Welcome
Hi Dan,
I’m sure your interest in eLearning theories and solutions, will add value to the WikiEducator community. I can see in your profile you already have the right spirit “…I love to see how every individual can contribute their knowledge to help improve the community as a whole”. My experience from finding a “way to leverage this WikiEducator platform” brought me to the Open Education Resources (OER) initiative and I created an institutional hub. I believe the foundation of WikiEducator is a digital content node that is authored by a community of wiki users. This categorization helped my understanding:
- In Wikipedia the foundational document is an encyclopedia article;
- In Wikibooks, the core document is a text book;
- In Wikinews, the basic component is a news article.
In WikiEducator the foundational component is a concept which is loosely described as a content component which is inherently understandable (the idea is to use pedagogical templates, that can be exported to a new context). Concepts are the building blocks of instructional content. Concepts can be structured, for example, according to disciplines or the level of the anticipated target audience. Conceivably, an extensive collection of concepts could constitute the material for a course. However, selecting a concept as the core component of a WikiEducator document provides for the flexibility required by educators to utilise Wikieducator resources in their courses. Moreover, this facilitates a range of alternatives for educators to incorporate their own instructional elements into courses.
I look forward to your progress in this community, your Wiki Neighbour Jonas!
