| Cyber-Parliamentarian | Multilingual Development | Mentoring Project |
As in previous years, to support WAOE procedural operations and functionality, parliamentarian considerations continued to focus on areas to assist in the conduct of business and operations of this virtual Membership Corporation within cyberspace. Using the baseline reference source of Roberts' Rules of Order (RRO), we continue to hone communication forums in ways that will support the methodology of conducting the operations of an educational membership corporation that empowers performance in this electronic medium. With the goal of enabling ubiquitous communication, primary efforts were focused within the WebBoard related to conducting online meetings (see archives) and included an international panel book review.
To date we have, as an organization, conducted seventeen elections and/or meetings thanks to the dedicated efforts of key volunteer officers. Future success continues to hinge on the efforts and of these volunteers and the willingness of new members to get involved. As I stated in previous years’ reports, this global organization of educationally oriented practitioners continues to break new ground for online functionality. In the spirit of multiculturalism and multilingual efforts we need to keep the focus on our progress to ensure openness and understanding within this structured corporate environment that fosters community and collaboration over expediency and tunnel vision.
The WAOE Bylaws and WebBoard continue to serve as developmental tools as we
search to define the best model for this parliamentary process. I continue to
seek the assistance of any member that would like to get involved with this
effort, no experience with RRO is required. If you wish to contact me privately,
you may e-mail me .
Respectfully submitted,
Michael D. Warner
WAOE Cyber Parliamentarian
Namaskar, Anyong Haseyo, Guten Tag, Konnichi wa and Salam Alai Kum from Germany, WAOE members and officers:
Thanks very much, to Maggie and Prof. McCarty-ji and especially our WAOE Cyber Parliamentarian, Mike Warner as always –for their hours of time towards the Best Practices of Online Learning Distance Education, the maintenance of Web-Sites for WAOE and Web-Board and Cross-cultural communication to provide a new outlook to the entire WAOE (World Association for Online Education) Organisation over the past years.
It is an honour for me to present the 2003-2004 WAOE Multilingual Project Report. The WAOE Multilingual Project has gone for five years, successfully raising primary concerns including Language Chapters and Listservs, since it was unveiled at 1999 First Annual Members' Meeting. See the report for our Annual Members' Meeting 2000. The WAOE Multilingual Co-ordinator for Annual Members' Meeting 2002 is also available.
I am glad to inform the WAOE members, that over the past years WAOE educators had posted their views regarding Multilingualism and Multiculturalism on the Net. See the WAOE-VIEWS archives especially for mid-1999 when a topic of the Annual Meeting was held in which we colleagues discussed how to make the Internet more multilingual and multicultural. Earlier in 1999 WAOE had also held a World Culture Festival Online.
The Multilingual Project is among the most important of WAOE projects and activities,
because the World Association for Online Education supports multiculturalism
and world regional initiatives. The project details can be read on the WAOE
Organisational Page in Japan .
WAOE has now been made available to the world of educators in ten languages,
including Japanese, German, Italian, Spanish, Hindi, Estonian, Russian, Chinese,
Portuguese, French, and Malay. To see the WAOE web-pages in different languages
please visit the WAOE home page
and click the down arrow next to your language selection.
During the Annual Members' Meeting, we also discussed the issues on the "diversity
of languages and the Web." Sharing cultures is an important component of
our Multilingualism and Multiculturalism perspectives. Some educators enjoy
sharing and exploring their cultural heritage with pictures, stories, information
about their Country with fellow educators. You may view some of the selections
by clicking on Communications button on the home page. Then selecting the "sharing
cultures" link. If you would like to share something with the membership,
please contact Maggie for details and assistance.
Development in Multicultural and Multilingual Projects
WAOE's commitment to Multilingualism and Multiculturalism is progressing. WAOE Co-ordinating Committee officers in Turkey, Russia and Italy have been working on adding WAOE sites in the language of each of their countries. The Italian and Turkish sites have been completed and are linked to the WAOE site. For details regarding the language chapters of WAOE -please visit the opening site of WAOE. Thanks to Prof. Bunyamin Atici, Prof. Luigi Macri, and Dr. Boris Sedunov for their hard work to maintain the multilingualism perspectives in WAOE. Dr. Sedunov is hard at work on the Russian site of WAOE. The Moscow State University of Business Administration will host this site. The planned Web-site will provide information on Russia, with pedagogical value for students, and an opportunity for WAOE members interested in the Russian region to interact with their university. We look forward to hearing more about this in the near future and linking it to the WAOE main page.
Sharing Language via Discussion Lists –another important component of Multilingualism
WAOE supports many discussion lists in native languages. If any member would like to participate in discussions in a specific language, be sure to join one of the lists below. Also, if you would like an opportunity to practice and learn a new language you may also wish to join one of these lists. Language is an important part of our heritage, our culture, and a great way to share understanding. To join any of the lists below simply click on the name of the list below. An email will be created. Click on SEND and you will be automatically be added to that language list. To send a message to any of the lists, type in the list name followed by @waoe.org as the address in your email program. For example, french@waoe.org All lists also have an archive site. You may access that site by typing the web address in your browser. The web address follows the format http://www.lists.pdx.edu/waoe-[listname]. For example: http://www.lists.pdx.edu/waoe-japanese will take you to the archives of discussions in Japanese.
Join one or more of these discussion lists!
| French | German | India | Italian | Japanese |
| Malay | Portuguese | Russian | Spanish | Turkish |
If you find a language not represented, and you are interested in starting a new list, then contact Maggie and she will set up a list for you and announce it on VIEWS.
Further, to read entire details about the past happenings, please see Multilingual Project Report for 2002-2003 .
Thanks very much for your co-operation!
Kind regards,
Arun Kumar Tripathi
Current Membership Chair
WAOE Multilingual Co-ordinator
Department of Philosophy of Technology
Zellescher Weg 17, A523
Institute for Philosophy
Dresden University of Technology
Dresden, Germany
The online mentoring initiative took around three months to develop and it was implemented as a pilot program for the past six months. Some of the projects are still breathing but the pilot is more or less complete. For the purpose of understanding the processes and the potential, we have enough information from the pilot experience.
The aim of the initiative was to explore a community approach to self-help wherein individual members were invited to bring projects to the community for support. A team of volunteers was assembled to co-mentor members proposing a learning project.
The outcome of this pilot can be seen at the mentoring
web site very kindly constructed by Maggie McVay Lynch. At
that site you can see that there have been seven projects in motion. However,
it is probably fair to say that only the first 5 of these bore fruit in the
form of meaningful engagement. In addition, the involvement with the online
book review was indicative of the kind of model at play here. That activity,
though outside this pilot, also witnessed a group of volunteers willing to work
together in support of an individual project. In this way it further emphasised
the potential of this approach.
The pilot was, however, succesful in providing a framework of meaningful engagement within the WAOE community. This is an important point. During the six months of the pilot, the number of members expressing interest by joining the teampool list remained constant throughout. Though this number was relatively small, being around 37 in total, for the purpose of a pilot this was useful and the willingness of this small group was very much to be admired in the way they participated at different levels within the pilot initiative.
A management process was developed over the period of the pilot to engage with potential project holders over their submitted proposals. The idea was to check that they understood the requirement to join in the discussions as a learning activity for everyone. This was identified as a clear problem in some of the early projects and overcome to some extent through documentation and pre-team discussions.
There was a heavy burden placed upon such a small group of volunteers to participate as mentors in a variety of projects. It has become apparent that a wider pool is needed for mentoring support not to be too demanding; but the processes and the model are developed sufficiently to go forward from here if it is deemed desirable. This would in turn provide a more robust test of the model.
The pilot initiative was conceived as my own informal learning project arising from an earlier collaboration with members of the WAOE. I have learned a great deal from this process as a project holder myself (paralleling the project proponents within the pilot program). The main outcome for my learning was that so much of it depends on motivation and perception of the community as a collaborative, voluntary, and flexible support centre. I recognise myself that it is possible to raise ideas and gain support for learning projects within an online community and that hopefully this approach provides a new forum and framework for both communities and individual members to work together with some benefits for all. I am eternally grateful to all the members of WAOE for this enlightening experience and particularly for the help and considerable support of Mike Warner and Maggie McVay Lynch. I am equally grateful to all those who took part in this pilot program and I hope your contribution in joining this initiative was repayed in the possible interest it may have provided.
Cheers,
Nick