I've been working with Leigh, Wayne, Chris , Brent and all others to assure that VET training in NSW Australia uses this amazing platform to it's fullest potential – http://nswlearnscope.com/wiki

I'm also keen to see WikiEducator and WikiVersity see node development in industry. How this comes about is anyones guess however my five wishes are as follows;

1. WikiSySops "time" donations – webcall on demand for a small fee….ie. fully conversant developers willing to directly step through installs and upgrades with wiki sysops

2. Space Trading – wiki contacts willing to host ( and monitor / contribute ) other organisational events via a wiki to promote cross knowledge filtering ( outside of main events page ) – an example of this is the growing http://www.wikieducator.org/FLNW2...

3. Mobile integration – email image / asset to wiki-gallery function install

4. Indigenous engagement – assistance to integrate my ideas here in remote Australia with that of mobile: ed and exe

5. Infrastructural advisory service – key people willing to talk to systems controllers in large education organisations ……synchronously.

Thats just a few things on the wish list.

<- not at all. In this case "real" means something where you can take studies and not just "edit wiki-pages". Being real you can still be very non-traditional. For me Wikipedia is a “real” encyclopedia, but still very non-traditional.

John wrote: "Wiki is about collaboration that is distributed in time and space..we can just walk away from the restrictions of bricks-and-mortar thinking."

<- I am afraid that in a meaningful social constructivist learning we just can not fully get away from the time and space restrictions. Having a dialogue requires time and space.

John: "grades and credits" <– If you go in this direction, how do you avoid the need for certified teachers and accreditation?

<- Simply by not having certifications or accreditation. I wouldn’t mind if my “Spanish teacher” on Wikiiversity will give me feedback in a form of a “grade” and I can of course add the course I took in my user page.

John: business model” <– This is a serious challenge for Wikiversity. What does it do to the volunteer ethic when some people start getting paid?

<- You are right. However, if the payment is donation, I do not see a huge problem in here. You pay (if you want) about the time your “teacher” is spending to help you in your studies.

"real study programs with schedule, syllabus, objectives, registration, feedback and evaluation (maybe even grades and credits" <– I think "real" means "traditional". Wiki is not traditional. However, some Wikiversity participants are interested in the traditional approach, (see http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:Creation_of_Free_Online_University...).

The idea of a schedule for wiki-mediated learning reminds me of the idea that humans would achieve flight by making use of feathers. Wiki is about collaboration that is distributed in time and space…we can just walk away from the restrictions of bricks-and-mortar thinking. "grades and credits" <– If you go in this direction, how do you avoid the need for certified teachers and accreditation? Is a Wikimedia wiki project the place to go down this conventional path? Why did the Board of Trustees previously tell the Wikiversity community not to go in that direction?

Userboxes (http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:Userboxes...). Some people like them, some people do not. Some people put a bunch of them on their userpage and their wiki participation ends there.

"Focus on communication" <– Wikiversity participants are exploring ways to bring threaded discussions, voice chat and moving video into Wikiversity. (http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/LiquidThreads,... http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikio,... http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:Sandbox_Server,... http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity_Reports...)

“School structure” <– It is a flexible structure. For example, see (http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Portal:Practical_Arts_and_Sciences... and http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Portal:Interdisciplinary_Studies...). Wikiversity schools are content development projects and Wikiversity participants can create a school for any area of interest.

“business model” <– This is a serious challenge for Wikiversity. What does it do to the volunteer ethic when some people start getting paid? One step in this direction is at http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity_NPC...

That's a solid post and your analysis will assist both Wikiversity and WikiEducator in becoming the learning environments of the future.

I should mention that the Commonwealth of Learning is working hard to facilitate and support the completion of LiquidThreads – which of course will be available as an open source solution for both projects. Hopefully we can work on a role definition architecture that would enable teachers and learners to congregate around their particular learning interests.

Cormac – we'll keep in touch with the VOIP developments – this will also go a long way in facilitating communication. Teemu – what about another project with Mobile telephony to see how we can facilitate greater interaction in the developing world? VOIP is still going to be a challenge working in the developing world, which is a major focus of WikiEducator.

Without diminishing the importance of dialogue in education – we should not forget about the distance education experience where its possible to build in student-content, and student-teacher interactions using simulated communication. For example, providing teacher feedback after an activity embedded in the content. This is a strong focus of our work in WikiEducator.

We are also working on achieving a more sophisticated wiki to pdf capability for teachers to generate customised print materials – particularly for learners in the developing world who may not have affordable access to learning materials or connectivity.

We're going to take your analysis into account in helping us refine our future paths. Thanks mate.

I like the focus on communication – though I still think that materials are necessary. There is work underway at utilising VoIP (through the open-source Asterisk platform) in the fostering of educational discussions and experiences – see Topic:VoIP and its talk page. This could eventually also be integrated with the idea of LiquidThreads, where people could find previous discussions on a given subject, and hop from these archived discussions to real-time communication with whoever is online and interested in this particular subject. It doesn't always have to be synchronous, but I agree that communication is at the heart of education.

It's an interesting idea to have Paypal donations as a potential attractor for educators – it's something we wrung our hands over a few months ago, veering towards the "say no to commercialism" model. However, I realise that you're not suggesting we compromise the freeness of the material (or even experience), but rather have it as something that people could use if they felt it was appropriate.

Please say hi to all in Salzburg Research – and try to pick up a copy of the "OLCOS Roadmap 2012 if you can – I got one in Texas, and it's a stimulating document.