All work within this website is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License

(This can be changed.  Click on the link and see if this is what we want in terms of protection - Eric) 

Welcome Statement

(to include basic mission statement - Eric)

PAGES:

Discussion on Concept (use this page to discuss the actual concept and guidelines)

Calendar of Events (information about upcoming discussions.  Nothing on the calendar.  This was just a test to see how this would work).

Educational Resources (websites with educational resources).

Reviews (website reviews, book reviews, article reviews)

CONCEPT:

My basic thought with this (and I think with others) is to provide a place to discuss various topics in education in order to assist other educators in any given situation or problem.  However, I believe we should take that to the next level and anticipate how something like this may impact the educational world as a whole.  In our drive to assist other members of this wiki, the discussions we have should be prepared as actual "research" papers white papers and these could be published in professional journals or simply published via the internet.

GUIDELINES:

1) Used for discussion on various topics of educational importance

2) Basic decorum will be observed at all times

    a) no ad hominem attacks

    b) no political discussions arguments [Do we have to avoid the probable underlying goals of NCLB? -- Repairman]

                            -- My main issue with this is that I don't want to get into the political blame game of who did what to whom and why (i.e., Bushwacking or Clinton-bashing, "dem-controlled congress would do this or republican controlled congress didn't do that." I am so very, very tired of people calling others neocons and moonbats and talking about "kool-aid drinking."  This isn't the place for that.  However, discussing policy or justifications for legislation is different.  Obviously, statements should be supported by evidence.  But that should not mean that we use factual statements to incite argument or create a hostile environment where two parties are antagonistic toward each other and would not work together.  We have to remember that teamwork is paramount in this endeavor and anything that hinders that should be cast aside!- Eric

3) Sources will be cited in an abbreviated format (simply put: members will be able to easily find the source) [Let's check what Warlick uses. -- Repairman]

Okay, here it is: Citation Machine from The Landmark Project (Well, no surprise I guess, David Warlick programmed it.)

Here's a sample. I'm citing his web page where we can access SOCM (Son of Citation Machine):

Warlick, David. "Son of Citation Machine." Citation Machine. unk. The Landmark Project. 31 Jul 2007

It's easy to use. Just fill the in the blanks after you've picked a style (MLA, Chicago, et al) and copy what the site formulates. Even if it's not perfect, it's good enough for government work (as my smokejumper climbing partner used to say). We will probably all want to use the same style in this wiki. -- repairman

                            -- The point though is to not have to bother with MLA, APA, Chicago.  I'd like to make it much simplier if possible.  If not, than I suppose we can't.  What you've shown is just MLA format if I'm not mistaken.  There's a multitude of those citation generators out there. All we need to do is agree on a format then, whether it's MLA, APA, or Chicago. - Eric

4) Discussions will take place on a regular basis to be determined by a majority of the members

5) Discussion topics will be determined on a quarterly basis and announced prior to the quarter in order to permit members time to research if they so desire.

    a) Quarters will begin in August

          - Aug - Sep - Oct    (grading (SBG), syllabi, etc)

          - Nov - Dec - Jan    (???)

          - Feb - Mar - Apr    (Standards-Based Testing, NCLB, etc)

          - May - Jun - Jul     (professional development, in-service, etc)

    [What about a rolling style for topics? Keep them always open, always developing. We could have cut-offs for final revisions of successive editions of particular "white papers," e.g., on standards-based grading. -- Repairman]

                            -- I should explain my rationale behind this quarterly system.  Perhaps it doesn't need to be explained as I think it's fairly obvious, but I wanted to set up a quarterly system so folks could be ready far enough out to discuss chosen topics (e.g. researching, etc), and I was wanting to make it somewhat focus on the topics du jour during those quarters.  I'm open to any change in this though. I like your idea, that's fine.  Thanks for the use of the term "white paper."  That's exactly the term I was looking for but I couldn't remember it!  Having final cut-offs for final revisions would work well indeed. -- Eric

Just thinking here...a moderated discussion (say, on Ben Franklin's work ethic) could benefit from prep time, but a consistently controversial topic like SBG might benefit from the rolling model. What do you think?  -- repairman

I'm thinking that I'd like to get some input from some of the others I've invited! - Eric

6) Transcripts of discussions will be saved in .pdf format and saved for any future use

7) Each discussion topic should consist of the following:

    a) General topic or hypothesis

    b) Specific questions or problems to be answered

    c) End-state goals for a White Paper - Eric

8) In other words: Each discussion should not just be an internal discussion but should be useful to educators as a whole.

9) Content of the discussion is available for use by all members and is covered under common-use license (in other words:  Nothing is trademarked, copyrighted, etc) [I'm thinking that we might want to apply an all rights reserved copyright to the contributing members as far as wiki text goes, but invite readers to make use of the ideas. Eric and I are looking into this. -- Repairman]

                        -- Definitely.  I went ahead and took a few minutes and set up a draft license.  You can click on it and it should take you to a link that will explain the license.  If it's not what we want, we can change it. - Eric

10) After each discussion, a report will be prepared which will show if 7b was or was not answered and if 7c was met.  At the next meeting, the report will be voted on and if passed it will be finalized.  At that time, discussion can be shelved for later or further discussion can be scheduled for another time.

11) Scheduled Discussions will last no longer than one hour.  I'm wondering if there might be some better forum for scheduled discussions than a wiki.  I was once involved in a online chat for a political discussion that used some online collaboration suite.  It wasn't Yahoo Chat or something like that.  But it did use a IRC type format. - Eric

12) After initial discussions, topics may still be posted to and papers may be updated as needed.

13) This is cool! Come on in folks, the water's fine!   -- Repairman