How Wikipedia’s model can impact on the world of education
Wikipedia has already created a new type of academic community - one in which people can freely contribute as much or as little as they like in their own time, and about subjects they are passionate about. Furthermore, I think contributing to Wikipedia is itself a learning process - for various people this can include: how to find and cite sources; improving literacy and proficiency in a language; how to deal with copyright issues; and how to collaborate with other people, some of whom you may deeply disagree with.
This is Wikipedia as a process rather than as a resource - I’ve written a resource that could be used to educate people about what happens “Inside Wikipedia” (see also slides I previously uploaded to LeMill), and I think more needs to be done in this regard, especially since people are increasingly visiting Wikipedia for information, and because it affords so much in raising awareness about information and media literacy. In order to understand and validate Wikipedia as a resource, we need to understand the process by which it is constructed. This does not simply mean we need to be wary of Wikipedia (we need to be critical of any piece of information) - and indeed, some of the material on Wikipedia is of a higher quality than anything else of its kind out there precisely because of its radically open model.
My dream has always been that Wikiversity would take up and expand this model. Wikiversity’s scope is far bigger than Wikipedia’s - and it suffers in some ways precisely because of this. I’ve heard people saying that Wikipedia is easy to understand because we know what an encyclopedia generally looks like (even though Wikipedia, of course, redefines or expands the definition of an encyclopedia), but that Wikiversity is too vaguely defined. This does bother me, but I also see it as an opportunity (and I always have done) - to remain open to new models, forms and ways of learning that are not simply of the format: develop resource; read resource; answer/discuss questions. I think there is still much work to do in understanding how open, connected and collaborative work can be embedded within educational practice - though, obviously there is already a huge amount of foundational and related work done across many academic fields.
In short, to summarise how I see Wikimedia and the free culture movement impacting on education, it involves:
* Giving people access to spaces in which they can share, discuss, and question their knowledge
* Developing open peer review models around this knowledge
* Improving awareness about how knowledge is constructed
* Framing and critiquing knowledge in a learning context (and giving people access to this open learning context)
* Developing peer review models around these learning contexts
* Improving awareness about how learning works
Wikipedia is already opening the world’s eyes to the first three; my hope is that Wikiversity (and others) will do likewise for the last three.
(Some more thoughts on issues in this post are in my two Wikimania papers, “Wikipedia as a learning community”, and “Learning and learning about learning in Wikiversity”.)
April 12th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
I am interested in your comment:
“My dream has always been that Wikiversity would take up and expand this model. Wikiversity’s scope is far bigger than Wikipedia’s - and it suffers in some ways precisely because of this. I’ve heard people saying that Wikipedia is easy to understand because we know what an encyclopedia generally looks like (even though Wikipedia, of course, redefines or expands the definition of an encyclopedia), but that Wikiversity is too vaguely defined. This does bother me, but I also see it as an opportunity…”
Do you know how many other courses are offered through Wikiversity, with instructors following a weekly schedule, as this course is? Or, are most Wikiversity courses just online learning resources without class schedules or instructor interaction? Is there any place on Wikiversity where I could find this information? Thank you.
April 12th, 2008 at 8:12 pm
You would do your readers a service to educate yourself about the realities of Wikipedia before seeking to educate others.
See: http://wikipediareview.com/
April 13th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Janet, the only other course following a weekly schedule that I know of is/was “Hitler’s Germany”. However, having a fixed timetable isn’t the only way to have instructor interaction - I know Robert Elliott of Filmmaking course gives extensive feedback on students’ submissions, and anyone who is monitoring resources they have made will give responses to people with questions. It’s still a weakness of Wikiversity that we haven’t documented our various pedagogical processes, and educational forms - I’d like to incorporate this into our “Featured” pages, or perhaps we should have a page called Wikiversity:Pedagogy, in which this could be documented more?
April 13th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Jon, I am fully aware of the “realities” - warts and blossoms - of Wikipedia. I included a critical reference in the further reading of the “Inside Wikipedia” page. I’d also like to go further into a critical look at Wikipedia practice - the page I’ve created was intended as a primer for understanding its model. I’d appreciate if you assumed a bit more good faith, as opposed to blind faith.
April 13th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Janet, I just remembered an old initiative I started: Wikiversity:Examples - I think this is worth reviving…
April 13th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
Cormac,
I am sorry that I must be curt with you but I have read far too much of this Wikipedian genre of cult fiction over the last four years to have any more patience with dogmas of non-critical thinking like “Assume Good Faith” and “NPOV Is On Our Side”.
You are projecting a fantasy about Learning Communities, a concept that I personally hold dear, on the translucent mists of hot steamy air that Wikipedians generate to cloud the real character of their groupthinktank.
It is time to stop mincing words.
It is time to wake up.
April 13th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
I am all in favor on online learning communities, having been one of the early pioneers of the concept. (See, for example, “Bring a Candle, Not a Sparkler” at http://underground.musenet.org:8080/WCE/ which I compiled at the request of Gwen Solomon, Editor of The Well-Connected Educator.)
But I must take exception to your suggestion that Wikipedia is exemplary of the first three bullet items in your otherwise laudable list of objectives for a learning community.
I’m all for appreciating the process which you envision, but I’m afraid to say that my experience with Wikipedia was a dispiriting nightmare in terms of those bulleted objectives.
April 13th, 2008 at 6:49 pm
Cormac,
Thanks very much for your response. I also intend to review the Wikiversity History information at http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:History_of_Wikiversity
I’d like to improve my understanding of how Wikiversity has evolved and where it may be heading. I thought it was interesting that you’d brought up (in a different post) the idea of Wikiversity partnering with an accredited institution so that participants could gain credits.
April 16th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
Cormac,
I really appretiate your perspective on Wikipedia being a process rather than a resource. Particularly, in the context of Wikipedia being a learning community. I firmly believe that for people to truely benefit / learn from wikipedia they must contribute. This all falls within constructivist/connectivist approaches…
I believe the biggest nut we need to crack for wikipedia or socially constructed knowledge is how the peer review can become a part of the process. And the peer review needs to around both the knowledge and context.
April 16th, 2008 at 7:33 pm
Cormac,
Don’t let that Jon Awbrey guy fool you. He will never substantiate any of his criticisms. The second you try to engage him in debate, he will posture like his understanding of Wikipedia is beyond your comprehension.
April 17th, 2008 at 9:10 am
Jon and Moulton - you both have negative experiences of Wikipedia - and I’m not surprised. I have seen many things on Wikipedia that have made me disappointed, angry, frustrated, etc. I do not think it is ideal - far from it. But I think it is deeply interesting as a *model* - and the possibilities that this model opens. I wanted to discuss these possibilities - which are embedded in practice (even though “practice” contains other, sometimes destructive practices) - and so I wouldn’t call this a “fantasy”, but rather a goal which I believe is worth pursuing. This underlies all my work on Wikiversity - which includes, as Peter says, an inquiry and review process around knowledge and context - and this context fundamentally includes the *practice*. (Thanks to all for scaffolding this thought!)
April 17th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
Cormac,
We all have our dreams.
Sometimes our dreams lead on to finer realities.
Sometimes our dreams are so full of glamour and grandeur that they blind us to the cracks in the foundation on which we’d build.
Sometimes our dreams lead us into slavery to cynical con artists who have learned little more in life than the trick of parroting and pirating our own dreams back at us.
So watch out for that …
April 19th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
Said,
If there are specific criticisms of Wikipedia that you would like me to substantiate, then I invite you to open a topic at The Wikipedia Review where we might discuss the issues at our leisure.
April 23rd, 2008 at 7:11 pm
Nice.
It looks that your OER course post is generating a lot of discussion outside the course context. This kind of “public discourse” and possibility to contribution to the greater “cultural knowledge base” while studying is a great add-value of the Wiki / wikiversity model.
I hope you will hang with us all the way to the end of the course, too. We need you!
April 24th, 2008 at 11:35 am
Thanks very much Teemu - I’ve been struggling, but I intend on doing a major catch-up over the next few days. Currently dying with the flu isn’t helping though. x(