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Nick Hodge is a Professional Geek for Microsoft Australia. More info lives underneath the About Box...

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Jimmy Wales: Panel Discussion

By Nick Hodge | April 27, 2007

Flickr Group for all images.

del.icio.us search for all blog posts from Jimmy’s Trip

The fol­low­ing is a blog-best-effort tran­script of Jimmy Wales in Mel­bourne on the 27th April 2007. This is not a ver­batim transcript.

This blog post, and Flickr images are licensed under the Cre­at­ive Com­mons License:

This
work is licensed under a
Cre­at­ive Com­mons Attri­bu­tion 2.5 Aus­tralia License.

After-lunch Panel Discussion

Gary intro­duces Mark Pesce: VRML. Author 5 books, “How Tech­no­logy is Trans­form­ing our Age”

Also on New Invent­ors, 2003–2006 AFTRS.

Mark: The Incon­veni­ence of Truth: Mark Twain quote in relation

Peer data, with peer data.

Lots of ways of gen­er­at­ing knowledge

21st cen­tury: what’s you know become who do you trust

Sys­tems of know­ledge gen­er­a­tion: com­pare and con­trast the outcomes.

Simple word: kangaroo: wiki­pe­dia, first para clear and con­cise. Tax­onom­ist, zoolo­gist. Gold stand­ard. Wikipedia’s author­it­at­ive voice is col­lab­or­at­ive. Wrong fix it, look at his­tory, look for bad data. Dis­trib­uted authority.

Brit­an­nica: second para­graph, go online to buy full license. 72 hours of going online: serv­ers col­lapsed based on demand: higher band­width, serv­ers etc. 1999 — con­sist­ently lost money in 1999. Behind a wall, $6.99/month — not a dis­trib­uted author­ity. Elites con­trol access to the edit­ing of data.

Other ways to do peer pro­duc­tion. Cit­izen­dium (sp?), attempt­ing to con­tact Mark. Attempt­ing to dif­fer­en­ti­ate. Seems like a com­munity of recog­nised experts. Its out there and interesting.

“After the flood” : stated neut­ral­ity of wiki­pe­dia was social­ist sec­u­lar­ist claptrap: wiki­pe­dia, con­ser­va­pe­dia. Trust­worthy encyc­lo­pe­dia. Ori­gins sec­tion based on cre­ation sci­ence. Pro­cess of pro­duc­tion same as wiki­pe­dia, but out­come is dif­fer­ent. Truth, justice and beauty does not come from just sharing.

Uncyc­lo­pe­dia; (lots of LOL) Frig­gen Hugh Mouse == kangaroo. Themes that show up, its funny. Wikia pur­chased it. Another kind of knowledge/peer pro­duc­tion. Com­edy. Cool.

Medi­cine, can’t leave it up to mere mor­tals. Top Head­lines example. LOL (missed screen) Peer pro­duced medi­cine. April Fools example. http://whoissick.org/ peer pro­duced epi­demi­ology  Who is report­ing sick in google maps.  Where is this one going. Really inter­est­ing

“All know­ing is doing, and all doing is knowing.”

Edu­ca­tion is chan­ging massively due to know­ledge, not just the pure IT.

Know­ledge > Elites know know­ledge is power, and it sub­verts the hier­archy. Spe­cial interests are also in play. Know­ledge shar­ing, and free stuff gets stronger: cries of elites and spe­cial interests.

21st cen­tury: war as forces tug against each other.

Panel intro:

Jimmy Wales, Mar­tin Wildes, Sarah Phil­lips, Ran­dal Strong, Rod­ney Sparkes, James Farmer, Daniel Inger­son, Derek Whitehead

Daniel: edu­ca­tion is a social thing. Chicago: effect of mov­ing schools on stu­dents. 25 people that moved to bet­ter schools didn’t do bet­ter: the desire (pas­sion) to do bet­ter was crit­ical. Stu­dents today: how do we turn that engage­ment into bet­ter edu­ca­tion, how do we get the sys­tems to under­stand that? Per­son­al­ised learn­ing vs. stand­ard­ised test­ing. Over next 10 years: explod­ing of what inform­a­tion is recor­ded: pro­cesses of learn­ing, not just the end res­ult. Look­ing at what stu­dents are doing, which will change assess­ment. First ele­ments of the web where R/W. Con­cern of con­trol an issue in Syd. High­lights quote form Jimmy: account­ab­il­ity not gate­keep­ing. Daniel is pro­du­cing s/w to do this.

Mar­tin Wildes: super­club­splus. MIT, all aca­demic con­tent delivered free online. Why MIT? Qual­ity of edu­ca­tion exper­i­ence is between the stu­dents + lec­tur­ers. Its the pas­sion! The enthusiasm!

Con­tent con­trolled by 6–12 yo chil­dren (by+for) in a UK site. (missed site) Gives chil­dren a voice, and some­thing to say. Trends toward to user gen­er­ated con­tent: peer to peer par­ti­cip­at­ive approach. Intu­it­ive media work­ing with this. Even actu­ar­ies are think­ing about user gen­er­ated content.

Chal­lenge: power com­munit­ies for young chil­dren: integ­rity, extend learn­ing. Legit­im­ise these into our insti­tu­tions, K-12 and

Derek White­head: Swin­burne Univ; Derek here as copy­right officer and lib­rar­ian. Lib­rar­i­ans like wiki­pe­dia? yes and no. lots to love. well organ­ised cur­rent access­ible widely know. Not all lib­rar­i­ans like wiki­pe­dia, lack of author­ity, volat­il­ity (eg defin­tion) Lib­rar­i­ans are ambi­val­ent about inform­a­tion demo­cracy. Dicho­tomy. Every has the right to inform­a­tion, but must get order and con­trol into the situ­ation (LOL) Life is google’d (google can be used as any part of speech). Whole web as the ref­er­ence source. Google search on the web, take the first. Wiki­pe­dia is way more QA’d than the first/random google search. Before, once “just ask mum”.  Google is about the same, Wiki­pe­dia is bet­ter as its com­munity con­trolled. Wiki­pe­dia is what all Lib­rar­i­ans have been look­ing for.

Rod­ney Sparkes: eworks: voca­tion education/TAFE sec­tor. Wide range of styles and types: included those with lim­ited skills for self-directed learn­ing. 70% are part-time and mature age works. Untapped poten­tial in the peer to peer world. Capa­city to self-directed learn­ing is going to be toughest chal­lenge. Imme­di­ate impact in the area of teach­ing: Peer to Peer impact on teach­ers will be greatest impact and keep­ing teach­ing qual­ity high. Takes the informal approach into al little more formal. Trans­lat­ing skills into the online envir­on­ments is crit­ical. Learn­ing objects. Mak­ing con­tent avail­able to oth­ers. How to incent con­trib­ut­ors to make them add knowledge.

How do we ensure every­one has learn­ing skills? Smartest people are the wealth­ier people. Tech­no­logy is every­where; how to we cre­ate eco­nomic mod­els for com­munity rights. Is teach­ing in the 21st cen­tury illegal due to recent Digital Laws. How about our cul­ture know­ledge. Writ­ing is not the only way: digital storytelling: peer to peer model: video+sound etc. Value of cul­ture of know­ledge is appreciated.

Ran­dall Strong: Mul­ti­me­dia Vic­toria: Edu­ca­tion, how do gov’t policy people think: dejavu to 1993/1994. Net­work ICT’d dis­rupt­ing tech­no­logy: web2 is the next dis­rupt­ive tech­no­logy. 1990s we under estim­ated impacts. This time, the gov can­not under­es­tim­ate the impact. Now want Vic­toria into second­life now. Oppor­tun­ity: web2 open innov­a­tion plat­form for the coun­try. Exploit the other 99% of the know­ledge in the world for local use; effect journ­al­ism. Digital TV: make it, now watch it. DESTRA “‘yooph’ gen­er­ated TV”. Teacher gen­er­ated con­tent; stu­dent gen­er­ated con­tent from/for kids. Web2 dis­rup­tion to drive pro­ductiv­ity. Threats: exper­i­ment­a­tion; that has to hap­pen again in the eco­nomy. Basic ADSL will not drive this in AU. Con­verged net­works need Sym­metry to Write. Deeper fibre into the economy. Vic EDU fibre to the school. Gov’t will react to excesses, You­tubes: why, wer­ri­bee example. US Con­gress; throttle $ to schools who use web2. 1994 now excess: bil­lion people are already using it. Inter­net meas­ured and monitored, will hap­pen quicker. MMVic is think­ing through this stuff.

James Farmer: Edub­logs and The Age,  pissed. Drunk. Intox­ic­ated. On the know­ledge. Gor­ging on inform­a­tion, binge know­ledging. Don’t abuse the know­ledge. 100 years ago, rote learn­ing, inform­a­tion trans­fer. Since then, research, John Dewey etc. Old skool school­ing don’t work. Con­ver­sa­tion and inter­ac­tion are bet­ter. For­get modes of teach­ing, just jump on the know­ledge. Just fol­low the IT. ICT. (C for com­mu­nic­a­tion is silent). Con­tent, con­tent, con­tent. Chal­lenge is to get over the orgy of know­ledge to add social side. JF sick of learn­ing objects, wikis, pod­casts.… less can be more!

Sarah Phil­lips, Deakin Uni­ver­sity: wiki­pe­dia for speech? Free encyc­lo­pe­dia is a noble idea. Essay topic to trivia ques­tions. Answers don’t provide a basis of cred­ible argu­ment. Online van­dal­ism. In an ideal world, people don’t cross check. PR stu­dent, in social media, PR people can­not edit in wiki­pe­dia. Peer pro­duced learn­ing should per­mit PR people from com­mu­nic­a­tions pro­fes­sional. Does this rule apply to the PR team at Wikipedia?

Q: Sarah; as PR prac­ti­tioner, can I write an article?

Jimmy Wales: broader rules from com­munity, con­flict of interest edit­ing. When you have a per­sonal interest in this. Must identify openly, post in dis­cus­sion page openly, present inform­a­tion on themselves.

Prob­lem we have, PR unpro­fes­sion­als who do exist out there. Come in mind­lessly without openly say­ing who they are. Quite dan­ger­ous beha­viour, and uneth­ical for the PR com­munity. Show the respect. Idea not a free-for-all; there are people on the other side who spent time.

Cor­por­a­tions may have entit­ies who are paid and poten­tially not fair: but remem­ber the com­munity norms and values.

Q: Rod­ney: cf: News Ltd Pur­chase of Myspace.

JW: Myspace skep­tic; Myspace too much advert­ising and spam­ming, core mar­ket like facebook.

Wiki­pe­dia is owned by a non-profit — so its not for sale. Con­tent is (cc) anyway!

Q: (on pod­cast, sur­vive death of uni­verse). Own­er­ship of Know­ledge in Edu­ca­tion domain. Inform­a­tion is not shared freely between edu­ca­tional insti­tu­tions; act­ively dis­cour­age shar­ing as they are threats to each other. Shar­ing the source, won’t hap­pen until © policies are solved.

Inform­a­tion is not open. Ran­dall: inform­a­tion should be shared, not a formal policy. Gov’t can lead by example. Does Gov’t use (cc) model? Crit­ical mass of user gen­er­ated content.

Vic­toria, soft­ware IP; changed default model where IP resides: in the industry, gov’t should not be in the game of mak­ing and exploit­ing IP — commercial.

Grow­ing band of people who will drive this.

Mark: peer pro­duced draw­ing pro­ject. All the way to the AFTRS board to get approval for OS software.

James: slightly dif­fer­ent in the uni­ver­sity world.

Mar­tin: the stu­dents will drive the uni­ver­sity with their own learn­ing net­works in place. Stu­dents will con­tinue their tools and net­works already in place. Edu­ca­tion is bey­ond the institution.

Mark: peer learn­ing — pushed out­side the school. Is the school the locus of learn­ing in the 21st century?

Mar­tin: UK exper­i­ence, super­club­splus; social net­work­ing; 120,000 6–12 years of age. Learn­ing in school, out­side: logs enga­ging gen­er­at­ing con­tent + annot­at­ing, friends, primary out­side school con­fines. Innov­at­ive teach­ers: any tool or tech­no­logy. Cre­at­ive and ori­ginal ways.

Q: QLD fire+rescue: Jimmy a cit­izen of the world. Soft­ware design, social education/design.

Law Pro­fessor at Har­vard. Ten­sion between guards and pris­on­ers, due to escape. Used a wiki to pro­duce a neut­ral view of what happened. Both sides never agree, so wiki was used to find the source of the conflict.

In gen­eral, using social tools at a young age, to teach at a young age from TV. How to have a con­struct­ive con­ver­sa­tion aimed at a mutu­ally agree­able end. vs. TV is A vs B style to make the other side appear evil. (editor: need to cre­ate a Jimmy Wales — Microsoft heal­ing wiki)

Q: Increas­ing com­fort of use, down­side on KPIs and measurement

Mark: dis­trib­ute author­ity, you are dis­trib­ut­ing expert­ise. Dis­trib­uted model of assessment.

Mar­tin: expert­ise model is inter­est­ing. Expert­ise is about exper­i­ence, not know­ledge. Organ­isa­tions to grow expert­ise need to provide the power of the com­munity in devel­op­ment of the expert­ise, and dis­trib­ute it around — includ­ing assessment.

Philo­soph­ic­ally true: demon­strate com­pet­en­cies, not just what they remember.

James: com­pet­en­cies: pain with this word. Edu­ca­tion sys­tem K-12+University, seg­ment wheat from chaff. Nice com­fort­able soci­ety (class).  School — social aspects is rub­bish with out­dated assess­ment pro­cesses and large exams.

Rod­ney: employ­ers decide in voca­tional side. Demon­strate in a work con­text (port­fo­lio) Qual­i­fic­a­tions only one aspect.

Sarah: all assess­ment in this final term is work-oriented cf. exam. Term of learn­ing for 3 hours of pres­sure. Into the com­munity is far more bene­fi­cial in final exam.

Daniel: who is doing the assess­ment? Peers doing the assess­ment, shifts the power base to the community.

Q: Col­lab­or­at­ive. Uni­ver­sity had a model more advanced than the stu­dents in a Master’s degree. Gen­er­a­tional gap in learn­ing styles.

Daniel: Doug Brown has a spec­tac­u­lar present­a­tion on cul­tural change. Teach­ers vs. stu­dents per­spect­ive. Research — pub­lic­a­tion can be peer and self.

Rod­ney: are uni­ver­sit­ies the best example of col­lab­or­at­ive learning/peer learning.

(next: Fireside chat with Jimmy)

Topics: eduausem2007, education, jimmywales, wikipedia | 1 Comment »