WikiEd Resource Development

There is by no means a set way of creating resources for wikiEducator. It is a very organic process and will vary from project to project, resource to resource.

What we are providing here are resources, guides and tools you may find useful for planning and developing, or refining resources for WikiEducator. They focus on learning and content design.

Learning Design
Learning design is about designing environments that facilitate learning. It involves careful consideration of learners, learner contexts and teaching and learning strategies with the goal of maximizing the potential of a learning environment to be active, exciting and supported.

Teaching and learning with new technologies has renewed the way people think about teaching and learning so “learning design” has become somewhat of a revived discipline. But actually, it is a discipline that has been around for a long time and relates as much to designing for learning that is going to occur with or without the support of technology. Good learning design is applicable to all learning environments.

Information and resources about learning design.

These will now have to be adapted to work in with this page.

Content Design
Content design and learning design are intricately linked. Learning design is, if you like, the ‘invisible’ planning and thought processes of learning that go on ‘within and behind’ a resource. It will drive the way in which content is eventually presented. Content therefore is the way in which the learning design becomes ‘visible’. So content design involves thinking carefully about how to present the instruction and the information required for the teaching and learning to take place in an accessible and meaningful way.

Again, this is an iterative process and involves discussion, trial and error, feedback and reworking of material.

When designing content you might consider:


 * In what order should a topic be presented?
 * How should materials be sequenced? - from simple to complex or topic by topic? – are some concepts pre-requisites for others?
 * What sort of voice will be appropriate?
 * How much information do you want to give your learners? To what extent do you want them to explore material themselves?
 * What resources already exists to support the learning? – how much new material do you need to develop?
 * Could a problem-solving approach be taken as a way of working through content?
 * Will visual and/or audio material be required to support the teaching and learning?
 * How will the various resources for learning be integrated?
 * Is this content a good reflection of the learning design?

When you design content for WikiEducator there is a content design checklist you can work through. ...[link to DPT and explanation etc]

The Design Process for WikiEducator
The process of designing for learning is often unstructured, even “messy”. It is an iterative process, relying on creativity, trial and error and feedback to enable changes and improvements.

Design that takes place on a wiki is likely to be very unstructured because contributors to a project can come and go at various stages of the design whenever the inspiration and opportunity arise.

A typical process of design would involve the following phases:
 * Planning: when project aims are clarified, learner needs and the context for learning are explored.
 * Design: when teaching and learning strategies and resources are chosen to best match the learning needs.
 * Development: when resources are actually prepared and created.
 * Implementation: when resources are used for teaching and learning.
 * Evaluation: when feedback about the usability and effectiveness of the resources is gathered – occurring throughout the design and making the process iterative.

The design process for WikiEducator is very similar but because it occurs on the wiki there are some small differences. There is the opportunity to use tools and guides during the process that relate specifically to WikiEducator. The diagram below will help you to see how the design process could ensue:

ADD DIAGRAM

So designing resources for WikiEducator might go something like this:
 * Become familiar with wiki authoring
 * If you are very new to using the wiki you will need to become familiar with wiki authoring and  ways of working on the wiki so one of the first steps many of you will need to take is to work through the Wikieducator Tutorials. You will no doubt keep returning to the tutorials as your design progresses.


 * Plan
 * Most design begins with careful consideration of what you want to achieve, and what the needs of the people who will learn from your resource are likely to be.Then you go about matching those to teaching and learning strategies and resources. Decisions made during this period of planning are typically articulated and recorded in a  Design Plan.  WikiEducator provides you with a tool, the  Design Decision Guide which will take you through this planning process and prompt you with some of the questions you should be considering. You can use the tool collaboratively to discuss and record your decisions on the wiki. If you are unsure how to use the Design Decision Guide take a look at this ‘mini-tutorial’.


 * Start design
 * Resources that are well designed and effective generally have dealt with a “checklist” of considerations. When you begin to develop resources for WikiEducator we encourage you to incorporate the [Design Progress Tool (DPT)] into your wiki pages. This tool will enable you to check the considerations you should make during your design and development and will indicate to others the progress you have made. Once again, there is a mini-tutorial explaining the Design Progress Tool.


 * Progress design
 * As development of your resource progresses you can continue to check work against indicators on the Design Progress Tool and show your continued progress through to completion.


 * Use resource
 * Development of resources on a wiki means they are, to some extent, eternally able to be changed. So in some ways they can be regarded as never quite complete. However, at some point you will deem your resource as ‘ready enough for use’. At this point you can mark it as “Ready for Use” on the Design Progress Tool, indicating to others the stage at which it has reached and making it available to interested users.


 * Revise and refine
 * As you and others use the resource the wiki community will either make suggestions for improvements – or simply do it!


 * Receive review from users and community
 * [Concept only] …that as others use the resource they may provide ‘endorsement’ of its effectiveness and perhaps articulate the ways in which they have adapted or localized the resource. This could be a way of sharing a review of a resource’s value within the community.

Tools, Templates and Guides
If you are new to designing resources for WikiEducator you may want to use the following tools to assist you and your team to make decisions about resources you are developing. They can be used to assist you through the learning and content design process.

The Design Decision Guide
The Design Decision Guide  is a set of questions you can consider as part of a learning design process for WikiEducator resources. It has been designed particularly for groups who wish to collaborate on the development of educational resources for WikiEducator.

The guide is designed for you to complete within the Edit pages of the wiki. Your compiled responses to the questions will eventually create a Design Plan for resources you are designing and developing on the wiki.

Design Progress Tool
This is a tool that can be used as a project gets underway to show progress through the design and development process. More about how to use this tool can be found here: Template:Learning_Design.

WikiEducator Design Checklist
This is a 'quick glance' [list] of design and development activity that may help as a guide to the preparation of resources for WikiEducator.

Stories about WikiEd developments
...to add...

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