Talk:Ed Tech

I have some questions about the goal and the choice of the Wiki environment. I will put some here, and if there is going to be a discussion around it we might want to move it to a more suitable platform.

So, Is the goal a directory with links to personal pages? Can there be more goals or objectives we can attach to this initiative? Is Wiki the most suitable choice?

I will leave these questions opened as I am not sure more people will be interested to persue this, but if there will be interest - it can evolve (in my mind) to a really meaningful idea.

Hanan

Here's how it started: [nov. 27/06]
Response from Katrin : I'll offer my opinion (since I sort of started this) Do grad students in Ed Tech have any kind of web presence? It'd have to be voluntary of course, but in the course of my virtual travels, I've visited many faculty and individual pages - some individual faculty members and some departments and research groups maintain lists of their students along with links to their websites. I've found this very useful - it's a great way to share information and it might also be a way for fellow grad students to become more aware of what each other are doing (good for community building too).

I realize it'd take some effort to maintain - on the other hand, it could be set up in some sort of wiki style - the university already has a wiki site; and since all incoming students (Ed Tech anyways) take 671 or 771 they could all be asked to put a page in the wiki (Faculty too). If there were some sort of standard format or information on their 'first' page, then it would become easy to track down information. Minimally, all they would need is a first page with some standard info (name, contact info, area of research, possibly supervisor, short bio, research links...) and a link to their other information. For example, in my case, since I already maintain a fairly extensive website, I'd link to that, rather than replicating stuff. 

(by the way if this discussion is going to get long, it might eventually be worthwhile to move it to a separate page linked from this one)

I think we could grow this into whatever we want, but my personal preference would be to have the first page be mostly directory stuff. We could have a brag box & news page. Hanan, I notice you've already put some other wiki pages up - perhaps they could be linked from here.

The "hierarchy" I had sort of envisioned was to have a main directory page that links to individual people pages. Those have some basic profile info and links to other pages. At that point the pages should become whatever that person finds most useful.

The reason I fancy the wiki idea is that it places everyone as equals and no-one owns it - ANYONE can edit or add to the site. That also means that maintenance is everyone's job. There is of course always the potential for abuse - but I prefer to deal with that if/when it happens rather than to try and anticipate trouble where none so far exists.

Opinions????

People seem concerned about who will look after this - I'm willing to do some of it for a while. Basically though the answer to who looks after a wiki is: anyone & everyone. There is no boss. If you don't like what I've done - simply change it - that's what wikis are about. We're ED TECH, right? Michele put the names of her grad students up, and I have set up links to some of those people's web sites (which ones depends on how easy they are for me to find). These are all public web pages. The grad students have named their supervisors publicly on their websites. I am simply connecting the dots. If someone doesn't like it, they can change it. -Katrin

Benefits of the wiki form. [Nov 28]
I've been thinking about the "why wiki" question and I have a few thoughts:

1. Ed Tech Students *should* have some first hand experience with the common forms of web publishing (including wikis, blogs, etc.). This effort is one way of getting everyone to make at least ONE wiki page of their own.

2. The space is already hosted by the university.

3. Making one page with basic biographical information is not very intimidating. (The page I made hee was the first one I've ever made.)

4. No current community space exists for Ed Tech grad students.

5. Although there are many other free wiki spaces out there now (some are nicer than this)- this one is the same format as Wikipedia, which is one many people will already have seen.

6. It's fast and easy, and it' here now - the infrastructure is already set up. We are all busy so although something more ambitious might be a better idea in the long run, we are unlikely to ever get around to it.

Now your turn. Why or why not wiki?

-Katrin