Its interesting to note that the State of California is about to cut $1.4billion from its education budget, believed to be coming straight out of community colleges and the like (UoP blog) while the federal budget will give 2 billion to the development of open education. I suppose there's a high chance other states will do something similar, will Michigan be next? ... this 2 billion might be just a beginning... The UK seems to be in a similar boat.
There is still a way to go before the formal education sector recognises Wikipedia, let alone Wikiversity and Book's contribution to people's education. They would sooner recognise mirrors of their own form, such as University of the People, and even Peer to Peer University, and it will be the formal education sector that is consulted on how and where to spend that injection of money. WMF should look to a collective statement with the other open education, libraries and repositories, and networked learning initiatives. In doing so, we'd hope they'd be careful not to restrict the scope of projects, and preserve opportunities in spaces like Wikiversity, for people to work in entirely new ways of learning and education.
As an example, the Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) are attracting quite a lot of interest now - and Teemu was one of the first to try this model on en.Wikiversity with
Composing Free and Open Online Educational Resources, I followed with
Facilitating Online (originally on Wikieducator). I think early and repeated experiments such as these, offer an opportunity for a quick win with regards to developing legitimacy in the eyes of formal education. Perhaps the model's next phase is in establishing partnerships with Colleges and Universities who will play the role of recognition and certification to these courses, trusting the open and documented work of networked educators offering these open courses and peer reviewed assessment (such as the process of custodianship copying into course assessment for example).
As for post graduate level studies. Same thing. Wikiversity offers a platform and potentially a community, for open and networked research work, peer review and assessment, and even awarding honorary degrees that have some currency with partnering institutions...
At the University of Canberra, in the Faculty of Health, we have a number of academics primed for adopting such practices, but will need significant support to survive the disproportionate levels of scrutiny aimed at innovators. I'm sure there are more in other institutions, I just don't know them. It seems to me, now might be a time to coordinate a plan, resource projects, and offer an alternative to the funding announcement and situation in the USA, the UK, and elsewhere. Then again, I could be firing off too soon again..
Formal education in the West is approaching a tipping point, only a few people and a handful of initiatives are in a position to lead
a way through the next 10 years
On Sun, Jan 23, 2011 at 8:29 AM, bawolff
<bawolff+wn@gmail.com> wrote:
Those pages don't seem to be that up to date. I counted at least two
features on that list that were already implemented (and have been
implemented for a very long time - the per watchlist rss feed, and the
ability to search for things that are in a specific namespace, and a
specific category). I imagine there's more if i look closer. Many of
the other ideas there are somewhat vauge as to what is actually wanted
(although I suppose thats true of most wish lists).
I must say, assuming i understand what is being suggested, the "A
non-threatening way for students to upload assignments with a single
button and present them in both the page for completed lessons and on
the students USER page." idea sounds interesting.
-bawolff
p.s. I hope this post isn't offtopic/rambling
2011/1/22 Erkan Yilmaz <erkan77@gmail.com>:
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Leigh Blackall
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skype - leigh_blackall
leighblackall@gmail.comhttp://leighblackall.blogspot.com