I'm appreciatively following the implementation of Learnscope's new wiki and Leigh Blackall's participation in the Tectonic Shift Think Tank in Vancouver.
Am also looking forward to the education.au seminar 'Challenging how knowledge is created' with Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia.
It seems Media wiki is set to become an embedded piece of software across the education sector (Fingers crossed).
MediaWiki (free software wiki package originally written for Wikipedia) is a great solution as a central node for connecting educators within an education organisation.
I've worked previousily on using wikispaces to connect teachers as part of a central organistion node for networking ; The idea: link a profile to a network to a network , no boundaries...this had some degree of success, but little uptake and sustainability... now consider the importance of activity sheets for this aim.
I think media wiki has potential at a basic level as the central node for knowledge sharing; we're now looking to raise the value and advocate the publishing of activity sheets within an organisation node.
In particular through teachers using media wiki for authoring Activity sheets that achieve stated outcomes and link to resources from the open internet, a la, google docs , wikipedia, wiki university, wiki, educator, wikispaces…using any number of tools and resource freely available on the internet.
- Activity sheets provide the context and direction and importantly the process to participate in activities, link to resources and free media utilising a variety of media and publishing tools.
- Activity sheets can be mapped against learning outcomes and performance criteria and recontextualised by other teachers
- The language of education is about activity sheets, session plans and curriculum.
- The activity sheet does not have to be about a technology, it can be about any process, any learning outcome with or without technology a la the capability life based learning approach, (the media wiki being the central node and SIMPLE publishing tool for all, I think we have to divorce the value is in the utilisation of technology, it’s only means to an end).
- Provide simple standard activity sheet and session plan guidelines for your organisation staff. These can be utilised within hands on professional development for groups and individuals.
- Ideally all organisations publishing activity sheets should be advocated as policy on a central node with a searchable backend that links to curriculum documentation. Curriculum being a common denominator to connect all organisation staff.
Hands on activities are the glue that binds curriculum, people and their, application of technology and capability development processes. People using any number of tools, all linked to and authored from a central node, in this case mediawiki.
Innovations can occur as others continualy refine and improve the processes outlined within activity sheets on a central wiki.
Focus on authoring activity sheets within organisations. This is where the valuable IP and services are to be offered.
Focus on linking to and authoring resources using free online tools on the open internet.
This is where the valuable cost savings, quality, concurrency and professional connections with others and business will be made.