A google search on 10. Januar 2009 produced
more than 600 000 hits to 'play world of warcraft',
but only 300 000 contributions to 'learn
mathematics'. ('learn math' with about 1,2 millions
of contributions lies in the same order). Obviously,
the attractivity of just this one online game is
comparable to a more than 2 000 years old cultural
tradition.
The similarity between 'World of Warcraft'
(WOW) and our vision of community-bases
educational standards is the production and rating of
test items by a community. In WOW, the gamer can
choose and solve 'quests' to gain status in the WOW
community, and they also can develop and suggest
new quests themselves. The gamer's status in the
community depends on his gained 'level' and his
equipment. Solving quests is rewarded with level
and equipment. The rewarding system is transparent:
Gamers know in advance which quests will get them
which rewards. It's evident that WOW satisfies
elementary human desires which classic learning at
school does not serve. There is no problem with
addiction to learning, but online games may cause
serious addiction. Communities supporting open
educational standards are probably not going to be
addictive, nevertheless, they may still be more
motivating than classical schooling for some
learners.
4 ON THE WAY TO A
WIKI-TESTING COMMUNITY?
At the moment community-based educational
standards on internet are a mere vision. It may share
the fate of most visions and remain an utopian
dream. Alternatively, it may also grow into reality.
A possible way to achieve this may be the
integration of community based open standards for
automatic exams into the Wikipedia family (maybe
as a workhorse for organizing exams and training
opportunities in Wikiversity).
Community-generated online content was not
invented by Wikipedia. Already 1993 Richard
Stallmann, founder of the GNU project and one of
the godfathers of open source programming, wrote:
„...Since we hope that teachers and students at
many colleges around the world will join in writing
contributions to the free encyclopedia, let's not leave
this to chance. There are already scattered examples
of what can be done. Let's present these examples
systematically to the academic community, show the
vision of the free universal encyclopedia, and invite
others to join in writing it.
Courses in the learning resource are a
generalization to hypertext of the textbooks used for
teaching a subject to yourself or to a class. The
learning resource should eventually include courses
for all academic subjects, from mathematics to art
history, and practical subjects such as gardening as
well, to the extent this makes sense. (Some practical
subjects, such as massage or instrumental ensemble
playing, may not be possible to study from a "book"
without a human teacher—these are arguably less
useful to include.) It should cover these subjects at
all the levels that are useful, which might in some
cases range from first grade to graduate school.“
It lasted only some years until Wikipedia has
accumulated a volume and quality that has already
surpassed that of venerable traditional encyclopedias
filling whole bookshelves. Extending the
presentation of knowledge online to training and
testing online with immediate feedback is a logical
next step building on Stallmann’s ideas.
e-testing based on community-legitimated
standards can help to advance the idea of e-learning
and also help to provide a novel basis for defining
educational standards. It may start with a handful of
subjects – either supported by a platform like
wikipedia or fostered by motivated educators in
established educational institutions who are
interested in basing exams and training for their
students on a transparent pool of test items.
We concede that presently available resources to
create e-testing modules still not have reached the
usability comfort levels known from contributing to
the Wiki world, but this is only a problem of time
and cooperation. Who will help?
REFERENCES
European commission communication COM(2008) 425:
http://etuce.homestead.com/com425_en_2008.pdf
EQF (2008) European Qualifications Framework
http://ec.europa.eu/education/lifelong-learning-
policy/doc44_en.htm
KMK 2003 (German National conference of State
Ministries of Education) Bildungsstandards für den
Mittleren Bildungsabschluss (Jahrgangsstufe 10)
Agreement on 4.12.2003.
KMK 2006 (German National conference of State
Ministries of Education) 314th meeting 1./2.6.2006.
Nestle, N., Gädke, A., Enders, J., 2007. eExercise:
Möglichkeiten zur Beobachtung individueller
Lernstrategien von Studierenden in einer freien,
webbasierten Aufgabenplattform Tagungs-CD
Didaktik der Physik 2007. Lehmanns, Berlin.
COMMUNITY-LEGITIMATED e-TESTING - A Basis for a Novel, Self-Organized and Sustainable (e)Learning Culture?
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