission price and show
films that have already been available for some time.

When skilled educators make their brand new curriculum assets
available to the world for the first time, they sometimes have a
choice of venues.  Given cyberspace, the possibilities quickly
multiply.  Have your art make its debut locally, at the school
which has your allegiance, and also globally, on Wikieducator.

This has been a working strategy for me in some cases.  I was
able to unveil a Martian Math class at a local college, but was
also able to point back to Wikieducator in the teacher notes,
as a place to get more information, in case wanting to share
some of this same material.

Here's the Martian Math page (part of Heuristics for Teachers):

http://wikieducator.org/Martian_Math

(warning, this stuff is pretty dense, which is why it's good to
see the translation to a local course "on the ground" that
provides its own value added -- click on Example Course in
the first sentence if curious).

Here's the rambling "longer reverie" excerpt, mentioned above:

"""
Speaking of animation houses, they're in a position to empower
simply by choosing where to exhibit exclusive content. I've argued
that schools, such as high schools, if wanting to upgrade and become
true centers of excellence, need to become places where some of the
art is making its debut. Students and teachers may be among the
final editors, so what you see is in part a local project. Yet the
raw material, furnished by animation houses, techie toon producers,
is spanking new. This is how new OERs make it into the meme pool,
through these schools. They're slated to become open assets, but
still need to come from somewhere. Wikieducator is another example,
of where new material enters the shared pool. That's a window for
Synergetics these days, via Martian Math.
"""
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/synergeo/message/63566

Thanks to all for making Wikiedcuator a leading launch point
for open education resources (open data, open source etc.).

Kirby

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[WikiEducator] OER and RBF (Bucky Fuller community)

[kirby urner]

Chris Fearnley, president of Synergetics Collaborative (abbreviated
SNEC for historical
reasons) recently posted this entry on OER.

Chris is a long time member of the OSS community as well, providing
Linux-related
services in the Philadelphia area and elsewhere:

http://blog.cjfearnley.com/2010/10/26/buckminster-fuller-and-the-oer-movement/

I've got a comment (currently in moderation) pointing to Wikieducator
as a flagship OER
site.

My Digital Mathematics resources, currently undergoing field testing in various
guises, most recently at Reed College in Portland, Oregon -- under the rubric of
Saturday Academy (saturdayacademy.org).

http://wikieducator.org/Digital_Math

I'm happy to have these various communities pooling their initiatives
and developing
more mutual awareness.

Kirby
http://wikieducator.org/User:KirbyUrner

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Re: [WikiEducator] An Ethical Dilemma -- Feeling sad :-)- When publishers don't do what they say they intend to do

[kirby urner]

I was just having lunch with my uncle, who self-published a book on
pre-WW1 submarine construction in the North Pacific region of the USA
(Seattle etc.).  He shared about his dealings with Amazon, but more
generally with publishers witnessing the digital revolution.  I did
his website:

http://web.archive.org/web/20060505050706/beneaththesurface.biz/front.html

For those who don't know, Amazon now has a huge printing press and any
book that goes out of copyright is fair game to mass produce and sell
as new i.e. hot off the press, on demand with your order (no need to
build inventory, the hardcopy is custom generated, and in such a way
as to still make a profit at $10 a pop -- most traditional publishers
can't compete at these prices).

I come from the software world, where open source licenses flourished
because software defines working machines, and people are always
wanting to add bells and whistles.  With other authored works, such as
novels, it's not the same situation, as you do *not* necessarily want
other authors interleaving their thoughts and characters in your work
of art.  That'd be defacement, like spray-painting a Picasso with
Marvin the Martian (criminal -- though you could do it on a digital
copy).

I know the Oz books underwent a transition, but the new author didn't
rewrite any of the original Frank Baum stuff did he?  Likewise the
Disney characters progress through generations of artist, but it's not
like you wanna go back and "deface" the originals.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Oz_books (re Oz as the
prototypical Open Source world)

In software, it's maybe a little different.  We have version control,
so might keep the old stuff around indefinitely, but few are
interested in reading it.  The most-in-demand stuff is usually cutting
edge, sporting the latest new features.

Engineer-artists of software actually expect (aim, hope) to have their
work included in derivative works.  That's the intention.  You write
hoping your stuff will be absorbed, as your currency in the software
meritocracy is your reputation as an author.  You want your name
associated with your "text" but it's not like you expect royalty
payments.  More, you expect to be granted the privileges (such as
deferential respect) of royalty by your peers and the lay public, as
it's clear in the accounts that you're a person of merit (or a "jolly
good fellow" as they said in Queen Victoria's era).

Academia is already like this.  It's not how much you sold out for, so
much as how much of your academic integrity remains after X presumably
profitable publications.  Edwin Black (the historian) comes to mind,
as a successful academic who nevertheless insists on telling it as he
finds it, upsetting a lot of carefully guarded apple carts in the
process.  His books continue to sell because he's still a trusted
source of scholarship by enough accounts to keep him in the game as a
bestselling author.

Publishing is essentially free via the Internet, but then distribution
matters.  How will the right people hear of your work?  Twitter?

There's always the "visibility problem" of gaining a following, what
some might call "marketing" though in academia there's a somewhat
cynical attitude towards either "selling oneself" or "self promotion"
although I'd say ethics have changed, and now some professors engage
in "self branding", creating such personalities as Dr. Ruth, and Dr.
Chuck (a Python guy, whom I've worked with) also even Dr. Phil (the
guy Britney made a fool of).

Anyway, what's interesting to me is to see more academic professorial
types (vs code wrangler geeks) grapple with the challenges of the
loaves and the fishes, i.e. the miracle technology makes makes
possible, of spreading of communications extremely efficient at almost
no marginal cost per copy.

So what business models are based on artificially creating scarcity
where their needn't be any?

Those are the ones most worried about what to do next, and I
empathize.  Putting a floor form of tenure under the meritocracy, a
safety net, would make it all more like Finland (of Finlandia fame).

A geek encampment, known for great code, might compensate all its
people with room and board, kitchen access, wifi, days for fishing and
goofing off, and yet not all of them have a commit bit on every
project (some are not committing code at all, such as when busy
learning new languages), some of which projects may have quite low bus
numbers indeed (using the geek shop talk, sorry if it sounds opaque
**).

On the other hand, many resources remain scarce.  Not every science
fiction writer is as good as every other.

Not everyone is as good a writer, period.  Same in software.  Same in
the visual arts.

They say the most productive coders are freakishly more productive, by
orders of magnitude.  What's that about?

I'm just pointing out that good (sometimes technical, sometimes
professional) writing is not always easy to come by.

Creating scarcity artificially (where it's technological

Re: [WikiEducator] School Collaboration with China schools

[kirby urner]

Here's a blog post with information about assistive technology for the
elderly.

It was projected for a province in Canada however the project leader
giving the talk did not end up managing what he was sketching.

I'm guessing this design is still on the drawing boards, still a
little ahead of its time, but maybe some communities are already
implementing it?

Basic idea:  passive (non-intrusive) home monitoring, raising "call
me" flags with supervisory staff in the case of software-detected
exceptions.

http://worldgame.blogspot.com/2005/07/wanderers-meeting-200575.html

Kirby


On Sun, Oct 3, 2010 at 9:16 AM, gene loeb  wrote:
> Hello everyone.
> I have been working on elderly issues an now am working on technology to
> help elderly .It  would be helpful to have information or a paper on the use
> of technology to helpo or to be used by elderly. Let me know.
>
> I need to get back to our ideas on training and have been identifying new
> areas for trainers to work. Please write me so I can continue my
> communication.
>
> I am writing articles for Marks journal now. contact me at
> gelel...@gmail.com, skype id: gene.loeb1 and cell phone  224-616-7264.
>
> Thanks,
> Gene
>
> On Fri, Sep 24, 2010 at 8:20 AM, Wong Leo  wrote:
>>
>> @ Gene , Tks for the mail and I am always interested in the area of
>> traning of trainer ( TOT) for myself , I would like to know more abt your
>> area , which subject area you are into ? also which organisation you might
>> be able to bring some future collaboration either online ( like in
>> wikieducator or ) even face to face , even academic exchange program ( bring
>> students to China ) or bring Chinese students to US are both possible .
>>
>> Leo
>>
>> 2010/9/21 gene aronin 
>>>
>>> Leo,
>>> Very interesting news and information to learn; Hope to be able to
>>> assist. I am also interested in the possibility for the involvement of the
>>> Training profession. Here, in the United States, we have professionally
>>> trained trainers (the professional organization is the American Association
>>> for
>>> Training and Development). Trainers are training in a college program.
>>> Just trying to be helpful.
>>> Thanks,
>>> Gene
>>> Gene Loeb, Ph.D.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, Sep 20, 2010 at 10:07 PM, Wong Leo  wrote:

 Dear all WE

 I am currently helping with a school in China , Suzhou , called GEM (
 GEM is an education management group developing business, management,
 software & technology education in China and Southeast Asia)
 We are also developing programs with other countries as well ,
 For example we bring French students now to China every year
 view more http://gem-group.com/colleges-frameset3.htm

 For k1-12 we have developed a Elephant conservation program which
 involved students from US China German and Iran to participate , so far we
 have done this creative program in 39 schools in China and other countries
 as well .

 You can know more abt the campus here at
 http://gem-group.com/campus-frameset3.htm

 For wikieducator , I am still thinking abt how we can use this platform
 to start to create the curriclum and teaching material among teachers and
 students , welcome any feedback on this are

 Is there any best practices model in WE already ?

 Also , if you are working in a Non-China envoirment , who wish to expand
 your teacher and staff horizon by coming to China
 Feel free to contact me

 Leo

 --
 Leo Wong
 Co-director of HELP in China
 --
 http://helpsuzhou.blogbus.com/ HELP
 There is something very special and powerful about engaging directly
 with the real teacher and real Kids

 --
 You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
 Groups "WikiEducator" group.
 To visit wikieducator: http://www.wikieducator.org
 To visit the discussion forum:
 http://groups.google.com/group/wikieducator
 To post to this group, send email to wikieducator@googlegroups.com
 To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
 wikieducator-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> With Best Wishes for an Even Better Day
>>>
>>> Gene-loeb
>>> Gene-loeb Aronin, Ph.D.
>>>
>>> --
>>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
>>> Groups "WikiEducator" group.
>>> To visit wikieducator: http://www.wikieducator.org
>>> To visit the discussion forum:
>>> http://groups.google.com/group/wikieducator
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>>> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
>>> wikieducator-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com
>>
>>
>> --
>> Leo Wong
>> Co-director of HELP in China
>> --
>> http://helpsuzhou.blogbus.com/ HELP
>> There is something very special and powerful about engaging directly with
>> the real teacher and real Kids
>>
>> --
>> You received 

Re: [WikiEducator] School Collaboration with China schools

[kirby urner]

Greetings Mr. Wong --

I noticed your emphasis on Elephant conservation which I agree is a
good unifying program.

I have sketched an advertising campaign for what we might call the
Global U (global university) with saving elephants a theme.[1]  Global
U is a metaphor for this planet we share.  Spaceship Earth is another
such metaphor.  I think if we imagine ourselves sharing a giant
spherical university campus, as students and faculty, we might work
together better, while improving the curriculum.

Elephants represent memory, wisdom... I'm sure many traditions in
China have well-developed symbolism.  In the Hindu tradition, we have
Ganesh.[2]

When I search on "elephants" in Wikieducator I find those essays by
young people in Israel.  They were apparently assigned the task of
creating Wiki pages and reviewed a story of how elephants seemed to
know in advance about the tsunami in Southeast / South Asia in 2004.
The autobiographical content is also interesting.

Pulling together lore (stories, both true and fictional) about
elephants from many cultures, exploring elephant imagery in different
civilizations, could well serve to anchor an excellent curriculum for
business managers who also see themselves as diplomats and world-aware
problem solvers (as "global university students" in other words).

In the world of cyber-skills, using geographic information systems to
identify ecosystems where elephants still thrive (there are not many)
will help build skills and awareness.

Thank you for your work,

Kirby Urner
http://wikieducator.org/User:KirbyUrner

[1] http://worldgame.blogspot.com/2007/06/our-global-u-advertisement.html

[2] http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&source=imghp&q=ganesh


PS:  I was in China in the early 1970s and treasure the memories.  I
was a much younger man then.
Example picture by one of my traveling companions:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17157...@n00/2559427759/
(I've also been to Iran where I met many fine people -- would be great
to get back there, as well as to China)

On Mon, Sep 20, 2010 at 8:07 PM, Wong Leo  wrote:
> Dear all WE
>
> I am currently helping with a school in China , Suzhou , called GEM ( GEM is
> an education management group developing business, management, software &
> technology education in China and Southeast Asia)
> We are also developing programs with other countries as well ,
> For example we bring French students now to China every year
> view more http://gem-group.com/colleges-frameset3.htm
>
> For k1-12 we have developed a Elephant conservation program which involved
> students from US China German and Iran to participate , so far we have done
> this creative program in 39 schools in China and other countries as well .
>
> You can know more abt the campus here at
> http://gem-group.com/campus-frameset3.htm
>
> For wikieducator , I am still thinking abt how we can use this platform to
> start to create the curriclum and teaching material among teachers and
> students , welcome any feedback on this are
>
> Is there any best practices model in WE already ?
>
> Also , if you are working in a Non-China envoirment , who wish to expand
> your teacher and staff horizon by coming to China
> Feel free to contact me
>
> Leo
>
> --
> Leo Wong
> Co-director of HELP in China
> --
> http://helpsuzhou.blogbus.com/ HELP
> There is something very special and powerful about engaging directly with
> the real teacher and real Kids
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> Groups "WikiEducator" group.
> To visit wikieducator: http://www.wikieducator.org
> To visit the discussion forum: http://groups.google.com/group/wikieducator
> To post to this group, send email to wikieducator@googlegroups.com
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
> wikieducator-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com

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Re: [WikiEducator] prototyping voting machines in democracy-funded schools

[kirby urner]

On Tue, Sep 14, 2010 at 2:57 PM, john stampe  wrote:
> Interesting post.
>
> You may be interested in the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) which has
> been looking into issues related to voting machines. See
> https://www.eff.org/issues/e-voting
>
> Also you might want to read Bruce Schneier's writings on the issue. He is a
> security guru who has written a lot about voting machines. His big point is
> that there is no "security through obscurity". Search his blog at
> http://www.schneier.com/blog
>
> Regards,
> John
>

Thank you.

I'm reading this Bruce Schneier inspired thread right now, very interesting:
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/04/ireland_does_aw.html

EFF and OSU's Open Source Lab both connect to a local NGO called DemocracyLab.

Here in my zip code area (97214) we have the Linus Pauling Campus,
also discussing this topic.

In luckier schools, a contingent of faculty sees designing and running
a school intranet as a responsibility.  Perhaps a local ISP gets
involved (locally, our public LEP High has contracted with Open
Sorcery).

Students get to apprentice.

The software one might use to catalyze democratic decision making does
not stop with just voting.

Kirby Urner
Portland, Oregon


> http://www.wikieducator.org/User:JohnWS
> http://johnsearth.blogspot.com
>
> 
> From: kirby urner 
> To: wikieducator@googlegroups.com
> Sent: Tue, September 14, 2010 5:54:29 AM
> Subject: [WikiEducator] prototyping voting machines in democracy-funded
> schools
>
> VOTING MACHINES IN SCHOOLS
>
> Those following the many conflict-of-interest stories
> that have always plagued the voting vista, might
> appreciate the advisability of having schools serve
> as "testbeds for democracy" in those systems
> favoring this form of self-government (not all of
> them do).
>
> The idea is to use both paper ballots and electronic
> systems of various kinds (optical scanners, touch
> screens...), with vendors invited to field test, getting
> some positive visibility for so doing.
>
> It's not just the "polling booth" that we care about,
> but the back end tabulation system and, most
> important, all the safeguards and cross-checks that
> make election results auditable, perhaps permanently
> on record (just like famous sports contests, forever
> archived to videotape (yes, I know, videotape has a
> half-life)).
>
> Students and faculty will have responsible administrative
> roles in what amount to realistic simulations, using
> equipment the vendors hope will someday see the
> light of day in higher stakes arenas.
>
> Not every high school would need to test every make
> and model.  However, a lot the the proposed electronic
> systems run as open source software on commodity
> hardware, perhaps with some custom peripherals (a
> particular kind of touch screen for example).
>
> I say "high schools" without meaning to exclude
> colleges and universities from running similar experiments
> (many already do).  However, I'm particularly interested
> in moves to revitalize the "teenage wasteland" layer,
> which by most accounts is where major breakage
> occurs.
>
> GATHERING PUBLIC SECTOR RESOURCES
>
> I'm not sure what materials on Wikieducator and
> other open courseware repositories already contain,
> as far as technical information regarding the various
> secret balloting technologies (from paper based
> tabulation to LCD based).
>
> A context for this thread is my having just attended
> a conference called DjangoCon, here in Portland,
> Oregon.  Django is a free and open source framework
> for developing web applications, anything that runs
> through a web browser and likely talks to a back
> end database.  Congressman Wu, chairman of a
> House subcommittee on Technology and Innovation,
> gave one of the keynotes.
>
> I've been watching this initiative take shape through
> my Pauling House Campus connections as well.
> Linus Pauling, x2 Nobel prize winner, launched many
> of his chemistry studies right here near the foot of Mt.
> Tabor, an extinct volcano within our city limits.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Tabor,_Portland,_Oregon
>
> From a recent posting to our discussion list:
>
> """
> PS: getting working voting machines in the high schools is a really
> good idea. Encourage kids to learn what makes them tick. Have
> several mock elections every week, on all kinds of student and
> faculty proposed topics. Look for cheats, discover schemes, do some
> dry runs for that real world you're about to get into... It's also
> a good idea because it'll be vry inte

[WikiEducator] prototyping voting machines in democracy-funded schools

[kirby urner]

VOTING MACHINES IN SCHOOLS

Those following the many conflict-of-interest stories
that have always plagued the voting vista, might
appreciate the advisability of having schools serve
as "testbeds for democracy" in those systems
favoring this form of self-government (not all of
them do).

The idea is to use both paper ballots and electronic
systems of various kinds (optical scanners, touch
screens...), with vendors invited to field test, getting
some positive visibility for so doing.

It's not just the "polling booth" that we care about,
but the back end tabulation system and, most
important, all the safeguards and cross-checks that
make election results auditable, perhaps permanently
on record (just like famous sports contests, forever
archived to videotape (yes, I know, videotape has a
half-life)).

Students and faculty will have responsible administrative
roles in what amount to realistic simulations, using
equipment the vendors hope will someday see the
light of day in higher stakes arenas.

Not every high school would need to test every make
and model.  However, a lot the the proposed electronic
systems run as open source software on commodity
hardware, perhaps with some custom peripherals (a
particular kind of touch screen for example).

I say "high schools" without meaning to exclude
colleges and universities from running similar experiments
(many already do).  However, I'm particularly interested
in moves to revitalize the "teenage wasteland" layer,
which by most accounts is where major breakage
occurs.

GATHERING PUBLIC SECTOR RESOURCES

I'm not sure what materials on Wikieducator and
other open courseware repositories already contain,
as far as technical information regarding the various
secret balloting technologies (from paper based
tabulation to LCD based).

A context for this thread is my having just attended
a conference called DjangoCon, here in Portland,
Oregon.  Django is a free and open source framework
for developing web applications, anything that runs
through a web browser and likely talks to a back
end database.  Congressman Wu, chairman of a
House subcommittee on Technology and Innovation,
gave one of the keynotes.

I've been watching this initiative take shape through
my Pauling House Campus connections as well.
Linus Pauling, x2 Nobel prize winner, launched many
of his chemistry studies right here near the foot of Mt.
Tabor, an extinct volcano within our city limits.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Tabor,_Portland,_Oregon

>From a recent posting to our discussion list:

"""
PS: getting working voting machines in the high schools is a really
good idea. Encourage kids to learn what makes them tick. Have
several mock elections every week, on all kinds of student and
faculty proposed topics. Look for cheats, discover schemes, do some
dry runs for that real world you're about to get into... It's also
a good idea because it'll be vry interesting to find out what
politicians feel the have the political capital to fight against it.
What, too expensive? Open source? C'mon!
"""

I'll post a follow-up link to the Math Forum when it appears,
then to more journalism in the blogosphere I might happen
across (I'm mostly looking into the Python community these
days, i.e. those using the Python programming language,
an eclectic group).

Here it is already:
http://mathforum.org/kb/message.jspa?messageID=7203847&tstart=0

MAKING CYBERSPACE SAFER

What's related to this thread, even if you're not looking at
prototyping voting infrastructure, is creating a safe intranet.
I'm a liberal arts type in espousing free and unfettered access
to information, but the flip side is vulnerability to malware,
malignant memes, a lot of those crazy ideas a strong
education will supply you with antibodies to fight, but a
weak one will leave you prey to.  Schools need to provide
something like a sandbox, relatively free of malicious predators,
and this is one reason why adopting Internet policies is
so slow.**

Here's a recent post somewhat belaboring the obvious in
this respect (that newbies are vulnerable, especially if
untrained).  The lesson extends to those experimenting
with democracy though.  Rigged voting equipment is
malware as well.

http://controlroom.blogspot.com/2010/09/internet-is-broken.html

The post just before it chronicles Congressman Wu's recent
visit to our esoteric little conference (only about 250 attendees).

Kirby

** entertaining true story:  our local police department in
Hillsboro, home of Intel, was feeling really frustrated by how
the schools were turning the Internet into something scary
and fascist, expected police to show up and make everyone
worry about downloading free stuff (pirating), prono, chat
rooms -- whatever behaviors.  Lots of lurking dangers out
there, sure, but what about the stuff that's legally free, like
the web browser itself, maybe even the whole operating
system.  Why weren't the schools teaching more about
that.  The police were so frustrated they set up a Lin

Re: [WikiEducator] Re: Case Study: Using Wikieducator

[kirby urner]

Thank you Kim, glad to see that link.

Python and VPython are free and open source, yes.  Looking
chip-to-cloud, you may encounter proprietary layers e.g. both the
aforementioned run atop Apple and Microsoft as well as Linux.  Not
sure about VPython on FreeBSD -- not looking good.

The Digital Math of which Martian Math is a part is on Wikieducator
for the express purpose of encouraging teachers to freely adapt this
material to their own needs and circumstances, free of charge or
royalty payments.  That's a trend in liberal arts, a way to defend
important freedoms.

Kirby

PS: since last posting I have another write-up at Math Forum (mentions
Wikieducator):
http://www.mathforum.org/kb/thread.jspa?threadID=2102469&tstart=0

I've also added a more technical Notes for Teachers explaining some of
the more arcane ins and outs of Martian Math:
http://www.4dsolutions.net/satacad/martianmath/teacher_notes.html

(this material is not on Wikieducator, is adapted for local use,
though again, other teachers are in the process of relaying some of
the same info)


On Fri, Aug 13, 2010 at 3:18 AM, Kim  wrote:
> Hi Kirby and Wayne,
>
> Thanks Kirby for sharing your experiences.
>
> It is interesting how the freedom to innovate, collaborate and share
> with free software pemeates up to the level of knowledge. With this in
> mind, I have added a link to your case study here:
>
> http://wikieducator.org/Free_Software_Case_Studies/Case_Studies#Personal_Experiences
>
> Wayne> What other case study interviews should we feature in
> WikiEducator?
>
> I think it would be useful to share organisational/institutional case
> studies through the experiences of the individuals involved. The
> interviews could cover the challenges for the institution (there is
> usually some change management involved) and the individual (e.g.
> initial championship/advocacy) and benefits to both (e.g. peer
> production efficiency and institutional impact).
>
> Kim
>
> --
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[WikiEducator] Case Study: Using Wikieducator

[kirby urner]

I thought I'd provide a case study as to how I'm using
Wikieducator, thinking this might be interesting to
others.

A lot of the details are about local politics so I'm not
expecting my circumstances to match those of
others in every particular, naturally.

About a year ago today, I attended a by invitation
work shop hosted by Chris Brooks, then with
Software Association of Oregon, about planning
for a new kind of math class to be offered at the
high school level in our state.  Our state legislature
already had some guidelines, regarding how many
years of mathematics classes are required for
high school graduation (answer:  3).  We looked
at some guidelines regarding what was called
"discrete mathematics" at the high school level.

That's a course you would more likely find in a
college, however much of the material is of
special interest to future computer science majors
or other technologists, perhaps even medical
doctors or bioinformatics specialists.

The thinking was (and still is) that the royal road
through calculus need not be the one and only
"turn on" to math and science, engineering or
whatever.  Jump over to discrete math (or some
call it digital math, others computational thinking)
and we will show you some interesting ropes (an
idiom -- means we will provide some useful skills
and insights).

What is Digital Math?

Probably a leading characteristic or defining
hallmark of a discrete mathematics class is some
programming is involved, meaning there's a computer
language in the picture and a need to weave that
in with whatever math topics.  This is not a new
idea and we've seen prototypes from APL and
ISETL through Squeak and Scratch, with many
experiments in between (some ongoing).  My
current favorite approach is the Python computer
language, although I also had a language called
J installed, for this one week class, approximately
9.5 hours, just pilot tested at Reed College in
Portland, Oregon under the auspices of Saturday
Academy.

The class that I taught was called Martian Math,
and this is actually but one of four modules in a
broader curriculum that I detail (for other teachers)
on Wikieducator.  Another module is Neolithic Math
and my associate and fellow Linus Pauling House
member handled that curriculum.  We did not have
staffing for the remaining two:  Supermarket Math
and Casino Math (the latter being games of chance
mixed with statistics and probability).  Saturday
Academy and the Oregon Curriculum Network are
distinct entities so for the former's summer camp
to work, it didn't matter at all that OCN wasn't
prototyping all four modules.

Historical Background

The Linus Pauling House is a local institution, a
group that meets and organizes events in the historic
boyhood home of a famous Oregon native who won
both the Nobel prize for Chemistry and for Peace.
He is the only recipient of two unshared prizes on
record.  He and Ava were activists, and some of his
students, such as the late Doug Strain, went to
extra lengths to have their teacher memorialized.
Hence this house was restored as a part of a three
building campus plus parking lot.  Plans to acquire
the entire city block are on hold -- every organization
needs to aspire to some next higher level I suppose.

Doug Strain was the founder of Electro Scientific
Industries, one of the core businesses of the so-called
Silicon Forest, others being Tektronix and HP.  Some
define this Forest to stretch far enough north to encompass
Microsoft.  It's just local mythology, a manifestation of
a part of Oregon trying to compete with San Jose and
its Silicon Valley.  Both regions attract skilled people
so it's not like "competition" is all that necessary, more
we don't want visitors to be confused and to ask where
the Golden Gate Bridge might be -- not in this neighborhood,
about 11 hours by freeway, due south, over mountains.

Content Delivery and Wikieducator

Here is a link to the Martian Math web site, from the
course just completed, followed by a link to my
Heuristics for Teachers, where these components
get more overview.

http://www.4dsolutions.net/satacad/martianmath/toc.html

http://www.4dsolutions.net/satacad/martianmath/readme.html

(links to Wikieducator from "The idea of Martian Math..."

The Neolithic Math course involved much use of the
pendulum (also a plumb bob) and sundials, but was
even more focused on a unit radius R, and the
geometry one could derive from just an R length,
some string, some chalk (basically compass and
ruler, with some string for a compass).

I don't think my Wikieducator write-up gives a complete
enough picture.  But then one cannot assume that Wiki
materials necessarily substitute for an actual hands
on workshop.  Different media go to different purposes.

I am thankful that Wikieducator has provided such a
free and open platform for the placement of unrestricted
materials, suitable for adaptat

Re: [WikiEducator] Resource Repository

[kirby urner]

On Sun, Jul 4, 2010 at 3:07 PM, Wayne Mackintosh
 wrote:
> kirby urner  wrote:
>
>> WE pages are iceberg tips in ecosystems that
>> only tenuously overlap with one another.
>
> Hi Kirby,
>
> Thanks for highlighting this -- great post :-).  In my thinking, this is a
> significant but characterising feature of the WikiEducator project.  In this
> respect we are different from other wiki projects --- WE're "organised" as a
> community of educators working on a myriad of different OER artefacts,
> unlike, for instance the Wikimedia Foundation projects which are communities
> organised around the objects they produce. (Wikipedia for encyclopaedia
> articles, Wikibooks for books etc.).
>
> WE mustn't forget that we're a node within a larger free culture ecosystem.
> Similarly collaboration doesn't necessarily mean that more than one person
> should be working on a single OER resource.  It's a complex network and
> tapestry of self-organising interrelationships.
>
> Wayne
>

Yes Wayne, I get that sense too.  I would consider myself rather low on the
totem pole, in terms of understanding the OER / L4C and everything it's
about.  I am grateful for the work you put in, and the community you are
building.

I was glad to be welcomed and to be offered high enough certification
(WikiBuddy) to feel included.  I continue to monitor the list and marvel
at our diversity.

Kirby

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Re: [WikiEducator] Resource Repository

[kirby urner]

On Sat, Jul 3, 2010 at 6:22 PM, Wayne Mackintosh
 wrote:
>
>
> On 4 July 2010 06:46,  wrote:
>>
>> I, for one, would love to work with a partner or partners on the project I
>> promised...an adult education textbook.  Otherwise it probably will not get
>> done given time constraints and my tendency to volunteer for too much.
>> Joyce McKnight, SUNY/Empire State College
>
> Hi Joyce -- great idea - -why don't you just start work on an adult
> education textbook -- just do it and we will help make this happen.  Why not
> list this as one of the CollabOERate strategic projects
> (http://wikieducator.org/OERF:CollabOERate). I'm pretty sure that around the
> world we can identify a few institutions who would like to work on an OER
> course / textbook for Adult education.

<< snip >>

I was exposed to a new-to-me word not so long ago:  andragogy.  This
in contrast to pedagogy, where peda means child or children..Andragogy
was to be used for adults.  Yes, here it is on Wikipedia so it must be
legit (smile):  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andragogy

>> I like this idea. I do think that new members enjoy and benefit greatly
>> from early collaboration with others in the WE community. I think we've
>> talked about identifying some straightforward projects...for example
>> glossaries...that could be suggested as good places for new members to join
>> in. I don't have much experience with L4C workshops. Thoughts from
>> someone(s) with more experience in L4C on adding this element to the L4C
>> workshop structure?
>>
>> Warm regards,
>> Alison
>> User page: ASnieckus

To some extent I think WE pages are iceberg tips in ecosystems that
only tenuously overlap with one another.  I came to WE around the same
time I started contributing to Wikipedia extensively, to one entry in
particular.  I was drawn to the Wiki technology, even adopted the look
for the Grunch.net web site (thanks to my associate Trevor Blake
of synchronofile.com ).

As a member of the Python Software Foundation (PSF), I was also
interested in the state of the Python materials on WE.  This was
my first exercise in collaboration, as I found a page that was
already well along and started elaborating on it, with communications
to the original author (in India as it turned out).

Mostly I've been working on an approach to spatial geometry
pioneered by R. Buckminster Fuller.  Many people know about
the geodesic dome, but fewer know about the octet-truss, which
was also important to Alexander Graham Bell.  Connecting these
dots is essential to the future of K-16 mathematics education
in my estimation.  I work with what I call "radical math" teachers
on this topic, with 'radical' a pun on 'root' and the 'radical sign'
used in algebra (Al Jabber, radical = surd).  Our logo is a
backwards R under a radical sign.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/17157...@n00/4585728237/in/photostream/

Having some baseline heuristics for teachers on WE then
allows me to point back from places like mathfuture (a
Google group) and math-teach (forum 206 in the Math
Forum).  My global reach has improved thanks to this
WE technology and its ease of use.  When I do workshops,
I can project the content, spark discussion, invite more
participation.

The Bucky Fuller stuff is packaged as "Martian Math" in
this curriculum, and is part of a larger Digital Mathematics
curriculum (synonymous with "discrete math" in some
lexicons -- math-thinking-l is another list where we've
hashed through some naming conventions).  I've got
other ways of categorizing math topics, and these
partially overlap.  I point back from Python community
discussion lists such as edu-sig, showing where a
specific approach to digital math fits in to this broader
schema (for example, we like to teach about SQL as
a topic in Supermarket Math, not just in "computer
science" (the division between these two is harmful
and artificial -- in the lower grades especially)).

Anyway, that's a lot of detail about my very specific
projects involving WE.  I just wanted to illustrate my point
that WE pages can be integral within a network (or
"graph") of interlinked resources, without this being
readily apparent to "outsiders" (including to other
members of the WE community).

I would encourage other educators to come forward
with use cases i.e. descriptions of how they're using
this technology.  That would help others get some ideas
about how they might more effectively network perhaps.

Kirby Urner
http://wikieducator.org/User:KirbyUrner

PS:  speaking of glossaries, here's some of the
nomenclature Bucky Fuller came up with, still alien
enough to be considered Martian.  For more
background I'd recommend my essay 'Aristotle
was Right!' on geometry-p

Re: [WikiEducator] Free. But will users find it?

[kirby urner]

On Tue, Apr 6, 2010 at 10:43 PM, john stampe  wrote:

<< SNIP >>

> The article is about journal articles, but I as I read it I realized that
> the basic issue also applies to open education - specifically, WE and the
> CollabOERate concept. It is not an issue with marketing (at least not in the
> narrow sense of the word), but about being able to get users to find the
> material from the internet, especially with the bias that exists toward
> proprietary and other copyright restricted material.
>
> Any thoughts?
>
> Cheers,
> John

I make lots of links to specific WE pages as a way of weaving my web.

Some webs are tight enough to make specific WE pages feel a part
of entirely different scenarios, yet the WE context provides a
familiar look and feel nonetheless, which tends to be comforting
in some zip codes.

Kirby Urner
http://wikieducator.org/User:KirbyUrner
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synergetics_(Fuller)

Related domain: grunch.net, isepp.org, 4dsolutions.net

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Re: [WikiEducator] Improving our our search capability -- WE need your advice

[kirby urner]

On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 9:51 PM, aprasad  wrote:
> You are right Dr. Wayne, Joshua has made and excellent proposal, let us
try
> it first.
>

I have read all the posts up to the above.  Appreciate all the thoughts.

As was mentioned in passing, Google is already web crawling Wikieducator,
so if you add that key word, you'll tend to get those links, even without
the
custom search box and presumably domain-specific result set.

In my own daily practice, I don't always go to the WE home page to
search WE, am in effect using Google already (or Bing or).

Sometimes the most rewarding compilations of links are hand crafted
by scholars with a finely tuned sense of relevance, something search
engines can't necessarily match.

Wikieducator guidebooks, or guidebooks including Wikieducator pages:
I look forward to more of these, however labeled.

Having another human show me around, based on first hand experience,
is often more satisfying than running a search engine (not that it's
either/or).

Seems no pressure to decide right away given the engines are already
indexing the content.

The sphinx thing sounds interesting, dunno how much meta data you'd get,
aggregating from searches.

Seems like an open environment like this one could experiment with sharing
some metadata publicly.  I seem to recall some page ranking (based on total
hit counts?), not sure what other web stats are on tap.

Students / researchers of Wikis get hungry for data, that much I know.

Kirby Urner
http://wikieducator.org/User:KirbyUrner

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[WikiEducator] seems slow?

[kirby urner]

I'm having a dickens of a time loading Wikieducator pages
this afternoon, not a serious problem as I'm not projecting
in class today.

There could be a million explanations that have nothing to
do with New Zealand, right?

Gratifying to see over a 1000 views of our Python Tutorials
page <http://wikieducator.org/PYTHON_TUTORIALS>.  The
view count feature is quite useful.

Since that long thread on Wikipedia, how some teachers
like to dump on it, I've ventured to contribute to it myself,
including an entire entry on some mathematical work
completed and published back in the 1990s.

Mostly I've collaborated on getting the Bucky Fuller pages
up to snuff, so that theater-goers in Washington DC aren't
too frustrated by lack of content (play about Bucky starting
in June at Arena Theater).  Not that this is our only motive,
but people do tend to hit Wikipedia when seeking reality
checks, and it was just a stub page for the longest time.

This has been a somewhat grueling exercise, as we had
to go through a lot of peer review internally.  The result is
stable enough however.

I'm glad to have had a Wikieducator thread on the topic
beforehand, gave me perspective.

Here's from today's blog
post<http://worldgame.blogspot.com/2010/02/update-from-pauling-campus.html>,
where I again take up the
issue of teachers being down on Wikipedia, or sometimes
all things Internet, putting it in context:

Buzz and I are yakking about Beaverton high schools and Google's reputation,
> also Wikipedia's. At some schools, teachers like to dump on all things
> Internet, consider these technologies a threat. Buzz had some anecdotes.
>
> So is this a union thing? No, we don't think so. Probably more
> generational, with some individuals disliking change. Many go into math
> teaching seeking to escape impermanence, become psychologically distraught
> at the prospect of using Youtube, even when literally begged by students to
> share content by this means.
>
> Beaverton's Sunset High, in contrast, is very pro Internet and encourages
> students to develop their communications skills with new media. This is one
> of the top schools in the nation. Do they teach about Mites, Sytes and
> Kites? Soon if not yet I'll betcha.
>


*Kirby Urner
Linus Pauling House Campus
Portland, Oregon*

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Re: [WikiEducator] Going live with WYSIWYG editing -- Testing and Scheduled outage

[kirby urner]

>
> Happy editing!
>
> Wayne and Jim
> OER Foundation.
>
> --
> Wayne Mackintosh, Ph.D.
> Director,
> International Centre for Open Education,
> Otago Polytechnic, New Zealand.
> Board of Directors, OER Foundation.
> Founder and Community Council Member, Wikieducator, www.wikieducator.org
> Mobile +64 21 2436 380
> User Page: http://wikieducator.org/User:Mackiwg
> Skype: WGMNZ1
> Twitter: OERFoundation, Mackiwg
>
>

Just wanted to relay my thanks.  I'm a relative newcomer and have learned a
lot already in my short time here.  I've been testing the new WYSIWYG tool,
was intrigued how it handled my  tag, by popping up a subwindow.
Lots of thought has gone into this, I can tell.  Kudos to designer-coders.
I'd like to learn more.

Thank you again!  Best wishes on the switchover in February.

Kirby
User:KirbyUrner

in Portland, Oregon

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Re: [WikiEducator] perception

[kirby urner]

On Wed, Jan 20, 2010 at 12:02 PM, Edward Cherlin  wrote:
...


> It is true that Wikipedia should never be cited as a primary source
> for research. The same is generally true of other Wikis. The correct
> attitude is not to ban use of Wikis, but to require that students find
> the original sources for the information in the Wiki, and to study and
> cite those sources. You should not take the word of any participant
>


Yes, where primary sources are required, Wikipedia strives to
self-disqualify.

However, not all research requires a primary source for every point.

Also, Wikipedia may be an object of study, and so the citations point to
"exhibits" therein for discussion.

My logical point:  a student research project that cites Wikipedia is
not therefore amateurish just because of that fact.

In some contexts, citing a secondary source such as a newspaper article, TV
story, encyclopedia, glossary or dictionary entry is an OK thing to do.
Citations are deliberately cast widely in some kinds of writing.  Thinking
of Borges.



> here for fact, but should yourself look at the research papers,
> software, learning materials, and methods recommended and evaluate
> them accordingly. Wikis are neither more nor less reliable than other
> published encyclopedias, newspapers, TV, or other secondary and
> tertiary sources.
>
>

Indeed, and on the very same Wiki, you may have pages that vary hugely as to
their quality and reliability.

A wiki is in some ways closer to what the original web was supposed to be:
as easy to add to as to browse.

Turned out html, ftp, hosting, domain names and all of that, made the web
more passive than originally hoped.  Wikis have helped address that,
although I'm far from claiming they're shouldering the entire burden.

Blaming a wiki for the content of one of its pages may be like blaming a jet
airplane because the dinner rolls in one of the gallies have gone cold.

On the other hand, Wikipedia has a brand to think about and doesn't stand to
gain from a flood of poor information.  So a lot of advisories have been
worked out, resulting in a kind of politics, where pages get challenged as
to their relevance, veracity, readability etc.

That's something you don't see in most printing press type encyclopedias.
Here the pages keep evolving and we're privy to at least some of th
editorial process.

All of which is to say:  not everything is a clone of something we've had in
the past, and in some ways Wikipedia is a genuinely new phenomenon, even
though it's also correct to call it an encyclopedia.  Wikieducator
likewise.  Innovation proceeds apace.

Kirby
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Re: [WikiEducator] Re: perception

[kirby urner]

accept on faith that every tool is as
apropos as its champions advertise.  Detractors perform a social service
sometimes, in registering their skepticism.  It's one thing to challenge,
another to stand in the way.

When I encounter a resistent attitude, sometimes my question is:  is this
person really a gatekeeper?  Sometimes a lot of frustration arises from
thinking so-and-so needs to agree or cooperate.

Last night I attended a talk about how micro-hydro installations are
bringing the Internet to the mountain tribes of Borneo.  Thanks to some of
these experiments, kids are less likely to leave the village, while still
getting an education.  "Place based education" is ever more possible in some
contexts.

A local wiki might provide the local map of the village and its
surroundings.  When it comes to resisting timber company efforts to simply
grab land, having these maps is a big help.  These maps are "learning
objects" of a vital nature.

The talk (led by a member of one of these tribes) included showing off
Google Earth.  Even though we were a room full of mostly older
technologically savvy people, I could tell that Google Earth was new to some
of us.  Our presenter from Borneo was likewise an engineer, in his 30s, and
ahead of a lot of us, in terms of skills and mastery over contemporary
technology.

Back to Fuller's 'Synergetics', I'm always encountering skepticism as to its
relevance and importance to contemporary intellectual history, and that's OK
with me, is what I have to work with.  I also get to work with Google
Sketchup and WikiEducator, so why should I complain?


http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=a4295f6b93a3e11488961f28097fe890&prevstart=0
(dome tent)

http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=41da9dccf088fd4d3bbc5c9f885136bc&prevstart=0
(octet truss building a buckyball)

http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=56d2fcc950f147aaeac8dd3fda239aee&prevstart=0
(Fuller Projection)

In that sense, I'm quite open to people sharing about their possibly
negative experiences with this or that technology.

If you've had a bad experience with Wikipedia or some other wiki, there
should be a forum or group where it's OK to share it, and without
automatically being stigmatized as "anti progress" or "a poor teacher" or
some such label.

I expect readers here agree, so again please don't take this as a lecture.

Kirby


>
> On Jan 18, 6:49 pm, kirby urner  wrote:
> > On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 5:50 PM, valerie  wrote:
> >
>
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Re: [WikiEducator] perception

[kirby urner]

Jan's points below are well taken.

In the thick of some scientific debate, where the veracity of various
positions is being called into question, it's generally not considered
appropriate to cite an encyclopedia, even Britannica.  Encyclopedias are
secondary sources, and when a point needs strong support, one needs to
locate a primary source.

Encyclopedia citations in the case of blog postings, electronic memos,
correspondence, may helpfully go to Wikipedia when simply defining terms or
mentioning an historical event in passing.

I'll link to Math World, Urban Dictionary, Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences
in this way.  These aren't student papers justifying a debating position.
These are orienting cues or clues, hoping to keep my reader up to speed
enough to not disconnect entirely, because I'm using too many undefined
terms.

Or if I am taking a controversial position,* then I need to do better than
just cite an encyclopedia* (any encyclopedia).

However, even when decoding shop talk or jargon, one may encounter entries
with problems e.g. this entry regarding
UML<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_Paradigm_for_UML>(unified
modeling language)  is currently flagged as "written like an
advertisement"  -- another kind of spam editors of an open wiki-based
encyclopedia need to contend with.

Regarding Wikieducator, there's little to stop someone at the top of their
game, one of the leading authorities in some field, from making some
Wikieducator page a window into her or his thinking.

Imagine if Linus Pauling <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus_pauling> had
chosen Wikieducator as a place to share views, not only about chemistry (for
which he had a Nobel prize), but also about nuclear disarmament (he had a
Nobel Peace Prize as well, took many controversial opinions at the height of
the McCarthy period <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism> and
subsequently).

Regarding Wikipedia, there's a specific policy that articles should contain no
original research<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research>.
I don't see WikiEducator has having such a policy, e.g. here's a
Wikieducator 
page<http://wikieducator.org/Otago_Polytechnic/Measuring_our_open_education>giving
the results of some specific field study.  This is nothing like an
encyclopedia entry in Wikipedia.

On a different topic, I was wondering how in WikiEducator one might embed an
iFrame such as are used in Google Street
Views<http://worldgame.blogspot.com/2008/12/google-street-view.html>.
I did some searches but so far have not found any examples.

*Kirby Urner <http://wikieducator.org/User:KirbyUrner>*


On Tue, Jan 19, 2010 at 5:08 AM, Jan Visser  wrote:

>  "Also, the color scheme and design of the website is exactly the same as
> Wikipedia.org. Wikipedia is known for false information, and cannot be used
> for research papers. I feel that this site is similar to Wikipedia;
> therefore, this site's information cannot be trusted."
>
>
>
> There are two reasons why you can't use Wikipedia as a source for citation
> in arguments where scientific validation is a serious concern: (1) the
> source is not stable. What is there one day may no longer ne there the next
> day. (2) The authorship is anonymous and articles have not been peer
> reviewed. So, whatever claims appear in the citation can't be traced back to
> a particular individual or institutional environment with a recognizable
> history of validly contributing to scientific knowledge building.
>
>
>
> It doesn't mean, though, that what you read in the Wikipedia is worthless
> or that students should be discouraged from using it in their explorations.
> Quite to the contrary, in my view. In many areas, Wikipedia is an excellent
> resource. Students can often use it as a good starting point for their
> research because it's free, but they will have to move beyond it to check
> what they read against sources that meet the criteria for citation mentioned
> above. Many good entries in the Wikipedia are linked to or cite such
> quotable sources, which should make it easy for students to do such further
> research.
>
>
>
> As WikiEducator's mission is in the first place to provide curriculum
> materials, it's unlikely that it will want to become a quotable resource,
> for the same reason that printed curriculum materials developed for schools
> are unlikely to end up among the referenced works cited in scientific
> papers, unless the paper is in the area of the sciences of learning.
>
>
>
> The student is wrong if s/he thinks that you cannot trust the information
> in Wikipedia simply because it is Wikipedia and that, if it is in one of
> those other sources, it can be automatically trusted. Anything written will
> a

Re: [WikiEducator] perception

[kirby urner]

On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 5:50 PM, valerie  wrote:

<< snip >>


> Sigh... Yes, some of our faculty are convinced that Wikipedia and by
> association, all wikis, especially those that look like Wikipedia
> because they use Mediawiki are evil and populated by gangs of internet
> hooligans intent on provide false information to unsuspecting web
> users. They explicitly forbid the use of Wikipedia.
>
> Has anyone else heard of similar credibility issues for WikiEducator
> content? Is this something that is limiting adoption of WE learning
> objects?
>
> ..Valerie
>
>
You bring up an interesting point Valarie.

As Wikieducators, I think it makes sense for us to cogently explain the
difference between look and feel, and content.

We also have defenders of Wikipedia among us I'm sure.

I don't think it's a teacher's job, whenever confronted with a negative
prejudice towards some resource or institution, to simply capitulate and
accept some rumor-based verdict.

Sometimes one needs to push back and give an alternative point of view.

What I might say to a student about Wikipedia is that encyclopedias by their
very nature tend to be controversial, as they strive to tell sometimes
controversial stories in an authoritative manner.

Wikipedia simply takes the lid off and shows us how some entries become
contentious, whereas others scoot by with little or no discussion, attract
no debates.  The public is privy to this process, whereas a more private
enterprise reveals less of the internal debate (if there is one -- we have
no way of knowing).

The problem of authentication, believability, credibility, is not confined
to wikis of any description, nor to the Web or the Internet.  Misinformation
is pervasive and may be propagated by people who simply don't know any
better, have no intent to misinform.

The institutional role of "teacher" or "educator" should include catching
and correcting information where possible, and of course I realize we don't
always agree to begin with, about what the truth is -- that's the whole
point.  So we keep debating, going back and forth, advancing the
conversation.  That's a learning process we encourage.

Finally, I think we should take every opportunity to simply explain with a
wiki is, in general terms.  Where the idea comes from, what it's history
is.  Who came up with the idea?  What was the first wiki?  If I search on
Wikieducator about Wikis, what will I find?...

This seems a good page:
http://wikieducator.org/Wikieducator_tutorial/What_is_a_wiki

I've met Ward Cunningham a few times (inventor of the wiki).  He's around
Portland, Oregon, as is Linus Torvalds, inventor of Linux.  Lots of open
source culture around here, which I'm proud about.

On a rather different topic, related to my Python work, I'm interested to
what extent WikiEducator pages venture into non-Latin-1 characters (unicode
glyphs).  I was able to find Hebrew and Arabic on one of the pages.  I
haven't yet found any examples of Chinese and/or Japanese characters.

One of the coolest features of Wikipedia is that a lot of its pages are in
other languages:

http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9D%D0%B5%D0%B3%D0%B0-%D0%BF%D0%BE%D0%B7%D0%B8%D1%86%D0%B8%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%8F_%D1%81%D0%B8%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B5%D0%BC%D0%B0_%D1%81%D1%87%D0%B8%D1%81%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%8F

(sorry for the nasty URL, should work though...)


Kirby
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Re: [WikiEducator] Re: WE blog or newsletter?

[kirby urner]

On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 9:25 AM, kirby urner  wrote:

<< trim >>


>
> I'll post a link to that post in the Math Forum when it appears (this is a
> moderated list), so you can better see how I promote Wikieducator to my
> audience.  In the meantime, I have this short essay on Constructivism that
> might interest a few here (Ed Cherlin for example):
>
> http://mathforum.org/kb/thread.jspa?threadID=2019948&tstart=0
>
>
OK, here's an example of how placing a link to Wikieducator brings
interested math teachers, curriculum writers and others towards pages on
Wikieducator, and by extension to explore the underlying phenomena.  They
might find the community blog and community portal as a result.

http://mathforum.org/kb/message.jspa?messageID=6928072&tstart=0#reply-tree

Speaking of the community portal, I'm amazed at the flexibility of the Table
semantics.  My use of that embedded gizmo has so far been primitive, but I
see where WikiArtisans have these amazing talents and abilities.

Kirby



> I appreciate your work and encourage you to keep doing it.
>
> Our "global university" (GU) thanks you -- I use GU interchangebly with
> Fuller's moniker Spaceship Earth (SE), as a way of looking at the whole
> planet.
>
> Kirby Urner
> Portland, Oregon
>
>
>
>


-- 
>>> from mars import math
http://www.wikieducator.org/Digital_Math

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Re: [WikiEducator] Re: WE blog or newsletter?

[kirby urner]

On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 2:40 PM,  wrote:

>  I think the more we work together to edit things the better...It not only
> helps clarify ideas, it gives us all practice on the best ways to do it
> collaboratively and cordially.  Joyce McKnight, SUNY Empire State College
>
> *kirby urner *
> Sent by: wikieducator@googlegroups.com
> 12/12/2009 09:25 AM PSTPlease respond towikieduca...@googlegroups.com
>
>  To   wikieducator@googlegroups.com
>  cc
>  bcc   Joyce McKnight/SUNY
>  Subject   Re: [WikiEducator] Re: WE blog or newsletter?
>
Adding to my own use case (story) along these lines:



I came to Wikieducator thanks to Maria Droujkova and her Math 2.0 group
which has this mathfuture Google Group.  Ed Cherlin and I have crossed paths
on that list as well.  We had an international webinar on WizIQ about
Wikieducator in particular (on Oct 31 of this year) and at that point I
joined.

Since I'm an avid Python fan who has attended some conferences, rubbed
shoulders with the great Guido, Tim Peters, other luminaries, I went
straight to the PYTHON TUTORIALS page, found through the search box.

What I found was an excellent beginning, and it seemed encouraged by the
Wiki medium and culture that I should add considerably to that page,
including more today.

I contacted the original author with my appreciative comments and
indications of my intentions to add more material, about functions,
generators and classes for example.  She and I and whatever other interested
parties could grow this page together.

This all came after establishing a user page and working through some of the
tutorials, coming from prior experience with Wikis, including Wikipedia
where I've made a few changes.  I got my WIkibuddy certification around then
too.

The PYTHON TUTORIALS page has had a couple links added by people other than
myself, but no substantial writing or rewrites have occurred.  On the other
hand, probably relatively few members of the Python Software Foundation
other than myself have been aware of Wikieducator?  Over on the edu-sig list
(one of our many special interest groups) only Ed Cherlin and I seemed to
know about it, until I started archiving all these links.

Anyway, just today, I posted notification to the PSF members list that I'd
added a Python logo to the top of the page in question.  PSF is protective
of its logo but mostly has no problem with this obviously consistent use of
the brand, in a free and open teaching context aimed at spreading knowledge
and appreciation for the Python computer language.

As to the several other pages I've constructed, another added in the last
hour **, the history will show I've been doing these solo.

I'm not averse to having help.

Indeed, I would welcome lots and lots of assistance in getting these ideas
out there, am somewhat miserable for lack of co-teachers.

However, I think the curve might be (a) a Wikieducator fleshes out a vision,
creates a grand design and then (b) co-teachers come along and start making
improvements, as well as adding related / connected material.

The beauty of this arrangement is the symmetry:  each Wikieducator may
assume "grand designer" status for some set of pages *and* still work in a
team-spirited fashion as an assistant on pages where others assume
responsibility for overall content.

It makes sense to let pages rest with people who really know about them, but
then to make provisions for organic growth and evolution, with page
ownership transitioning from one generation to another.

Finally, I just want to register my pleasure at finally discovering the
Table button in the editor, and the two tables this enabled me to create
these two:

http://wikieducator.org/Martian_Math#Unpacking_Polyhedra
http://wikieducator.org/Sample_MM_Lesson_Plan#Materials

I find these tables quite handsome and suitable for snipping as PNGs for
including elsewhere, for example here:

http://worldgame.blogspot.com/2009/12/more-pkl-talk.html (scroll down for
Table).



Kirby

** in the last hour:
http://wikieducator.org/Sample_CM_Lesson_Plan  (my first use of
[[Media:<>]] )

-- 
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http://www.wikieducator.org/Digital_Math

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Re: [WikiEducator] Re: WE blog or newsletter?

[kirby urner]

On Fri, Dec 11, 2009 at 2:45 PM, Wayne Mackintosh <
mackintosh.wa...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Chris, Valery and Kirby
>
> The planetplanet software is great and well aligned with our open community
> values :-)
>
> I don't see any issues with installing this as a WikiEducator subdomain.
> This will be great way for aggregating blog-feeds about WikiEducator from
> our community members.
>
> The only issue is going to be one of timing - -we're currently migrating
> WikiEducator over to the Athabasca servers --- however, our test
> installation is not yet performing at the levels we would like :-(. We're in
> the process of putting more metal into the cluster so that our site will
> perform at the levels we expect from WikiEducator.
>
> If possible, We'd prefer to avoid double work with two installations of the
> planet software. We would appreciate a couple of weeks breathing space to
> get this operational -- Is that OK?
>
> An open question -- with regards to the WikiEducator blog itself, we've
> been throwing around a few ideas. What do you think about the WikiEducator
> blog being more wiki-like -- in other words where the WE blogging team
> collaborate openly on the post in the wiki way -- a blog post which everyone
> can edit.  We'll need to take a look at available extensions and think about
> RSS feeds, comments etc. Personally, I think this would be rather COOL.
> Thoughts?
>
> Cheers
> Wayne
>
>

Hi Wayne --

The Planet approach looks promising, as does a community blog.

We come to Wikieducator from different walks of life, so I'll tell some of
my story as a use case example, including how I find myself promoting
Wikieducator to peers, in hopes of attracting more content, such as lesson
plans.

As someone involved with the Buckminster Fuller corpus, one of its long haul
champions (since 1980s), I found Wikieducator gave me a fresh context,
complete with well thought out tools, to package curriculum materials I've
been collecting and refining for many years, sometimes in collaboration,
sometimes alone.

Now that I have a small suite of pages, I'm looking for more internal links
to pages others are working on.  I'm also out recruiting a breed of math
teacher not afraid to innovate, to tackle new challeges.

One of those challenges is how to bring more experiences with computer
languages into everyday math learning.

I just posted another update to Math Forum hosted by Drexel University,
circling the new Sample MM Lesson Plan I just added yesterday.

MM = Martian Math, one of four broad brush stroke topical areas designed to
work either in unison, or as standalone modules.

Martian Math is where we allow ourselves to get futuristic.  The geometry
seems alien.  And yet it's correct, precise, accessible and with a strong
track record of applications, especially in architecture, chemistry and
biology.

I'm always shocked that more teachers aren't already covering this same
material.  I have little competition and it's a big world so wouldn't fear
it, plus my efforts seem obscure to the extent no one else joins me in doing
this work (at the college level, you'll find more overlap, but even here
it's a bleak landscape these days).

My motivation in using Wikieducator to publish free content, is to encourage
more teachers to pick up the ball and run with it, maybe tell me about it
later.

As you can see, I believe in my product and so my recruiting drive sometimes
has that salemanish fanatical tinge, but that's expected in a true believer,
any died-in-the-wool "world game player" of any stripe. One needs driven
individuals such as myself simply to get over the various learning curves
associated with learning to use Wikieducator effectively.

I'm still just a newcomer Wikibuddy and feel I have a long way to go on that
score, yet have made excellent progress thanks to a supportive
infrastructure and the benign, philanthropic motives of WE's leadership.

I'll post a link to that post in the Math Forum when it appears (this is a
moderated list), so you can better see how I promote Wikieducator to my
audience.  In the meantime, I have this short essay on Constructivism that
might interest a few here (Ed Cherlin for example):

http://mathforum.org/kb/thread.jspa?threadID=2019948&tstart=0

My guess is a lot of teachers do something similar:  get their materials
on-line and then face a peer group, suggesting a "come on in, the water's
fine" attitude.

Having a large repository of interlinked courseware is what everyone thinks
is necessary (me included).

I appreciate your work and encourage you to keep doing it.

Our "global university" (GU) thanks you -- I use GU interchangebly with
Fuller's moniker Spaceship Earth (SE), as a way of looking at the whole
planet.

Kirby U

Re: [WikiEducator] Re: WE blog or newsletter?

[kirby urner]

On Wed, Dec 9, 2009 at 5:30 PM, Chris Harvey  wrote:

> The way I've approached this is using planetplanet software.
>
> You can see how I use it here.
> http://superuser.com.au/planettalo
>
> I believe many free culture communities also use planetplanet, Wikimedia
> have a planet too.
> http://en.planet.wikimedia.org/
>
>
Yes indeed, Python Nation (right next to Republic of Perl) is an avid user
of Planet:
http://planet.python.org/

Kirby in Cyberia


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>>> from mars import math
http://www.wikieducator.org/Digital_Math

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Re: [WikiEducator] Economists vs. Market Fundamentalists

[kirby urner]

On Tue, Dec 1, 2009 at 4:21 PM, Edward Cherlin  wrote:
> Another even trickier topic for would-be epistemologists. What do you
> do when the pseudoscientist, in this case Milton Friedman, has won a
> Nobel Prize? Kary Mullis is another Nobel laureate turned denier, in
> his case over HIV/AIDS. I'm packing for my move to Indiana today, but
> I'll get pages up in the Wiki on these and other such issues when I
> can.
>
> --

Just taking this opportunity to promote two of my Wikieducator pages
dealing most directly with Economics:

wikieducator.org/Supermarket_Math
wikieducator.org/GST

The GST page is especially sparse as I'm not wishing to clutter
Wikieducator with a lot of what's already out there (sometimes it's
enough to provide a buncha pointers).

On the subject of Economics, I find doomy gloomy stuff to be easier to
churn out than any truly positive futurism, so anyone contributing at
all realistically in the latter vein gets my instant respect and
kudos, even if I don't necessarily share the semi-utopian vision in
question (or maybe I do, so much the better for the two of us).
Arthur C. Clarke was a great visionary, as was Ada in her day.

Along those lines, I would categorize myself as NOT a Neo-Malthusian,
and for more context will supply this link to the Math Forum (a recent
reply to Dr. Hake, whom I often agree with and get value from
reading):

http://mathforum.org/kb/message.jspa?messageID=6916613&tstart=0

Enjoy your trip to Indiana,

Kirby

> Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
> Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
> The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
> http://www.earthtreasury.org/
>
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Re: Denialism (was Re: [WikiEducator] Phil's Rants)

[kirby urner]

On Sun, Nov 29, 2009 at 12:24 PM, Edward Cherlin  wrote:

>> = Kirby (me)
> = Edward
 = Kirby

>> The decision tree is clear and you spell it out:  is there a warming
>> trend (yes or no) and if yes, are humans responsible to some degree?
>>
>> I think you and I would say "yes" and "yes".
>
> There is much more to the tree, and much more to any serious answer.

I am sure you're right.  As I mentioned, I have big holes in my
knowledge as to what's on Wikieducator and for the purposes of this
list, I'm willing to focus on those pages, just like on edu-sig
(Python.org), I'm focused on Python modules (e.g. mine), you on Turtle
Art (XO-based, though maybe x-platform?).

> The full scientific decision tree has had tens of thousands of
> decision points so far, and many more to come.

Sounds like National Geographic channel, which I'm watching right now
with my teenager, sitting in my Silicon Forest domicile (we have real
trees too).

> A question that has some interest, but currently comes over as
> rearranging the deck chairs on the plans for the successor to the
> Titanic.
>

I think we need to put the ethical tone on a different axis from the
factual axis, not saying either is most important (you need facts to
have ethics, last I checked).

Of course losing the Titanic was a real tragedy and a disaster, I'm
not disputing that, likewise have fond feelings towards Spaceship
Earth, keep my misanthropy (a mild case) in check on most days (I'm
primarily a philanthropist, work for CSN, a chain of philanthropic
casinos designed to pump funds to worthy causes (Casino Math is
another Wikieducator page I'm working on these days)).

>> then we need to get our sea
>> legs with this Gaia Hypothesis (appears to be correct)
>
> There are many versions. I don't know which one you mean.
>

Probably not so important (relevant) to this thread I think my only
purpose was just to get in the ballpark and give a rough idea of my
thinking, not drill down (or in) too deeply.

Mostly what I say in cocktail parties is I only respect the opinion of
Dutch engineers on the matter of global warming (they're pretty
serious about it for obvious reasons).  That's of course just a polite
way of changing the subject.

>> and start
>> realizing that GCC is somewhat under the conscious control of humans.
>
> Past time.
>

So here you celebrate and welcome GCC being under the CC of humans...

>> If humans have found a way to play with thermostat, that could come in handy.
>
> Matches are handy, but I don't see any value in letting children play with 
> them.
>

... but here you seem more ambivalent, looking at humans as children,
which is risky in terms of what kind of prophet you want to sound
like.

Given you seem to study the internal affairs of the USA's southeast
e.g. Alabama, I'm speculating as to what extent you yourself might be
influenced by Biblical models, even though you're on the record as not
being especially Biblical.

The Middle Eastern religions tend to be patriarchal in outlook and to
encourage a kind of cantankerous "father knows best" attitude among
older men.  They come off sounding patronizing.  You and I have never
met so I'm clearly in no position to have an informed view, just
wondering.

We should have a beer someday or other drink in a social setting so
that we might continue our mutual evaluation and assessment.

In the meantime, I mostly only discuss GCC with Dutch engineers (my
line on the ISEPP list as well, where I mostly stay with other
topics).

More my typical banter (flavor of ice cream):
http://mail.geneseo.edu/pipermail/math-thinking-l/2009-November/001329.html

More soon maybe, over on edu-sig perhaps?  I'm been trying to find out
how we do extended precision decimal stuff in Scheme.  Pretty easy no?

http://mail.python.org/pipermail/edu-sig/2009-November/009675.html

Kirby Urner

isepp.org (board)
python.org (voting member)
wikieducator.org (wikibuddy)

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http://www.wikieducator.org/Martian_Math

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Re: Denialism (was Re: [WikiEducator] Phil's Rants)

[kirby urner]

On Sun, Nov 29, 2009 at 11:00 AM, Edward Cherlin  wrote:

<< snip >>

>
> Let's hear it then from the rest of you. What are your issues with
> Global Warming science vs. the carbon fuel industry and their
> scientific and political shills and common or garden variety dupes?
>

Hey there Ed, nice chatting, see you on on edu-sig (Python.org) sometimes too.

Our little think tank, isepp.org, meeting @ Linus Pauling's boyhood
home in Portland, Oregon, have talked over GW and/or GCC extensively,
including in our Yahoo! archives.

This is the heart of the Silicon Forest and we pride ourselves on
being engineers, good ones.

The decision tree is clear and you spell it out:  is there a warming
trend (yes or no) and if yes, are humans responsible to some degree?

I think you and I would say "yes" and "yes".

But then there's a pause point we need to insert:  is humanity having
responsibility for climate change a bad thing?  If we have long term
plans to terraform Mars (some say we do), then we need to get our sea
legs with this Gaia Hypothesis (appears to be correct) and start
realizing that GCC is somewhat under the conscious control of humans.

Will they be able to self-organize successfully?  Somehow that's
always the question, in every age.

Remember that vast climate cycling is characteristic of this planet so
that even without human influence, we were expecting another Ice Age
soon.

If humans have found a way to play with thermostat, that could come in handy.

On the other hand, giant geodesic domes inside of which we have
climate control, outside of which we have much less (because we don't
control solar cycling), may be the evolutionary trend, not claiming to
be all-knowing.

Such pockets of climate control (inside domes) is already a feature in
UK architecture (Cornwall) as you probably know.  We study this place
in Martian Math (my WikiEducator topic).

In sum, I don't see "no change" as in any way normal for climate.
It's all about cycling and changing.

That humans are now butting in at a level that really changes the
ocean water levels is a somewhat new development and we're gaining the
consciousness to go with it, which is what one would expect.  The
design is intelligent i.e. self aware and adapting, one might say that
without thumping a Bible.

I am entirely unaware of what has so far been uploaded to Wikieducator
in the way of Gaia Hypothesis literature.  Lynn Margulis is a good
source of information on early Earthian biotica, the different gaseous
makeups one may take as evidence of biomass activity.  These gas
disequilibria are what spectrometers look for in seeking the chemistry
of life on other planets.

Kirby

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Re: [WikiEducator] Happy Thanksgiving

[kirby urner]

Thank you Sarita.  I enjoyed looking over your home page and learning
more about your work.

Kirby


On Fri, Nov 27, 2009 at 9:57 AM, Sarita Kumar  wrote:
> Hi all,
> Wish you & your families Happy Thanksgiving.
>
> Regards
> Sarita
>
> --
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> http://www.wikieducator.org/India
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http://www.wikieducator.org/Martian_Math

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[WikiEducator] Re: Can Educators Learn?

[kirby urner]

On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 3:29 PM, kirby urner  wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 2:54 PM, Edward Cherlin  wrote:
>
> < trim >
>

> So we're in agreement on that score.  Good news about the Old South
> though, sounds like Forest Gump has lots to celebrate.
>

Just to share some pedigree, our Urner Family genealogy was first
authored in 1893 by Isaac N. Urner, LL.D., late president of
Mississippi College, Clinton.  My mother's branch of the family also
headquartered in Florida for many years, and I went to high school
there initially (in Florida).  My eldest daughter Alexia moved to
Tennessee awhile back (she's since returned to Oregon).  My company
currently shares offices with a corporate refugee from Savannah,
Georgia, completely authentic.  My wife was from Satellite Beach (also
Florida).

These are details one might slip in to my autobiography, already a
subpage of my Wikieducator user page.

> Racism is so on the ropes because genetics found nothing like a "race
> gene" and the statistical mappings are too complicated to really
> follow, the whole nomenclature breaks down (unless you keep it on life
> support, but that gets old too).

Kirby

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[WikiEducator] Re: Can Educators Learn?

[kirby urner]

On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 2:54 PM, Edward Cherlin  wrote:

< trim >

>> I'm glad we live in a parallel processing system such that if Lower48
>> USA gets bogged down in fighting the Scopes Trial, turns itself into a
>> Monkey Island,
>
> To expand what I wrote earlier: We have encouraging polling data
> showing that the Old South racism and intolerance are shrinking by
> about 2% annually, almost all from the old dying off and more of the
> young each year having actual multicultural, multiethnic experience to
> convince them that invidious distinctions are evil. That means that
> the tipping point on a number of political, social, and educational
> issues will come in about 10-15 years, even in darkest Alabama and
> Mississippi. I can give anyone interested the references. We also have
> wonderful anecdotes, such as a Klan rally of about 10 at Ole Miss
> (University of Mississippi, Oxford MS) confronted by about 250
> students, many wearing Turn Your Back on Racism T-shirts and standing
> with their backs to the Klansmen.
>

This reads as good news after a fashion, it's just that we don't want
the rest of the world supposing it's stuck behind this slow moving
truck going up a mountain, no passing lane, nothing to do but grin and
bear it.  By some analysis of the world, you have Alabama's values
advance by a superpower's, making the rest of the world bow down, but
most people have never heard of Alabama and don't imagine it really
has that kind of power.

>> we still have other regions chomping at the bit to make
>> meaningful contribution to the advancement of our collective human
>> saga.  They're not really stuck in line in some sequential pipeline.
>> We're *not* all waiting for the USA to get its act together, praise
>> Bob.
>
> Amen.

So we're in agreement on that score.  Good news about the Old South
though, sounds like Forest Gump has lots to celebrate.

Racism is so on the ropes because genetics found nothing like a "race
gene" and the statistical mappings are too complicated to really
follow, the whole nomenclature breaks down (unless you keep it on life
support, but that gets old too).

Scientific American did a cover on the race issue recently, agreeing
to still see some relevance, in terms of correlating DNA markers with
illnesses (disorders).  Mostly what people imagine as "race" is really
"ethnicity" which is a "meme thing" not a "gene thing".

We had these discussions again recently on the Diversity list within
Python, team owned, archive open to members only, but anyone can
join...

>
>> Iceland has been doing a good job, as has Ireland... South Africa.
>> I'm proud of many nations.
>
> Check out Open Learning Exchange (OLE) Nepal.
>
>> Some of our newest curriculum modules, for example these four new ones
>> on Wikieducator coming through my corner (including Martian Math)
>> maybe won't develop a following in Portland, Oregon, my home town,
>> despite my being on hand to teach it, share it with other teachers.
>>
>> Perhaps my true fan base is in Vilnius or Gothenberg?
>
> Certainly Andrius Kulikauskus is there, running Minciu Sodas and
> working on a math book for Earth Treasury.
>

I should look them up next time.

>> Given the Internet, that's not necessarily a problem, although I'd
>> prefer to have more team members locally (working on recruiting,
>> including through Pauling House).  Thanks to Wikieducator, I'm already
>> finding a new community of collaborators.
>
> We also have the FLOSS Manuals, Squeakland, MIT and other Ed schools,
> OLE, Creative Commons ccLearn, various museums, and others involved.
> Also the state of California digital textbook program and the Open
> Access movement, and more. See Stacy Reed's
> http://www.librarianchick.com/ for available materials.
>

Good inventory, thank you for such a compressed list.

>> Web 2.0 is like that.
>> OLPC/XO is going to introduce a lot more children into this privileged
>> way of networking and I'm quite happy about that (during the Duke's
>> event, we upgraded one of my two XOs, to a more recent version of the
>> system (767)).
>
> Exactly.
>
>> Kirby
>

If we get a footprint for Wikieducator in some default XO distro, I'll
be sure to agitate for Martian Math and its connected modules.
There's a lot of Python in there, and Sugar's Pippy application is
right there.  With PEP 3003, maybe Pippy will have time to jump to 3.x
with the stronger Unicode support.  Or maybe that's happened already.
My tutorials on Generators (PYTHON_TUTORIALS) anticipate this
development.

Kirby

>
> --
> Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
> Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
> The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
> http://www.earthtreasury.org/
>
> >
>



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http://www.wikieducator.org/Martian_Math

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[WikiEducator] Re: Can Educators Learn?

[kirby urner]

On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 12:20 AM, Edward Cherlin  wrote:
>
> On Mon, Nov 23, 2009 at 02:14, Phil Bartle  wrote:
>>
>> John raised the question:
>> "But I have a question. And this is addressed not just to you, but to
>> everyone. Why is it that educators -- the people whose job it is to teach
>> students about new technology and concepts -- do not want to learn the
>> technology themselves?
>
> People are interested in learning things that will save them work,
> make them money, improve outcomes, or give them enjoyment. Until
> computers can be integrated into the curriculum, they do none of these
> four things for most teachers. Solving this problem needs to address
> several intertwined problems. Two of them stand out to me.
>
> * the perverse incentives in education, such as teaching to the test
>
> * the impossibility of integrating computers into the curriculum until
> every student has one 24/7 for use in class and for homework
>

Agreed that many teachers still see computers as nothing beyond a
nuisance and annoyance.

For one, they're disruptive in the sense that students with a live
Internet connection are "worse than daydreamers" in wanting to browse
on the web during class.

Various classroom control systems make keyboards go dead, turn these
dumb terminals into little more than television sets.

On the other hand, students tend to like seeing the lecture up front
on a private window, sometimes with headphones supplying a
translation.  And when the keyboard *does* unlock, there's time to
reinforce the concepts (plus the computer back in the dorm is still
unfettered, unhampered by nanny-ware -- unless that's willingly
installed by the student).

> The second will be straightforward to address in the long run,
> although quite difficult to explain to those who don't see the bigger
> picture. We need digital replacements for textbooks, and we need a
> known base of free software that every child will have so that we can
> integrate that software into the learning materials and the
> curriculum. Sugar and Free Software in general give us this base on
> OLPC XOs and on other computers using Sugar on a Stick. A number of
> organizations are interested in creating, testing, and refining the
> new materials. Funding would help, as we discussed a few days ago.
>
> The first can be tackled when computers start to be integrated into
> education, and we find that we can teach most topics more deeply and
> at earlier ages. Then we will have some space in which to explore
> without testing pressure, until the tests start to catch up with
> classroom practice. By then, we should have further advances that will
> give us a different set of spaces to work in.
>

It's easy to change the testing such that computers are required.
Writing an algorithm to produce pi to a million places is not
practical *except* using a computer language atop a sufficiently
powerful library.

Adding to one's on-line portfolio requires learning some HTML/CSS,
getting some skills.  In some schools already, these are skills
demanded by one's peer group, one's clique.

Like in Python culture, there's a lot of pressure to know Mercurial.
That's not coming from Guido or any teacher "up front".

I'm behind on this learning curve, mainly because I have no access to
safe secure classrooms where I could just sit back and enjoy a lecture
on hg, bzr, cvs, svn.  I've been relegated to Duke's Landing on SE
Belmont, where we staged a diversity event recently.**  PSU has me
idled (maybe not Reed though -- I have a footprint there, more than
one).

A lot of education is being responsive to peer group requirements
(which may include gangs, not saying there's always pressure towards
academic performance, on the contrary some cultures preach a distrust
of scholars, are more like Sparta than Athens, which sounds distopian
to me but I'm just reporting the facts on the ground as I see them).

> I do not have a solution to the political problems that currently
> bedevil curriculum development, except to wait them out, and do as
> much as we can on everything else. Some of those political forces,
> such as Republican support for Creationism and against meaningful sex
> education, are predicted to die out in 15-20 years due to demographic
> shifts. I can give you the statistical basis for this prediction and a
> number of instances where we see the effects now, in issues other than
> classroom education.
>
> The ultimate solution to the problem is this: Teachers who dreaded
> having to learn and use OLPC XOs have become their strongest
> advocates. The verdict is clear from multitudes of teachers in the
> field: "I can teach now." Once this is experienced widely enough, the
> education schools will teach the computers to students who grew up
> with computers, and no new teacher from then on will have the current
> problem.
>

I'm glad we live in a parallel processing system such that if Lower48
USA gets bogged down in fighting the Scopes Trial, turns itself i

[WikiEducator] Re: Can Educators Learn?

[kirby urner]

Thanks.  I sent my request, exploring your page.

Kirby


On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 9:19 AM, Patricia Schlicht  wrote:
>
> Hi Kirby,
>
> You might also want to have a look at the Teacher Collaboration Portal
> on WikiEducator with a large crowd of global educators subscribed to it.
> It comes upon invitation, so let me know and I'll add you with pleasure.
> Feel free to add to it
>
> See here: http://www.wikieducator.org/Teacher_Collaboration
>
> Warm ishes,
> Patricia
>

-- 
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http://www.wikieducator.org/Martian_Math

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[WikiEducator] Re: Can Educators Learn?

[kirby urner]

Interesting thread...

Speaking for myself, I think Wikieducator provides a fantastic shared
infrastructure, however not every teacher needs to master Web 2.0
skills to be effective.

It's OK to serve a niche, a minority, and to remain friendly to those
expressing an interest, providing a guidance and advice in some cases.

This is what we encourage in the Python community as well:  a lifelong
willingness to assist people overcome difficulties, especially ones
you remember overcoming, and how.

As a newcomer to the WE community, introduced through a webinar
announced on mathfuture (a Google Group), I am impressed with its
clean implementation and clear commitment to providing free, high
quality curriculum materials.

I look at Wikieducator as in part a showcase for teachers interested
in what other teachers have to offer, with the idea that we're all
here to learn from one another.

Here are people with enough skills and sense of ownership over some
content to bring their contribution to a world readership with
practically no strings attached.

That's an interesting demographic in and of itself.

Of course I meet other effective and committed teachers through other
venues as well, we all do.  One has many ways to express commitment.

Television provides its own set of challenges and many operating in
that industry have little to no time for contributing directly to
wikis.  This is not a problem that needs fixing necessarily, just a
fact to be acknowledged.

Kirby
4D

User: KirbyUrner

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[WikiEducator] Re: Freely downloadable resources for science, engineering and technology

[kirby urner]

On Thu, Nov 19, 2009 at 8:57 AM, Jan Visser  wrote:

>
> Yes, that's another connection with Kroto. I like your Martian Math page.
> Thanks also for the link to the page on "The Naming of
> Buckminsterfullerene." Kroto, of course, got the Nobel in 1996 for his part
> in the co-discovery of buckminsterfullerene, a form of pure carbon made up
> of 60 carbon atoms, which you also mention on your Martian Math page.
>

I think it's highly apropos having buckminsterfullerene on "ET math" page
given Dr. Kroto was scanning the intragalactic cosmos when he found this
spectral peak in the C60 region.

Many polymer chemists were sure it was just a long carbon chain, however
Rice University in Texas had the laser power to simulate the cosmos in the
lab, where C60 could be purified and studied in some detail.

That the third allotrope of carbon is like a soccer ball was one of the
great discoveries of the 20th century, led to carbon cage studies more
generally, including of nanotubes.


>
> I have followed Kroto's work at Florida State University in setting up the
> repository I mentioned over the past couple of years. Its growth has been
> impressive. He has been very effective in mobilizing his friends and
> colleagues from around the world to contribute.
>
> Jan
>

That's good to know about.

I hang out with a bunch of Cal Tech alums (isepp.org), some of whom knew
Linus Pauling, another Nobel, with a special collection at Oregon State
University (shared with Ava).  Our meeting house is Pauling's boyhood home,
where his passion for chemistry really took off (or so we might speculate).

That cuboctahedral packing of what look to be wooden balls in my user page
gallery is actually from this OSU collection, photo taken when on tour.

http://www.wikieducator.org/Image:Cuboctahedralpacking.jpg

http://worldgame.blogspot.com/2008/11/excellent-adventure.html  (more local
history, field trip to OSU)

Looking forward to more chatting,

Kirby

User:KirbyUrner
(linked from Kirbyurner on Wikipedia)



>
> --
> Jan Visser, Ph.D.
> President & Sr. Researcher, Learning Development Institute
> E-mail: jvis...@learndev.org
> Check out: http://www.learndev.org and http://www.facebook.com/learndev
> Blog: http://jvisser-ldi.blogspot.com/
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-
> From: wikieducator@googlegroups.com [mailto:wikieduca...@googlegroups.com]
> On Behalf Of kirby urner
> Sent: Thursday, November 19, 2009 5:23 PM
> To: wikieducator@googlegroups.com
> Subject: [WikiEducator] Re: Freely downloadable resources for science,
> engineering and technology
>
>
> On Thu, Nov 19, 2009 at 8:03 AM, Jan Visser  wrote:
> > GEOSET (Global Educational Outreach for Science Engineering and
> Technology)
> > is a repository of freely downloadable educational resources in the area
> of
> > science, engineering and technology available at http://www.geoset.info/
> .
> I
> > thought it might interest members of our WE community. Nobel Laureate in
> > Chemistry, Harry Kroto, has been instrumental in putting this together
> and
> > making it grow. Kroto participated in a panel discussion on NPR's Science
> > Friday last September 25. Listen to him (or download the mp3 file) at
> > http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/200909253.
> >
> >
> >
> > Jan
> >
>
> This is interesting to me.  I was tracking Kroto and others leading up
> to the Nobel, looking over shoulder of one E.J. Applewhite.[1]  Got to
> meet the guy at first international conference on Buckyballs at Santa
> Barbara, 1995.  I include mention of said buckyballs on my Martian
> Math page @ Wikieducator (nanotechnology section).
>
> Kirby
>
> [1] http://4dsolutions.net/synergetica/eja1.html
>
>
>
>
>
> >
>


-- 
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http://www.wikieducator.org/Martian_Math

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[WikiEducator] Re: Freely downloadable resources for science, engineering and technology

[kirby urner]

On Thu, Nov 19, 2009 at 8:03 AM, Jan Visser  wrote:
> GEOSET (Global Educational Outreach for Science Engineering and Technology)
> is a repository of freely downloadable educational resources in the area of
> science, engineering and technology available at http://www.geoset.info/. I
> thought it might interest members of our WE community. Nobel Laureate in
> Chemistry, Harry Kroto, has been instrumental in putting this together and
> making it grow. Kroto participated in a panel discussion on NPR’s Science
> Friday last September 25. Listen to him (or download the mp3 file) at
> http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/200909253.
>
>
>
> Jan
>

This is interesting to me.  I was tracking Kroto and others leading up
to the Nobel, looking over shoulder of one E.J. Applewhite.[1]  Got to
meet the guy at first international conference on Buckyballs at Santa
Barbara, 1995.  I include mention of said buckyballs on my Martian
Math page @ Wikieducator (nanotechnology section).

Kirby

[1] http://4dsolutions.net/synergetica/eja1.html

>
>
> --
>
> Jan Visser, Ph.D.
>
> President & Sr. Researcher, Learning Development Institute
>
> E-mail: jvis...@learndev.org
>
> Check out: http://www.learndev.org and http://www.facebook.com/learndev
>
> Blog: http://jvisser-ldi.blogspot.com/
>
>
>
>
>
> >
>



-- 
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http://www.wikieducator.org/Martian_Math

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[WikiEducator] Re: WE believe in education - So where is all the free content?

[kirby urner]

On Sun, Nov 15, 2009 at 3:05 AM, Jan Visser  wrote:
> Wayne and Kirby (others?),
>
> I agree regarding OLPC and the (limited) practice emerging from it. It’s a
> different use of the technology than what’s normally being done. Papert’s
> work from a long time ago is, I assume, still an inspiration for those
> alternative uses. It’s therefore different also from the underlying
> philosophy of WE and most OER initiatives.
>

Greetings Jan --

OLPC is a fairly esoteric and futuristic project, is helping drive
down the cost of laptops by turning them into netbooks.  The XO-2 has
an even smaller form factor.

The XO comes pre-loaded with some educational materials, otherwise has
a rather ordinary Mozilla-based web browser.  This idea of one laptop
per child (1:1 ratio) is not the development model in many ecosystems,
and can't be presumed by every curriculum writer.

As someone who works around the Python subculture, I'm linked to OLPC
in the sense that the default user interface is implemented in the
Python language, as are many of the activities.  The machine also
knows FORTH.

I just upgraded one of the XOs the other night, getting some expert
assistance.  My other one is still running a rather ancient version of
the RedHat system.

I was in a long meeting with Alan Kay fairly recently in London,
courtesy of Mark Shuttleworth.  Guido van Rossum, the inventor of
Python, was also at this meeting.  We agreed that many educational
initiatives are orthogonal to OLPC meaning great if there's a 1:1
ratio, but we're prepared for other contingencies.

>
>
> I took a look at the freedom toaster. I’m not sure if I understood the
> concept well. How is this different from just building your own computer or
> acquiring one built by others and having it at an affordable price, loading
> it with whatever you want to load it with? I’m thinking of places where I
> worked in remote regions in the DRC. Schools with nothing. Stones for kids
> to sit on; a piece of blackened scrap wood to write on as a chalk board;
> teachers and students with no access whatsoever to even the most basic
> sources of information; no electricity supply, except for the occasional
> portable generator if at all. Preloaded OERs would have to be transported
> with the device that contains them from wherever there is a possibility to
> upload them (the nearest village or small town with (irregular) Internet
> access and basic electricity supply to where they are actually needed. That
> may involve someone having to walk for half a day, carrying some small
> device, like an iPod, with all the stuff on it and requiring no more than a
> photovoltaic charger or something of that kind to run it. An iPod-sized
> screen may not be ideal for reading, but it may work. Somewhat larger
> devices (Archos, electronic book readers) might do a better job.
>

The idea of a Freedom Toaster is its a filling station for static
media such as CDs and DVDs.  You may not have easy Internet access but
if you go to a freedom toaster you can legally burn all manner of
digital assets to sharable media.

I don't know to what extent said Toasters are themselves self
updating.  Juke boxes (music players) in some public places now phone
home for the current music, don't sport any disks locally.

>
>
> Content must be thought of having the available technology in mind. If
> reading extensive documents from a small screen is not an option and
> printing out documents is also impossible, audio perhaps is a possibility.
> Or audio files enhanced with sketchy verbal and graphic information.
> Surprisingly or not, cell phones—shared by many—are in those circumstances
> often more likely to be found than any other piece of transportable
> hardware. If they are of the kind that is capable of uploading and playing
> songs, their memory capacity could also be used for uploading learning
> resources in audio format. Just an idea. My main point is that circumstances
> vary widely and there has been little progress so far in preparing the local
> environment to be able to explore creatively the (limited) technological
> resources available. From what I have seen of it, OLPC is possibly one of
> the global initiatives best placed to foster such development at the local
> level.
>
>
>
> Thoughts?
>

Freedom Toasters could easily contain copyleft audio books etc., not
sure to what extent they already do as we don't have any of said
toasters in my neck of the woods (Pacific Northwest near 45th
parallel, Seattle's longitude), think we ought to, maybe by the next
Open Source Conference (OSCON 2010)?

We do have a lot of XOs around, plus billboards for G1G1 (the "give
one get one" campaign, where you pay for two, donate one to the
program).

http://www.flickr.com/photos/17157...@n00/3224155740/sizes/l/
(example poster from a previous run)

Kirby

>
>
> Jan
>
>
>
> --
>
> Jan Visser, Ph.D.
>
> President & Sr. Researcher, Learning Development Institute
>
> E-mail: jvis...@learndev.org
>
> Check out: htt

[WikiEducator] Re: WE believe in education - So where is all the free content?

[kirby urner]

On Sat, Nov 14, 2009 at 2:17 PM, Wayne Mackintosh
 wrote:
> Hi Kirby,
>
> You make a good point about the potential abundance of access to digital
> content. However, in reality I think we are a long way off from a world
> where we have access to digital content PLUS the permissions to adapt,
> modify and redistribute without restriction. Herein lies the differentiating
> feature of OER -- namely a permission culture to remix content.
>
> For example, we're in the early phases of establishing a national New
> Zealand OER collaboration for the school sector
> (http://wikieducator.org/OERNZ). There is an abundance of material which can
> be accessed -- for example, the Learning Federation
> (http://www.thelearningfederation.edu.au/copyright.html) or the NZ Ministry
> of Education funded TKI project
> (http://www.tki.org.nz/e/tki/about/terms.php) --- In these examples there is
> no cost associated with viewing or making copies for educational purposes.
> However, the most important freedom for educators -- namely the right to
> adapt, modify and redistribute the content to better meet the needs of the
> learners we serve are restricted :-(.
>

We're applaud the 'CS Unplugged' curriculum, made a link to it from my
notes on one of our digital math meetings (a group of professional
educators, lobbying for State of Oregon to make 2010 a launch year for
some of our pilots):

http://worldgame.blogspot.com/2009/08/education-planning.html  (CS
Unplugged linked from 2nd paragraph FYI).

> Good points with reference to the challenges and costs of internet access in
> a wide variety of situations. A more perplexing challenge relates to basic
> access to a school. For example, 76% of the children in sub-Saharan Africa
> of the age for the last three years of the secondary schooling system will
> not have the privilege of attending school or contact with a teacher. There
> is simply not enough money to build enough classrooms or train enough
> teachers to satisfy the needs of the youth who are eager to learn.
>
> How can OER help these children?  This is why we need to think creatively
> about technologies that can generate printed text books for children who
> will not have the privilege of attending school. WE need to think of
> creative solutions where we can combine the best of informal learning with
> national accreditation systems -- in other word rethinking the traditional
> models of educational provision.  This is a tough challenge -- but with
> concerted effort I think we can make a difference. I sense that OER is part
> of the solution.
>

OER might want to consider Freedom Toaster as another way of
distributing content, perhaps a subset of WikiEducator site
specifically designed for off-line readers.

http://www.freedomtoaster.org/

In the South Africa ecosystem, there's this notion of TuxLabs (free
access to computer labs), though not all of them are branded this way.

One Laptop Per Child remains a relatively exotic approach, coupled
with its G1G1 marketing campaign (I have two XOs myself, which I loan
out to curious students -- there's a Python connection).

In addition to printed textbooks, sometimes blank notebooks and
writing implements are in even scarcer supply.

> That said, you allude and provide valuable insights into solving these
> challenges in that we need to think about the eco-system and how OER fits
> into the bigger picture.
>
> Cheers
> Wayne
>

I'm glad this list is available for these sorts of discussions,
looking forward to more.

I'm pleased to discover OER is such a committed and creative organization.

Kirby

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[WikiEducator] Re: WE believe in education - So where is all the free content?

[kirby urner]

My impression is there's a huge amount of free content if (a) you have
access to the Internet and (b) you have enough education to know how
to read and study the materials, find your peer groups, organize a
learning experience resulting in credentials and opportunities.

Both (a) and (b) cannot be taken for granted.

Even with the copyright problem removed completely, we still have few
safe environments for concerted study.  Many schools and libraries
curtail access, as much out of necessity and a need to share scarce
bandwidth as out of a lust for censorship, although in the case of
schools, many do practice various kinds of filtering, some more
insidious than others.

In many cultures, young people have the best access through Wifi
Cafes, either over the shoulder (under tutelage), renting time on a
shop machine, or lucky enough to have their own laptop.  Some cafes
also rent time on larger screens where more meetings and collaboration
might occur.

The second most frequent access site is from work, where performance
may be monitored, but where furthering one's education, including
through social networking sites, is increasingly seen as job-relevant
in some lines of work.  Studying accounting in a slow moving hair
salon, waiting for customers, can't be all bad, especially if the
bandwidth is being paid for regardless, true of many service provider
contracts.

In sum, whereas I see a need for more copylefted and license-free
materials, I think the more pointed shortages revolve not around
content, but around access and a shortage of study time except in
formal school settings, to which many are unable to afford access.

The rise of co-working studios, sometimes in working partnerships with
the Wifi Cafes, is probably suggestive of how the younger generation
is self-organizing to overcome these insidious barriers to its future
productivity.

Once on-line, contributing to Wikis is a great way to start
establishing a track record as a free content provider, building a
portfolio.  People need to see what it is that you contribute.  This
is what social networking is all about and the evidence suggests
intelligent use of these skills aids in finding collaborators and
staffing companies.  Musicians tend to use Myspace.  Management
consultants use LinkedIn, Plaxo and so on.  More teachers are starting
to use Wikieducator.  These are promising signs.

Kirby


On Sat, Nov 14, 2009 at 10:47 AM, Minhaaj ur Rehman  wrote:
>
> I am pretty sure when Bob Dylan said 'mountain', he didnt only refer
> to copyrighted material, he used it for all 'licensed' material be it
> creative commons or FSF licenses. Freedom is freedom, it doesn't come
> with CC-BY-SA. I would be interested to see how long that mountain
> stands.
>
> On 14 Nov, 00:38, Wayne Mackintosh  wrote:
>> Hi Everyone,
>>
>> A brief moment to reflect. Education is an act of sharing knowledge freely.
>>
>> So where are all the free education materials that we can adapt, modify and
>> reuse without restriction? Why has humanity taken so long in achieving a
>> free knowledge base for us to share for the common good of education and
>> society? Why are the majority of our global population under served when it
>> comes to education?
>>
>> To paraphrase Bob Dylan:
>>
>> " How many years [can the closed copyright] mountain exist
>> Before it's washed to the sea?
>> Yes, 'n' how many years can some [educators] exist
>> Before they're allowed to be free?
>> Yes, 'n' how many times can [we] turn our [heads],
>> Pretending [we] just don't see?
>> The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
>> The answer is blowin' in the wind."
>>
>> The value proposition of sharing digital teaching materials is a
>> "no-brainer".  Getting back to Dylan's refrain  "The answer, my friend, is
>> blowin' in the wind" has been described as "impenetrably ambiguous: either
>> the answer is so obvious it is right in your face, or the answer is as
>> intangible as the wind" 
>> (see:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blowin%27_in_the_Wind)
>>
>> I started WikiEducator as a project to collaborate with the free culture
>> movement to develop digital teaching materials in support of every national
>> curriculum by 2015. (If we're a little late, 2017 will be just fine :-) ).
>>
>>    - Yesterday, WE were a top 59K site (Alexa).
>>    - During October, WE generated more than 10.5 million hits on our site
>>    with a full-time staff of two people.
>>    - WE train and build wiki skills for thousands of teachers in more than
>>    110 countries -- thanks to a dedicated team of facilitators who share
>>    knowledge freely.
>>    - WE have developed more content pages than Wikiversity (with only 6% of
>>    the number of the registered users compared to WV)
>>    - WE can now work internationally, freed from the geographical
>>    constraints of the Commonwealth.
>>
>> WE should take a moment and reflect on what WE have achieved -- this is an
>> amazing story and you are making it happen!
>>
>> However, we

[WikiEducator] Re: WE blog or newsletter?

[kirby urner]

Example of an organization using a blog to connect to blogosphere
would be PSF on the right hand margin of this recent post re
Wikieducator content:

http://mybizmo.blogspot.com/2009/11/more-curriculum-writing.html

PSF has a board, voting membership, charged with protecting trademark,
language authenticity, PEPs, user groups, conferences.  Individuals
track whatever special interest groups (sigs) interest them, e.g. I'm
prolific on edu-sig and do a lot of my business there.

Seems to me that subscribing to specific wiki pages is an esoteric
insider activity for those already sold on the idea of a wiki.
Blogging is somewhat a different medium and you'll find bloggers
who've never thought of Wikipedia as much beyond another static
website, not thinking to take part in the editing, treating knowledge
as read-only (same problem as Britannica had).

So it makes sense to me that a Wiki-based subculture, wishing to
recruit new citizens, might promote a more educated readership via
some synthesis blog that shows up in blog chatter.  At PSF we think
about airport concourse signage as another way of advertising, like a
lit sign in some tunnel in O'Hare with our "just use it" slogan.

Kirby


On Fri, Nov 13, 2009 at 3:38 AM, Jaapb  wrote:
>
> about blog or newsletter,
> Most wiki-groups, like in wikipedia do communicate by subscribe to the
> users pages of the wiki. (one receives a message when something has
> changed there)
> this google group is a newsletter, if you did subscribe to it.
>
> So knowing this, I don't get the point of another newsletter or blog
> to communicatie. That would be slightly overdone I think.
> kind regards Jaap
>
>
> On Nov 4, 1:18 am, valerie  wrote:
>> Did anything ever come of earlier suggestions that there be a
>> WikiEducator blog with multiple contributors or a collaboratively
>> written newsletter?
>>
>> I poked around and didn't find much.
>>
>> old 
>> discussionshttp://groups.google.com/group/wikieducator/browse_thread/thread/fa11...
>>
>> old pageshttp://wikieducator.org/WikiEducator:NewsLetter
>>
>> Write an article for a magazine/newsletter styled publication
>> describing the wiki concept and how people can become 
>> involvedhttp://wikieducator.org/WikiMaster/WikiApprentice_Level_1
>>
>> I'm having my students work collaboratively in small groups to come up
>> with a WikiEducator 
>> promotion.http://www.wikieducator.org/DeAnza_College/CIS2/Fall_2009#Final_Projects
>>
>> Naturally, their first question - Where is the WikiEducator
>> newsletter? Umm, I'll get back to you on that...
>>
>> Is there a good answer to this question?
>>
>> ..Valerie
> >
>

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[WikiEducator] Re: WE blog or newsletter?

[kirby urner]

On Wed, Nov 11, 2009 at 5:35 AM, valerie  wrote:
>
> There must be WikiEducators who blog or write articles that could be
> WE blog posts. Perhaps by looking back through our posts we can find
> some things to re-post on the WE blog as contributors.
>
> I blog now and then - mostly as "course" assignments, but sometimes
> when there are other important community discussions going on.
> http://learningonline.blogspot.com/
>
> If you have a blog and would be interested in contributing past or
> future posts, please reply with a link to your blog.
>
> Let's see what we have available. This will really help kick-start the
> WE blog process.
>
> ..Valerie
>

I'd be OK with contributing to a WE blog.

I do link to Wikieducator pages from my blogs sometimes but mostly in
a nod nod wink wink kind of way (Monty Python skit) to my readers and
students i.e. I'm preaching to some choir or using the shop talk of
some tribe.

What I posted for a flagship WE blog might have a different flavor,
however I could see contributing a future post, or maybe one or two
past ones would be useful.  I could see how the blog shapes up and
look for something fitting.

Below one I just posted.  Clearly it's technical and aimed at a
specific audience:

http://mybizmo.blogspot.com/2009/11/more-curriculum-writing.html

On the other hand, perhaps your WE blog should just have this flavor
or random content, a so-called cross-section, formatted by
wikieducators as blog posts pointing into this content.

That would give casual browsers, thinking about jumping in, a sense of
what the waters are like.

In that sense, I could see this linked post being one such random sample.

Thanks for your work in providing this valuable world service.

Kirby Urner
User:KirbyUrner

4dsolutions.net

Institute for Science, Engineering & Public Policy (board), isepp.org
Python Software Foundation (voting member), python.org

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