2019 Annual Conference

History and Philosophy of Adult Education

Concurrent Session (45 minutes)

Who creates and controls the history of Adult Learning content on the web?  Wikipedia is an open-source, editable encyclopedia, written collaboratively by the people who use it.  Together we will edit Wikipedia, editing pages for Cyril Houle and other notable Adult Learning scholars and champions.

The target audience for this section is anyone interested in preserving the history and legacy of notable scholars.  Dr. Cyril Houle was a notable champion and scholar in the field of Adult Learning, and the AAACE offers a Cyril Houle award, but Wikipedia does not show a single entry for Dr. Houle’s name. This session is intended for graduate students, or those who teach them, to consider how as a community of scholars, we can develop and maintain an accurate record of our field for future learners.

As a result of this experience, learners will:
• Create an account to edit Wikipedia
• Collaboratively develop and edit Wikipedia pages
• Identify needs for future creation of Wikipedia pages
• Be able to incorporate this assignment into their own teaching practice

Bring your own device!  Together in teams, we will create Wikipedia accounts, and collaboratively develop and edit Wikipedia pages for Dr. Cyril Houle and other adult learning scholars.  There will also be the opportunity to explore Wikipedia for Adult Learning topics, scholars, and theories.  Together we will identify opportunities for growth, development, and change of the material that exists online about the scholarship of Adult Learning.  Finally, we will discuss how we can continue this practice by developing collaborative assignments for graduate students, to continue to maintain the history, legacy, and narrative of our field.

This is a Bring Your Own Device session. In small teams at round tables, attendees will search Wikipedia for Adult Learning topics and scholars; identify gaps and opportunities; develop a curated list of needs; and begin researching and editing pages together collaboratively.  At the end of the session, we will come back together as a group, reflect on the process, and explore how we might use editing of Wikipedia for our graduate student courses.