User:Philbartle

Recruit More Retired Members – 2009 December 27

Educators who have retired usually have a large store of experience and training that can be profitably tapped for Educational Resources Libré. How can we take advantage of this?

◊ I am surprised that I do not see more refried retired people among the WikiEducation community. WikiEducator is healthy for retired educators and retired educators are healthy for WikiEducator. Studies have shown that when people retire, they live longer and happier if they do not change radically, do not give up most activities or do not allow the decay to set in. It is better if they continue doing more or less the same as before they retired. Contributing to WikiEducator is a way to continue being useful and serves the contributors as well as the educational resources. Let us tap this mutually beneficial resource.

◊ We need to devise ways to recruit more retired people. All members of the WikiEd community have a responsibility to make this happen. All can help. Wherever we work (and play), we know people who have recently retired. We can talk to them. We can talk to those ready to retire in a short while. We do not have to be old to know our senior sisters and brothers.

◊ We need to encourage retirees to get together on WikiEd. They can offer each other mutual support and understanding.

◊ We need to make the technology more friendly to older members. I am happy to see wysiwyg is coming, but not for me; for those who find it difficult to edit the way it is now. Like so many things in life, when we know how to do something, we can easily forget how difficult it is to learn, especially for those who have some years under their belt. Old dogs and new tricks and that sort of thing.

◊ We should call for more substantive content. A large emphasis in our discussions is on the bells and whistles (new information technology). That is fine for the youngsters among us (anyone under the age of 55). If we repeat the call for more substantive content, those who are retired will feel more like they have something to offer (content rather than technology).

We can create a "Retired Contributors" page for older members to share comments and suggestions (and complaints). It is nice to be in the home, but nicer if we have our own bedroom.

◊ We can think up ways for senior citizens to meet each other. For example, we can ask them to add a "Retired" category to their user pages. The "Category" function is a marvelous tool which we hardly use enough. I see far too many pages without any categories at the bottom, when there should be at least half a dozen. A retired person on WikiEd should be able to click on the retired category at the bottom of his or her own page, and go to the page where are listed links to all those pages where retired also appears. [[Category:Retired]]

◊ I would like to hear from you. Do we need retired members? Do we need more retired members? How would we increase them? A Song for Vintage Members. --Phil Bartle 18:39, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Earlier Rants:

Older Rant Topics

• Controversy

• Alternatives to Orthodox Classroom Methods

• Education versus Socialization

• Ageism, Sexism, Racism

• Methods of Learning are Not the Same as Methods of Teaching

• Language Learning; a Lesson about Learning

• Functional Literacy → Functional Anything

• Alms, Altruism and Ability

• Agricultural Revolution, Culture and Open Education

• Epistemology

• Education and Empowerment

• Teachers and Taught

• Are We Making Educational Institutions Obsolete?

Tips and Recommendations

• Tips and Recommendations