Final project process

The final project is about process - actually using collaborative technology in a scenario that represents the real world (society).

You can read about this and do any number of individual projects, but you won't have first hand experience (good or bad) with the essential theme of the course if you don't participate.

All the projects this semester went reasonably well. Not all go as smoothly, but the experience is important regardless. Once the final projects are completed and you do the peer reviews, I hope that you will see the value of the project process and its applicability beyond the scope of this course.
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11. Peer Review and Wrap-up

The Final Projects were well done. The "clients" - WikiEducators from around the world will be viewing your work!

We are coming to the end of the semester. The last assignments provide an opportunity to review the work of the other groups. There is also a chance to take some time to think about what you have learned in the class, as well.

Please review your grades. I will be grading past dues assignment until 11:30pm Tuesday.

It has been a great class. I really appreciate all your contributions to the discussions and the projects.

All the best,
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10. Final Project

For the Final Project, you should now be working collaboratively in small groups to research and create a final presentation. Planning is essential - you need an outline, a project schedule and assignment of roles and responsibilities.

Working collaboratively at a distance is challenging. This project is intended to give you an opportunity to use skills and technology to work through the process to produce a web-delivered presentation that demonstrates application of technology and computers to a social task. That is the course objective. We have been working up to this throughout the semester.

Scenario: You work for Global Public Relations Inc. WikiEducator.org is your client.

• research and develop a wiki page outlining work on the WikiEducator global initiatives and provide examples of projects that are addressing the initiatives. These examples should include a range of projects by governments, non-profits and individuals that show work done and progress. Try to include examples can be adapted for use in other locations with similar needs.
  
• worldwide promotion of the WikiEducator awareness program. Your page should be informative and interesting as well as factual. You are promoting the projects that are underway and encouraging others to see the value of the work and join in.
  
• Recommendations - list things that the client, WikiEducator.org can do to help promoting and recruiting - if these existed, your PR job would be easier.
  
  
• Strategy section - outline the assumptions you made for your presentation - audience, what they want to know. Describe your strategy for encouraging educators in your presentation. What was the thinking behind the presentation?

Ask questions if you need clarification.

Use the wiki

You need to be using the wiki for planning and developing. Two teams have made a start, but by now you should have your project outlines and timelines in the wiki page.

It is important to use the wiki for a couple of reasons.

• You need to practice writing and editing in the wiki - don't leave this until the end. The wiki is a tool and it takes a bit of getting used to. New this semester - the rich text editor. It was just installed in WikiEducator and it is a big help.
  
  
• Get used to working together on the same document - this is collaborative writing. Once you get some experience, the project really improves dramatically - that is why we are doing this.
  
  
• Staying organized using the wiki is much easier - no lost documents, no confusion over the current status of the work. It is all right there to see and work on.

The teams that start using the wiki early are the ones that produce the best results. There are so many things you can add to the wiki page once you gain some experience. That is when it gets really interesting. Small changes in formatting, adding images, including links to resources are small additions that greatly improve the project page.

There are wiki tutorials and help pages available - see project information for links.

If you have specific questions, please ask.

WikiEducator

if a wikieducator page (and its links) is suitable as a kind of classroom website, where uploading material about courses
and resources for other classrooms and teachers as well  
if so, where can i find examples of other WE pages for this goal ? 

Absolutely -- uploading material and resources for
classrooms and teachers is what WikiEducator is all about -- we're a
community of Educators around the world who are committed to sharing
knowledge and teaching materials freely.

Our only requirement is that the teaching materials we create and upload
must be licensed under a free content license (for example Creative Commons
Attribution or Sharealike licenses.

There are a number of schools starting to create portal pages for uploading
and sharing their teaching materials. Consider for example

- Warrington Primary is an inspirational example of a primary school here
in New Zealand who are dedicated to open education -- see:
http://wikieducator.org/Warrington_School
- Ort Gutman High School in Israel are working on a few OER projects see:
http://wikieducator.org/Ort_Gutman_High_School
- St Michaels College in Vermont run the Biology for Elementary Schools
Project see: http://wikieducator.org/Biology_in_elementary_schools
- There are country initiatives aimed at developing national repositories
of free content, see for example New Zealand (
http://wikieducator.org/OERNZ ), Uganda (http://wikieducator.org/OERUG),
India (http://wikieducator.org/India), Israel (
http://wikieducator.org/Israel)

We can help you -- the OER Foundation provides free training for educators
around the world who want to learn how to do this. We offer at least one
free online training workshop every month under the Learning4Content project
(see: http://wikieducator.org/L4C) . Feel free to sign up and tell your
friends and colleagues about our free training opportunities.

Cheers
Wayne

kick-off ...

How are you funding your operation? Maintenance?

Much of the WikiEducator funding comes from contributions from member institutions. There is some grant support from foundations such as the Hewlett Foundation for specific projects. There is a small paid administrative and technical staff to oversee the work of the hundreds of volunteers responsible for operation and maintenance.

What is your community criteria based on? Is it effective in providing "facts" and valid information?

The WikiEducator community consists of interested educators, academic institutions and educational organizations. The primary basis is the acceptance of developing, collaborating and making content available under Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike License.

WikiEducator is effective in providing "facts" and valid information because the content is open. Everyone is encouraged to comment and collaborate on information.

Is there any concurrent challenges you are facing right now?

Like any not-for-profit organizations, WikiEducator has big ideas and less money than they would need to do everything. Sustainable funding sources need to be found and expanded. There are many areas of curriculum materials that are being solicited. One way to create more content, is to have more WikiEducators contributing and collaborating, and WikiEducator is working to increase educator participation. Finally, the primary beneficiaries of WikiEducator are learners. There is a significant need to connect millions of learners worldwide with the educational resources available through adoption, re-distibution and re-use of WikiEducator content.
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9. Professional Ethics and Responsibilities

This week, we will be considering Professional Ethics and Responsibilities.

People who work in the computer field view themselves as professionals. In addition to requiring skills to create communications networks or write programs to control access to sensitive personal information, these people recognize that they have a responsibility for their actions like other professionals in legal and healthcare professions.

They understand that there are ethical issues that they must respect and handle appropriately. Having professional qualifications and a code of ethics are considered by many to be important to safeguard society in a computing environment.

FINAL PROJECT

You and your group should be developing an outline and a timeline for your client presentation wiki page. Everyone in the group should have several tasks to complete - research, writing, reviewing, editing, project management. Work collaboratively is a new experience for everyone.

If you have questions, please ask.

kick-off 3

This is part of the problem for WikiEducator - there are lots of great resources and contributors, but some answers to these questions are difficult to find. That's why WikiEducator needs your help with this project.

Which universities or institutions are currently your major contributors?

Otago Polytechnic, Athabasca Open University, St Michael's College

And countries - India has a significant participation
http://wikieducator.org/India

There are many great individual contributors as well. A few who have received recognition in the User Page Expo are listed
http://wikieducator.org/UPE

What are some of your more popular projects? How about the lesser known?

http://wikieducator.org/Learning4Content - this is a tutorial for using wikis in education
Summary of participants
http://wikieducator.org/Learning4Content/L4C_Online_participation_by_country#Number_of_L4C_Online_Participants_by_Region_and_Gender

http://wikieducator.org/Open_Educational_Content

http://wikieducator.org/Special:PopularPages
http://wikieducator.org/Initiatives

Is there any statistical data of how many unique visitors come to the site?

There is a wonderful reference page that automatically records all the WikiEducator statistics
http://wikieducator.org/Special:Statistics

kick-off - 2

How did all this began? What was it that started WikiEducator?

There is a nice history of WikiEducator in Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikieducator

Goal: WikiEducator aims to build a thriving and sustainable global community dedicated to the design, development and delivery of free content for learning in realization of a free version of the education curriculum by 2015.

Could it be done before 2015? 

Possibly - there have been several recent collaborations established that have significantly increased the breadth of curriculum covered.

Will it really be accomplished by 2015?

Projects like WikiEducator are never really "complete" because there is always more that could be done. Education, teaching and learning, technology are changing rapidly so there are new possibilities that are changing the goal and the deliverables. But that's ok. WikiEducator is very much on the leading edge of this evolution, and that is the objective.

How will WikiEducator spread the word? How will they advertise to get more people aware/interested? 

WikiEducator already has a significant community of users who can be reached via email, and various groups. These users are themselves involved in other educational organizations and can help spread the word. Many of the significant leaders in global education who present to broad audiences are including references to WikiEducator and promoting WikiEducator, as well.

It is important to have fresh new promotional information available so that these users and supports have something to say and distribute to potential new users. There are lots of people all over the world who can influence others. But they need to have interesting material to distribute.

That's where you come in. These WikiEducator promotional pages that your groups are creating will be available to everyone for public relations outreach and reference.

virtual kick-off meeting

Which colleges and universities do you see as being potential contributors?

WikiEducator was initial a project of the Commonwealth of Learning for colleges and universities in the British Commonwealth. However the audience/community has been extended to include any institutions and educator who are interested in participating in this open collaborative environment available under Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike License. For example, the contributors listed for this conference is representative of the range of WikiEducators.

What other types of institutions and teaching associations could also be contributors? Do you consider the Wiki Educator community to be mainly for academic instructors or would you consider vocational instructors?

There has always been considerable interest in Vocational programs. Some of the earliest WikiEducator contributors are associated with the vocational programs at Otago Polytechnic. Eg. conference session PCF5:CYP - Open Schools: Expanding access to pre tertiary and vocational education and training 

Would WikiEducator be willing to work with other professionals such as librarians? While not strictly educators, Librarians hold masters degrees in library science. It would seem that their specialized knowledge on conducting research for example, might make some interesting and valuable contributions.

Yes, certainly. Librarians are already some of the most innovative WikiEducator users. WikiEducators really appreciate the contributions Librarians make. Librarians are an important educational resource! For example, Wiki as an online presentation tool demonstrated by Meredith Gorran Farkas, a distance education librarian.

Would WikiEducator consider setting up customized pages for potential contributors as templates they can use ? If you know someone’s field of study or expertise, offering them a basic course outline to complete might be helpful.

Yes, there are tools already available for customization. There is a very active technical support group who are ready to help.

Customization for an Institution - Biology Educator Declan' McCabe's pioneering and innovative model to engage student teacher in OER Content Development

Quickstart guide/pedagogical templates are used when authoring teaching content in WikiEducator. A number of templates are predesigned to save you time with more complex layouts Wikieducator tutorial/Pedagogical Templates/Examples

Educators love to teach and share with other educators, Have you considered asking them to contribute? Would WikiEducator consider a targeted mailing of brochures with links where these potential contributors could see examples of the type of material available for them to access and contribute?

What you come up with for this project will the basis for promotions and outreach that WikiEducator has planned in the coming months. We need examples and stories about WikiEducator that will inspire more educators to access WikiEducator, contribute and become active members of our community of practice. That is our goal. We want you to help us achieve it with your creativity.

8. Errors, Failures, and Risks

Errors, Failures, and Risks is the topic for this week. There are uses of computers where they have very direct personal implications for our health and safety. Computers have capabilities to apply information according to millions of rules defined by programmers over decades.

What happens when there are conflicts within the rules or data and something goes wrong? Who is responsible for the use and abuse that can result from these relationships and interactions? Lots to think about.

FINAL PROJECT
The final project groups are forming and starting to exchange ideas. In addition to your outline, workout a schedule with checkpoints. This is important for keeping the project on track.
Communicate often. Let everyone know how you are doing. Ask questions.

LATE SUBMISSIONS
Past due assignments will be graded for partial credit. The grading will be done the last week of the quarter.

EXTRA CREDIT
There are several extra credit assignments listed at the bottom of the main CIS2 page. You can complete any of these at anytime during the semester to earn additional points.

important points

What are the main points or ideas you want to be prominent?

• WikiEducator is a resource for educators and a community of practice where educators can learn and share educational materials and teaching skills with other educators. The idea of wikis, online authoring and collaboration, open education, adoption and re-use are new to many educators who would benefit from them. The point is to highlight some of these benefits and showcase the lessons, articles and collaboration available through WikiEducator.

What are your future plans or goals for WikiEducator?

• WikiEducator is currently fulfilling its intended function for a relatively small number of educators. It is now ready to expand to provide the same resources and opportunities to a much broader audience of educators worldwide.

How will this be different than the About page?

• We hope that your group will come up with new and exciting ways to present WikiEducator, the educational materials and the participating educators. There is a lot of great educational material in WikiEducator. There is training available for educators so they can make use of the wiki for content creation, collaboration and adapting information for their needs. We want to get the word out. We want to attract many more educators to share and benefit. This is active marketing rather than the static "facts" usually associated with About pages.

Scenario - startup

• Read the Final project description - Final Projects - Public Relations for client : WikiEducator.org

• Kick-off meeting - everyone is invited to participate in the virtual "client meeting" for the project. This will be held in the Catalyst discussion - Final Project discussion - Virtual Kick-off Meeting topic.

For the scenario project Public Relations for client : WikiEducator.org, there is a virtual project kick-off meeting. Representatives from the "client" and the "account reps" from your company are available to answer your questions and guide the discussion of how the PR project should progress.

• Scenario: You work for a public relations (PR) company - What are some examples of public relations companies? What does a public relations company do for their clients? What do the employees do?

• Client: WikiEducator.org - What is WikiEducator.org? What public relations does WikiEducator have? What can a PR company do for them?

• Deliverable: A "presentation" in the WikiEducator.org wiki. What information about WikiEducator can be presented in a wiki? How will this address the public relations needs of the "client" - WikiEducator?

• Resources: What support and information will you need to great a great presentation for the client?

• Assumptions: Because this is a scenario, you will not have access to all the information that you might have in "real life" but you can make assumptions about the situation, so you can finish your project. What assumptions are you making? Is there any information that helped you make these assumptions? Will your project presentation depend in these assumptions?

Additional resources for Scenario-Based Learning

• Final Project Guidelines
• Collaboration and Group Projects
• Scenario Based Learning/Student orientation

Scenario: You work for Global Public Relations Inc. WikiEducator.org is your client.

Scenario: You work for Global Public Relations Inc. WikiEducator.org is your client.

You and your team are assigned to research and develop a wiki page outlining work on the WikiEducator global initiatives and provide examples of projects that are addressing the initiatives. These examples should include a range of projects by governments, non-profits and individuals that show work done and progress. Try to include examples can be adapted for use in other locations with similar needs.

Your team's work will be part of a worldwide promotion of the WikiEducator awareness program. Your page should be informative and interesting as well as factual. You are promoting the projects that are underway and encouraging others to see the value of the work and join in.

• http://www.wikieducator.org/WikiEducator:About - general information about WikiEducator

• http://www.wikieducator.org/WikiEducator:OER_Foundation/FAQs - information about the host organization OER Foundation, and their initiatives to encourage participation and membership

Many WikiEducators are working on courses to address and resolve specific societal issues. Even if these are just proposals or course outlines, they are examples of how WikiEducator can play a role in addressing the underlying issues. Some general questions to think about... How can computers and the internet contribute to resolving societal issues? What is being done now? What is planned for the future? What can interested individuals do to help? WikiEducator is a collaborative community work in progress, so good ideas can eventually result in significant changes.

Include a section of Recommendations listing things that the client, WikiEducator.org can do to help promoting and recruiting - if these existed, your PR job would be easier.
Also, provide a Strategy section, outlining the assumptions you made for your presentation - audience, what they want to know. Describe your strategy for encouraging educators in your presentation. What was the thinking behind the presentation?

Global Public Relations Inc. management and the client will need to know how your project is progressing. Be sure to develop a timeline for your project work with deadlines, activities, responsibilities and deliverables. Update your project Status and Timeline section weekly for review.

• Group 1
• Group 2
• Group 3
• Group 4
• Group 5

7. Evaluating and Controlling Technology

7. Evaluating and Controlling Technology

The Community Service Learning summaries are wonderful! Several students worked with their communities of interest - youth groups, sustainable farming, the California History Center. Others worked on the suggested projects - Project Gutenberg, Tar Heel Reader and Lingro dictionary.

Sorry, I forgot to ask earlier. Please post a brief summary of your project work to the Community Service Learning discussion - there is a wrap-up topic. The projects are great. It is really important for everyone to know what others have been doing. You worked hard on your project with your community partner. Now lets' celebrate and tell your classmates!

These projects give you first-hand experience working with the power of computers and the internet to benefit society in many different ways. Some of you worked directly with the community who would benefit. For others, you don't get to see who is benefiting from your work, but you are part of a large group of thousands of volunteers who are making something amazing happen that will benefit people all over the world for many years to come.

This week we will be looking at some broader issues. There are many issues that are less well defined than some we have explored. What are the implications for a global society when a very small percentage of the world population has access to computers and computing, while most other people do not? Will this imbalance lead to unrest or encourage the have-not's to work harder to close the gap? There are people who have no interest in the benefits of computers in society and believe that we, as a society, are better off without the technology.

There are lots of interesting topics to think about, but they are less specific. This may be more difficult, but it is an opportunity to think about the future of technology and society too. They work together to produce big changes but will these changes be good, bad or both.

Please post a brief summary of your project work to the Community Service Learning discussion - there is a wrap-up topic.
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community service learning project options

A couple of students commented about the limited number of community partner project options. This is an ongoing "problem" - if there are too many choices, students are overwhelmed by the choices. With limited choices, some students feel they don't have choices that interest them.

Also included in the guidelines, is the option of local community organizations - if you are currently volunteering for community organization, continue your work by adding a community service learning component.

The emphasis on online community service fits with the course and its objectives - flexible, web-based, not limited by location or time to do the work.For many students, this is the only option they have for community service learning work.

Although not explicitly stated, you are always welcome to ask about other organizations, either online or local.

I appreciate your feedback and suggestions. Online community service learning is evolving and we are learning new ways to work with community partners where ever they are.
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WikiEducator page editing

The proposal (assignment) and summary (quiz) are submitted in Catalyst.

However, the bulk of your work - your research findings, sites of interest, a description of the important links - these go into the WikiEducator page that is already set up.

Log in to your WikiEducator account and open the Californian History Center that you want to add information to, then click on the "edit" link in the row of tabs near the top of the page. This will open the edit window. Make your changes and additions, then click "save" near the bottom of the edit page.

You probably want to click on [Rich Editor] link - this gives you some additional editing capabilities.

Learning to use the WikiEducator tools may take a bit of time. However, we will be using WikiEducator for more projects and assignments, so you will get some practice here too.

community service learning - getting started

Once you have selected the Community partner to work with with, and have looked through the information about the actual projects that you will be working on, you can complete and submit your proposal.

The outline for the proposal is provided as a series of prompt questions in the Proposal section of the Community Service guidelines. Answer the questions as they apply to your community partner and the work you will be doing for your project.

The proposal is submitted as assignment - Community Service Learning project PROPOSAL.

If you select the California History Center as your Community partner, there are a couple of projects already outlined and in progress. You may decide to continue the work that has already been started. You can add to and expand the resources for any of these projects. Wiki pages already exist for each of these projects. You will be adding to what is there already.

If you have another idea that is appropriate to the California History Center, but not specifically identified as a project, please let me know. Some additional review, wiki page set up and direction from California History center staff will be needed.
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more about discussion grading

A student asked about missing some discussion points. Here is my reply. Other students missed points for the same reasons.

Discussions 2
Privacy and Personal Information
- Additional points were awarded if your initial post started a discussion. No one replied to your question, probably because it was posted so close to the deadline. [after 10pm Sunday night]

You are expected to participate in the course throughout the week. Discussions are the primary learning activity and only work if students post and reply throughout the week.


Discussion 3
Wikipedia and Trust
- Your posting was Incomplete - There is no mention of having looked at the history or the discussion associated with the Wikipedia article you posted. The activity required that you describe your further investigation of how Wikipedia articles are written so that you would understand that there is more oversight, editing and review of Wikipedia articles than many people realize.
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Wikipedia and Trust

But can we trust other people? Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/ is an online encyclopedia with articles written and edited by site visitors. This experiment in creating an open-source reference "book" hosts millions of articles contributed by thousands of volunteers and is growing daily. Wikipedia receives 60 million visitors a day. Although Wikipedia's success has been tarnished a little by vandalism, some misinformation, and fights over certain controversial topics, the wiki concept of an open site maintained by its users, has been a hit.

Look in Wikipedia for a topic that interests you or read the daily feature on the front page. Look at the history and discussion for the topic you select. Find a contributor with a profile and read their profile. See if there is any controversy in the discussion. Some topics have caused considerable discussion as there are a broad range of views. For some topics, there is even conflicting scientific data to support opposing views. In the Wikipedia and Trust discussion provide the link to page you reviewed and a brief summary of the story behind the story.

Note: The activity requires that you describe your further investigation of how Wikipedia articles are written so that you would understand that there is more oversight, editing and review of Wikipedia articles than many people realize.