User:Cormac

From Cormac's wiki

Hi, I'm Cormac Lawler, a PhD student in the University of Manchester. I'm doing my research on (or, perhaps, about? for? with?) Wikiversity - which is a wiki-based space for learning materials and activities. If you're wondering what a "wiki" is - well, you're on one now (it's a website you can edit - see the "edit" button at the top of the page) - you might have heard of them through Wikipedia, the editable encyclopedia, of which Wikiversity is a sister project, under the umbrella of the Wikimedia Foundation.

This wiki is to document my work on my research - the things I've done, meetings I've had, things I've read, and thoughts these have provoked. It's also to actually do the work itself - I'll be writing my research proposal here - possibly even the dissertation itself (though we'll have to see how feasible this is with the university's demand for "original work" - again, itself something which has a fundamental bearing on my research).

My research will attempt to promote critical and reflective action - through the collaboration of the community with whom I work - the community who are building Wikiversity, as well as the wider movement/phenomenon of Wikimedia. I should stress that I would like the doing of the research to actually be about promoting this critical and reflective action - not simply for the finished product, ie thesis, to do so. As a methodology, this is a form of participatory - and critical - Action Research.

In doing this (if I haven't already made it clear), I will be working with the community, embedded as I already am within it, looking at what we are doing as a community, trying to improve what we are doing, and perhaps even wondering if there are some things we simply can't do. But Wikiversity participants who are reading this are possibly already saying: "but isn't that what I'm already doing?". Isn't everyone on Wikiversity doing something like this? "Why don't I get a Phd for my efforts?" - one might justifiably ask. This is a good question - to which I (Cormac) do not have an immediate, easy answer. In fact, it makes me feel slightly awkward. But, I feel in addressing the questions that this raises, we might move closer to understanding education and research better - and Wikiversity's place in education and research.

A bit more about me

I'm 31 years old, originally from a town called Ballymore Eustace, near the Kildare/Wicklow border, in Ireland (republic). My father was (and still is) a teacher in the primary school in the town - and he even taught me for a year when I was 6. I went to secondary school in Newbridge College from 1989-1994. Because I was quite young (16) when I did my Leaving Cert (the exam in Ireland which marks the end of secondary school, and which serves as an entrance exam to university), I deferred my place in university for a year and worked, moving to Dublin, where I met new people, and started finding myself some more. I went to university the following year, Dublin City University (DCU), studying chemistry, which I quickly discovered wasn't for me, and which I pretty much deliberately failed (as my friends of the time will testify!). During that year, I applied for, and got offered, a place on the diploma in Photography, in Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT) - a three year course, which was a really fascinating (if sometimes tough) programme. I think I found myself during that course - I developed a real love for photography, art and design - and these interests sparked others too - my interest in people, culture and society, as well as a reawakening of my appreciation of nature. I never really used my photography afterwards - and I've sadly let my knowledge go quite rusty - but I will always look back favourably on that course - or, at least, that period of my life.

I always wanted to explore the world - a set of National Geographic magazines when I was about 10/11 possibly set the ball in motion. I was all set to go to Mexico (where the mysterious world of the Maya, Aztec and others beckoned), when I took up a temporary job with "Concern", one of Ireland's biggest and best-known charities, which operates in situations of extreme poverty and/or crisis around the world. I started with folding envelopes (classic charity work), and then moved on to data-inputting for the "customer service" department - unglamorous work - but it did introduce me to some great people - as well as to the workings of charities. I then moved on to the Development Education department - where I was responsible for the administration of the "Concern Debates" - a nationwide (ie Irish) debating competition for senior secondary school students, where issues of the world are debated between teams from various schools. I also looked after (and worked in) a smallish resource centre - distributing materials upon request - as well as developing materials myself (I wrote an introduction to "international trade" - with a section, of course, on fair trade).

My time in Development Education in Concern was limited (I was filling in on a maternity leave), so I then went off travelling - in April, 2002 - starting in Guatemala, specifically Quetzaltenango (known as "Xela") in the mountainous west, to get settled, and to brush up on my Spanish. I also worked briefly in a small NGO called "Mayalan" - a network of small cooperatives of indigenous people in the surrounding mountains. During my stint in Xela - or, rather, a break in Lake Atitlan, I met up with three people, a Mexican man and an American woman (they're married), who run a permaculture farm in Mexico, as well as offering education to local people about becoming certified fair trade producers, farming sustainably, and the role of the ecosystem in their lives. The third person was a Swiss volunteer in the farm (I actually met her first). I decided to work there for a while - one of the major reasons I had for travelling was to have the opportunity to learn something about the realities of life from the perspective of local people, and through NGOs that work with local (as well as global) issues - as well as perhaps give something back myself (mainly, I helped develop an ecological park in a seriously eroded piece of land beside the farm). After working there, I travelled back through Central America as far as the Nicaragua/Costa Rica border before turning around and making my way eventually to the north of Mexico, to fly out from Los Angeles. During this time, I used a mailing list to keep my friends aware of what I was doing, but it was almost more for my own purposes than theirs (ie I needed some way of keeping my thoughts together and to feel connected with others - in what can often be quite a lonely, as well as exhilarating, experience). I also discovered the concept of a blog, although I didn't start one myself (though it would have made more sense at the time) - I wasn't aware of services like Blogger and/or LiveJournal in those days. In fact, I wasn't even aware of Wikipedia, but I'm getting to that. :-)

On returning to Ireland after eight months of being away, I had already decided that I wanted to go away again. With this in mind, in common with so many others, I did a course in teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL), with a view to heading to Barcelona, which I did after a few months of work in Concern. Barcelona's a fascinating city - it doesn't need my repeating - and I enjoyed myself immensely. I met many great people there, and I think it reinspired me to look into the media in a more serious way. This prompted me - along with inwardly wondering what I was doing, where I was going etc - to think about returning to education, in order to ground myself better. Through a search - and some deliberation (Sue, :-)) - I decided upon an excellent course in the University of Manchester - a Master of Education (M.Ed) in Communications, Education, and Technology. The course was very broad - about exploring the media and its possible educational implications (education in its very broadest sense) - and about doing work in collaboration and reflecting on and learning from your experiences. The research component of the course (part of all M.Eds in the school of education) was a real immersion for me in academia - something which I hadn't ever really fully engaged in. I needed to find something (or somewhere) which I could study, hopefully extend the pilot study to my masters dissertation. Throughout the previous year, I had become fascinated with Wikipedia, not only as a social document, but also as a community - and I embarked on a project, which culminated in my dissertation "Wikipedia as a learning community". Pretty much as soon as I had started the project, I realised what a complex world it was, and how many dimensions to it there were. How to even begin to comprehend this evolving, amorphous, shapeshifting beast? (A question I still ask, by the way). However, I started by asking some well-experienced contributors, and it was through their eyes (and extensive wandering) that I began to see the breath of the community, and what it works on.

Through these often aimless wanders through, mainly, Wikipedia and Meta, I discovered this project proposal for a "Wikiversity" - an intriguing idea, which I decided I would contribute to when i felt more comfortable doing so. More or less around the time of the first Wikimedia community conference (Wikimania), in Frankfurt, August 2005 - where I presented a paper - there began a flurry of activity with Wikiversity, a vote for deletion from Wikibooks (where Wikiversity was originally incubated). This rather shocking event provoked me into getting more involved - I did so on the talk page of the "About Wikiversity" page on Wikibooks - and this is where I met John Schmidt and Javier Carro. Particularly meeting John was a heartening event - we both obviously shared a passion for something new, even something radical which could be developed in Wikiversity, but, more fundamentally, a model of learning which was centred on experiential learning and critical thinking - a model we are still trying to develop. The story of how Wikiversity developed from proposal to reality is a long and complex one (and which was the subject of my subsequent M.Sc), but which I will not detail here. Suffice to say that we now have a very open project with much potential, much work to do, and many people to reach. How we go about this, and how Wikiversity develops as a resource, a community, possibly even a model is very much the subject of my research - though what questions I/we am/are asking and how I/we will go about addressing them is still to be decided. More to come in methodology..

For now - and to anyone's actually that's read so far, I salute you - if there are any comments you would like to add to anything you've read here or what that's possibly sparked in your mind, please just hit that edit button and share your thoughts. It might be better to do so on a page's "talk" (or "discussion") page (eg this/my talk page - but I should be able to notice any comment you've made, regardless of where it is - courtesy of recent changes. Looking forward to hearing from you.. Cormac 21:04, 27 October 2006 (CDT)

Age updated :-) Cormac 09:31, 19 November 2008 (CST)