Educational Development

This morning I visited William's class up in the Languages Department, to talk with his students about Wikipedia. I was very pleased to see that his students were quite inspired by the wikipedia, with a few committing themselves towards working with the content and creating pages in their own languages. I'm hoping that they will be attracted to translating the Otago Polytechnic pages, as well as the Dunedin Page.

Here is some information about starting new pages in Wikipedia in different languages, as well as how to edit.

William then invited me to have morning tea with the language Department staff, and I must say how impressed I was by their willingness to talk with me, and the new ideas and practices I bring with me. The staff struck me as having exactly the right qualities needed to develop a truly innovative and useful online component to their classes.

In particular we spoke towards the idea of life long learning, and working towards building student confidence and competence in communicating in English, in the context of their lives. I think we agreed that students using the Internet to enhance their communicative reach and capabilities may not only improve confidence and competence, but may also work towards a more self directed learning ethos, and a student generated content model for the Languages Department.

I left a Notworked Learning booklet with them and explained that I am available to help them understand these new technologies and social communication methods, either at the times indicated on the fliers, or anytime they can arrange a group of 5 our more (students included).

I very much look forward to working with this Department.