Cormac’s blog

A major theme for me in the development of Wikiversity is the dynamic between the social and the personal. Just today, Juan initiated a discussion with an observation from Daan that “on Wikiversity, there are too many startups of only one person who is waiting for others to join.” There are several themes within and implied by just this single comment. One is the fact of people ‘needing’ other people to learn with – or at least being motivated to learn in a social setting. Another is the ‘waiting’ – a fairly disempowered stance, requiring someone else to find a resource you are interested in and initiate some sort of learning agenda. (It’s also been pointed out to me that ‘waiting’ is a strong characteristic of Wikiversity participants thus far – waiting for a learning model to emerge.) Another theme perhaps is the implied distaste for gung-ho individualism – on any other wiki, people will develop content, and invite comments and contributions from others along the way; while Wikiversity seems to foster a fundamentally different stance amongst (some of) its participants. (Despite, as McCormack points out, that most content development is done individually.) This seems intrinsically linked with the need to learn collaboratively. (Is this a personal need, or a need imposed by the wiki?) It also seems to be the reason why (some) people are waiting.

So, Juan has raised discussion about how people can see what projects they could join in with – either in developing content, or in joining a collective learning ‘path’. So we might extend the ‘collaboration of the week/month’ idea (that Wikipedia and others use) to accommodate ‘learning projects requiring learners’. It seems like a fairly obvious extension for Wikiversity to make. Though there might be a need for better tools to facilitate deeper searching and matching, as has also been previously discussed.

But there are massive questions left hanging here. Do people need to learn collaboratively in a wiki; can people learn individually in a wiki? How can wiki and other technology be harnessed to align personal needs with those of others? How are personal needs mediated within a wiki context? Is a wiki fundamentally social or personal – or should we even ask that question? I’m looking forward to addressing these in my PhD – and they are just some of the questions raised by the social/personal dynamic. (For example, does a wiki’s collectivism eschew the capitalist system it fits into in the context of the rest of our lives..?) For further discussion, see Wikiversity as a Personal Learning Environment