Over the past few months we’ve received many suggestions from people on how we can improve our website. Here are a few examples:
I hope that you will sum up the comments and provide an online document that acknowledges the comments and feedback so we know they have been heard and followed up on. – Concerned Parent
Would you please fix the search function on this website? – Richard
An opinion is much more complex than a “thumbs up” or a “thumbs down”. I would urge you to maintain the serious nature of discourse on this site by not oversimplifying opinions, but, instead, by requesting that people respond intelligently and with some detail if they agree or disagree. – Christian
I suggest adding a facebook like button for the blog! - Parent
Over the summer we’ll be redesigning our website, so your ideas are important to us.
What existing features should we keep and what ones should we add? Give us your ideas!
The BCEdPlan website seems to be missing information that it already shared with GELP (funded by the Gates Foundation et al):
1. GELP BC Jurisdiction Report
2. GELP BC Jurisdiction Film
3. GELP BC Jurisdiction Description
It would be nice if BCEdPlan put info like that on the BCEdPlan website and otherwise communicated it to BC Citizens first; it just seems wrong to be learning about this first from an organization funded by the Gates Foundation rather than from our own government.
It might be useful to include some sort of Storify integration in the redesigned BCEdPlan website. The ability to include Tweets, etc, in BCEdPlan comments might allow more connections between web and social media platforms and attract more participants.
Here is an example of my first Storify story. It’s a BCEdPlan related topic that I would like to see explored more in a public online venue like the new redesigned BCEdPlan website. The story is long and there is no happy ending…yet! But it ain’t over til it’s over, right?
Thanks, Richard. I’ve experimented a few times with Storify as a way to report back on the conversations here but as yet have found no way to link directly to any of the blog comments. Whenever I try to link to a comment, it takes me to the entire page. Perhaps I’m doing it wrong. I’ll keep exploring.
Here is a YouTube video showing how easy it is to install the WordPress plugin named “Storify”:
http://youtu.be/phtMf7-CcMo
That plugin will allow you to compose Storify stories within the WordPress admin panel. I haven’t played with that plugin yet, and perhaps it includes other benefits that I don’t know about.
What we need is a WordPress source tab on the right-hand side of the Storify GUI (next to the Twitter tab, YouTube tab, etc) that understands a WordPress comment URL and will render only that specific comment from the WordPress webpage.
That sounds more like we need a Storify source plugin named “WordPress”.
I’ll keep an eye out for a solution to this problem. Anyone else know of a solution?
Would you let us know if you try out the WordPress plugin named “Storify” (the one shown in the YouTube video above)and whether it overcomes the whole webpage vs individual comment problem?
We’re familiar with it, Richard, but our hands are kind of tied, as the central govt tech group that manages our site for us is hesitant to install it for reasons unbeknownst to me. Besides, we’re moving to Drupal with our new site so our efforts are directed that way rather than adding more WP functionalities to our site.
All that being said, I’m toying with the idea of making a Storify version of the progress report that doesn’t link to the comments on the site but is perhaps screenshots of them. This would be a workaround for not adding the widget you described above. Also, it will avoid the potential for broken links, as the URLs on the comments on our site sometimes change. I need to get permission to do this of course, so no promises.
I figured it out. Use the free “Storify this” Bookmarklet to embed specific BC Education Plan comments (or any website excerpt) in Storify.
Here is an example of your comment, Moderator Mike, embedded in an example Storify.
Installing the free “Storify this” Bookmarklet on the bookmark bar of your browser is Drag-and-Drop simple. Here’s how to install and use it.
Give it a try
I have just been rereading the comments on this question again this morning. I appreciate both the tactical and practical suggestions and advice. Ron’s comment on June 5th really sparked my interest. “What’s missing here in all this interaction is that there is no identifiable figure we are speaking to. We have the anonymous “answer person/people” who reply, but there is no face or voice to this.” This created a bit of an “ah ha” moment for me. I would like to share my thoughts on this.
A year ago the Ministry of Education made a commitment to the philosophy and processes of Open Government. This is consistent with the overall corporate direction of the BC government. This seemed like the perfect way to support our education transformation. As with any paradigm shift, it took me a lot of reading and deep conversation to “get” what Open Government is. The engagement site is a space for government to practice transparency, enable citizens to participate and collaborate.
The issue that many of you have raised is that collaboration seems pretty one sided. Yes we have a skillful team of administrators who read and post every comment. And we have a roll up weekly report we share that also goes to ministry executive and the Minister. But I hear you when you say you aren’t hearing back from us. We haven’t really formed a reciprocal relationship where we talk about how we are infusing your ideas into the deep work of transforming the system. Like how we have dialogued with over 1,000 educators over the past 4 months on a curriculum framework. Or how the very first question on the site exploded with ideas that helped shift our thinking to incorporate new competencies necessary for our world today and tomorrow – but please don’t even consider dropping the emphasis on reading and math! And then we posed the question of what type of information parents need on their child’s learning. This led to further conversations with parents on a strategy that we can develop together and iteratively with all stakeholders. The goal being to shift culture where student, parents and teachers co-construct the student’s learning goals and experience and the village really does raise the child.
And these are just some of the many things we haven’t been doing a good job of feeding back to you. We are building a new site that will make it technically easier to collaborate together. In the meantime, and over the next several months, our commitment will be to listen and take our learning on citizen engagement and Open Government, and put into practice what we preach.
Eve Gaudet
Director, Open Government
Eve Gaudet stated, “Yes we have a skillful team of administrators who read and post every comment.” (emphasis mine)
Would you clarify/correct that statement please? Clearly not every comment is posted, so I suspect a typo or something.
You have used a lot of words to tell us that you are practising “Open Government”. In fact, there is no true indicator, in your interaction with teachers, to indicate that this is so. You mention “collaboration” with 4,000 of us. Interesting that a very large group of us are totally unaware of such “collaboration”.
What you have done, in fact, is to speak to anybody else who is willing to talk to you, with the explicit purpose of maligning those of us on the front line – the teachers who have taken an increasing load of needs, without sufficient support, and purposed to tell us that we are not “good enough”.
Unemployment Services have told us for many years that the difficulty in finding jobs is not about individual skill level. It is about the person’s inability to communicate well with co-workers, employers, and clients in the workplace.
If we follow some of what you are proposing, the use of computer programs for students of all ages, replacing educators and the classrooms that we now have, you are further isolating students. This will not increase communication ability. It will, in fact, make those skills more difficult to obtain.
Do we need change? Absolutely! The world is changing around us, and we do need to adapt to keep up to those changes. However, we need to make changes that will affect the lives of our children carefully, with input from all people, including the teachers who work with them, and it is in this area that this government, and this Department of Education, have failed miserably.
We need a NEW IDEAS FOR FUNDING EDUCATION section. Should include specific ideas on how costs can be cut, or new revenues can be generated. The ideas formulated in this section should be shared with appropriate government officials for consideration and potential analysis.
For example, I noticed on my 2012 Property Tax Notice that individuals 65+ years old (those whose properties are valued below a certain dollar-value threshold; and a pretty high threshold at that) are only required to pay ~ 50% of the school taxes paid by everyone else. As I (in my 40′s with two young children still to raise, and a large mortgage still looming over my head) pulled into the Town of North Saanich Municipal Town Office the other day to pay my property taxes, I was struck by how unfair it was that the seniors (many of whom pulled-into the parking lot in expensive Mercedes, BMWs, etc.; and, no doubt clear of the expensive child-rearing, mortgage-paying years) were only going to have to pay 50% of the school taxes that I was going to have to pay. This is plain wrong, and a simple DOWNWARD adjustment to the property dollar-value thresholds used in determining school tax exemptions for seniors could help solve some of this Province’s education funding woes.
Note:
Just as my generation has been asked to ‘DO OUR PART’ by accepting the harsh reality that we will have to work an extra two years (i.e., to age 67) to qualify for Old Age Security Benefits, I think it’s high time the seniors in this Province did more to contribute as well. Yes, there are some very poor seniors who cannot be expected to do more; however, we all know seniors who are doing quite well these days, and definitely better than many struggling young folk.
I take offence to the broad net you cast with this judgement. The majority of seniors are not driving Mercedes or BMW’s and they have already paid for the mediocre education for their entire working lives. I am not a senior but the thought of being taxed out of keeping my home so that tomorrows students can go on field trips to France and ski trips to Whistler infuriates me. With the changes to the Pension Plan more seniors will be put in a situation of loosing the homes they have worked and saved for all their lives instead of being able to retire peacefully in them.
The solution is not more money because there will never be enough!!! The solution is to get creative about sponsorship from industry and those who can afford it. Do you really care if the you are being treated in a hospital that has Jimmy Pattison’s name on it or are you just grateful to have a place to be getting treatment? The biggest issue is to identify what an”education” means today before robbing seniors to throw money at the dysfunction that is called school today. As long as schools are trying to be everything to everyone there will never be enough money to succeed.
I can hardly wait to hear what the student protesters out east will have to say in a few years when its their income that is being max taxed and their annual vacation is a trip to Target for new socks and underwear for the winter.
If you want to have 15 different dialects taught in a school then its time to form a partnership with those groups and stop expecting the rest of us to support it. English was not my first language and that was just my tough luck but I sure learned it fast enough when that was the only option.
Too many option are not necessarily a good thing; Jack of all trades, master of none!
Student HAVE to learn that there are limits. I for one agree with the teacher in the States who told the graduation class that none of them are “special”, they are just like the other 400,000 graduates…..perspective and truth…..now there’s an education. Don’t forget, one day you will be a senior. Maybe you already have your Mercedes or time to pay one off. You have no right to penalize an entire segment of the population because you are jealous of the possessions of a few members of that group.
Thank you for your comment, Judy. Do you agree with Heather at least that there might be value in having a section where you can discuss ideas for improving education funding?
Absolutely!!!! : ) . If educations is going to be “reading, writing and arithmetic” tax dollars can handle it but really nothing more. Anything beyond that requires creative financing. I see no problem with a Dell or HP sponsored computer program. We live in a world of logos and corporate influence, again, the goal; to prepare student for life as it is or may be, not the other way around. Again, somebody had to set a bench mark and it cannot and should not be the top end of the scale. Do you really need an iPad for $500 or can you get by with a BlackBerry for $250 for this purpose?
#1)
Richard Ajabu (below) rightly states:
“First and foremost, do not trample on citizens’ Charter Right to freedom of expression ..”
Richard’s (and others) comments around this issue have focused mainly on moderator control over posting participant comments; however, it occurred to me the other day, after reading Judy B.’s response to my recent post (above), that the strongest form of ‘attempted’ censorship in this conversation seems to be coming from fellow forum participants, who are trying to keep me silent by attempting to shame me for expressing an opinion that may be considered insensitive or not politically-correct by some. I feel that this subtle, yet highly effective form of censorship, has been used for far too long in Canadian society (has basically paralyzed free speech and progress on many fronts) and deserves no place in this forum.
Also, if my comment (above) is truly offensive, as Judy claims it to be, then why would the Moderation Team, based on application of the Moderation Policy, have posted it in the first place?
#2)
Judy,
I find it sad that you feel the need to take and express offence to the ideas and opinions of others. Personally, I feel honoured when another person is willing to share their raw feelings, opinions and ideas with me, as the sharing of one’s inner (and often politically-incorrect) thoughts is usually reserved for the closest of friends and confidents. In the future Judy, please choose to feel flattered, rather than offended, when others confide in you. And, where you feel that the other person is misguided in their opinions and/or understanding of an issue, by all means Judy, feel free to further educate that individual by constructively (and respectfully) sharing your knowledge of the issue back with them.
I don’t see how singling out and penalizing a marginalized group of society is contributing to the solution. The bias against seniors is your and is based on your personal emotion rather than fact. Should we maybe just add extra school taxes to Asians, Gays, white males; or maybe just anyone who drives a Mercedes or BMW? I don’t see the logic.
BTW, I find it interesting and sad that you thought I was trying to “shame you”, but your comments about “seniors” having BMW’s are what? Compliments? You saw 2 seniors driving nice cars so they should be forced to pay more tax? I think that’s “shaming”. And I think this is very, very far away from being productive or useful dialogue. If you feel the need to discriminate against a particular societal group, that is your prerogative, but you should expect others to stand up for them. “Your old so you shouldn’t have a nice car, you should give that to the government so they can fund students ski trips to Whistler” That’s a very frightening message.
Thank you for your comment, Judy. We recognize this is an important topic for you and hope that you and Heather can agree to respectfully disagree. Moving forward do you have any thoughts on the question we’ve posed?
Just heard that businesses (the very lifeblood of our economy and communities) in the District of North Saanich pay 6.02 times (yes – 6.02 times) the municipal property taxes that regular citizens (of all ages) are paying. Guess that means that all citizens (including myself) should be paying more in municipal taxes so that taxes charged to the business community can be brought down to a more reasonable/fair level.
How about adding an EDIT button after submitting the comment?
And making the “cancel” one by the Submit Comment box, not at the top?
Good suggestions, Sylvia. Perhaps a preview window with edit and submit options on it?
todays education system is holding back creative minds by tooo much unneccessary info imput! Just the basics makes the human brain wanting to be creative and solve problems that are logic and usefull for the future.This is how it all started but the changes from the last 10- 15 years is tearing everything down and making society less smart.
First and foremost, do not trample on citizens’ Charter Right to freedom of expression; CENSORSHIP is not a hammer to be used lightly, and it is counterproductive to the purpose of this website.
Here is just one example of unnecessary CENSORSHIP by the BC Education Plan. I know there are others.
This is why we’re considering an open forum section on the site. Comments like the one you referred to above which were not pertinent to the question posed on the site could go here and receive the audience you’re looking for.
Moderator Mike stated, “Comments like the one you referred to above which were not pertinent to the question posed on the site…”
The forum to which that comment was submitted, is titled, “Question 3: What do you think is important for our education system in the future?”
My comment presented ideas and arguments to directly answer that open-ended question, and yet my comment was determined to be “off-topic”. See for yourself; the “off-topic” argument just doesn’t fly.
I suspect that my comment was censored because the Moderator didn’t agree or was uncomfortable with my point of view. That’s censorship, and it hurts us all.
I agree that the creation of an “Uncategorized Topics” forum should allow citizens to contribute, discuss and debate without their contributions being rejected as being “off-topic”.
Richard, can we agree to move forward and think of ways to make it better for the next iteration of our site? You have my assurance that we are not in the business of censoring comments.
Moderator Mike, if by “move forward” you mean leave behind my concerns about censorship on this website, then no, I will not leave those concerns behind.
However, your assurance is welcome and appreciated.
Ultimately, deeds will be more convincing than words, and I am hopeful that censorship will no longer be a problem here.
Time will tell.
As one who has been censored several times (usually due to aggressive language or being unjustly called off-topic) I can sympathizze with Richard Ajabu. One thing though, when I rewrote my comments with the language/tone replaced or moved them to a more appropriate question, they have always been left up. Moderation serves us all as it keeps the signal to noise ratio up. I imagine without it the forum would sometimes degenerate into personal mud throwing sessions like almost all Disqus, facebook and yahoo forums do.
Thanks for your comment, Bruce. Your sentence “Moderation serves us all as it keeps the signal to noise ratio up” articulates really well what we’re trying to achieve. Our intent is NOT to stifle conversation but to encourage it in the relevant forums so the signal component remains high. In other words, if the question is about X we ideally want to talk about X and leave Y for another, more appropriate place that’s dedicated to Y — or if it’s an open forum a place that catches everything else.
…no X is an island. Often the inclusion of Y in messages is entirely to do with context, and nothing to do with so-called ‘noise’.
As a moderator on several forums, it’s been my experience that each moderative intervention must be considered for the circumstances in which it occurs. A policy of ‘this is what we’re trying to do in general’ does not make room for a great deal of evolution within a discussion…and sometimes it is incredibly rewarding when a topic can go off-script for a while.
As Einstein so eloquently put it, “Problems cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them.”
…meta-discussion and going off-course are sometimes essential in order that we may come back ’round to the topic with more meaningful insight.
It takes great discernment to tell the difference between noise and other meaningful signals.
The above example was not my first encounter with CENSORSHIP on the BC Ed Plan website; it was just the one when I got fed up and decided to speak out about the problem.
Here are some more:
1. First Example (duplicate of above)
2. Second Example
3. Third Example
4. Fourth Example
5. Fifth Example
Take a look and decide for yourself. Are they examples of censorship? Was it necessary, or beneficial even, to exclude those comments from the BC Ed Plan website?
Going forward, do we want to encourage frank and sincere participation at the BC Ed Plan website? Do we want to respect the Charter protection of freedom of expression?
I think we’ll be better off if we do.
I’m not buying the censorship argument, Richard. If there was censorship, why would your comment above have been posted? No, it’s about finding the right forum for your ideas so they have the most relevance and impact. Question 21 (this one) is where many of your points best fit, so I’m pleased to see they have stuck here and not under other threads where they spin away from the questions that we are being asked to provide input on.
No one is saying your ideas aren’t important. You’re just being asked to consider the question and respond to it. Tangents are fine but once they stray too far off the path, then it makes it too difficult for moderators to keep the audience on track. I can’t imagine how difficult it must be to analyze and make sense of the comments under any given question when they spin off in a million different directions, so I can see why they want us to stay on point.
I know what you’re thinking here. “But I should be able to say what’s important to me and not be penned in box by a prescriptive question not of my choosing.” True, but time and place. Ask for a forum to say what you want and put your ideas there. In the other forums where you’re asked for input on specific questions provide it and stay on topic. Why is that so hard?
I believe the moderation team is doing it’s very best under the current circumstances. And the fact that they are asking us how they can make it better gives me confidence they recognize that some of the current ways they’re doing things are problematic. I appreciate that. And I say give them a chance. Continually raging against the machine for presumed past injustices and accusing the moderation team of censorship isn’t productive and doesn’t help make it better for the future. So tell them how to do it better in the future, and in a constructive way.
There is no government conspiracy theory here to stick it to the little man, as you appear to believe. It’s just people asking you questions and trying to get genuine, helpful feedback. The tools and methods are a bit wonky and we and they know it and want to fix it. So tell them how and move on.
Full stop.
Ken stated, “If there was censorship, why would your comment above have been posted?”
I was pleased to see that comment posted too. Only the BC Ed Plan team knows why they posted that comment; I can’t speak for them. But there wouldn’t have been such a comment to post in the first place if previous comments had not been unnecessarily censored.
Remember, the BC Ed Plan website is a public space and is subject to Charter protection of Freedom of Expression. That’s what allowed you to read & consider my comment. And post your disagreement. And allowed me to respond. And allowed others to follow along and participate as they wished. That’s the entire point. A public forum is a good thing for a healthy democracy.
Ken stated, “I’m pleased to see they have stuck here and not under other threads where they spin away from the questions that we are being asked to provide input on”
I’m pleased they created this forum too. I raised these issues here back in November. And asked for such a forum here back in February. And here in March. And there are other examples.
Ken stated, “I know what you’re thinking here. “But I should be able to say what’s important to me and not be penned in box by a prescriptive question not of my choosing. True, but time and place.”
First of all, those are YOUR own thoughts and arguments, not mine.
And you may not be aware that many, if not most, of the BC Ed Plan forums have been opened, then closed, then re-opened for commenting. When forums were closed, Moderators left messages like, “This question is now closed to new comments. If you have further ideas to share please submit your comment to the Questions 1-6 Wrap-Up” (another forum on the BC Ed Plan website) so comments naturally ended up spread across the website.
Also recognize that the Question 3 forum (What do you think is important for our education system in the future?) is SO open-ended that ANY opinion about improving the education system in BC would be on-topic, so HOW could such a comment to that forum be rejected as “off-topic”?
Moderators have also explicitly encouraged citizen participation with statements like “It would be great if you could share what kind of questions you feel we should be asking in this forum. While questions are designed to be somewhat open ended, if you feel we should be more specfic, please provide us with some examples…” and “…I would encourage you to share with us what you feel could be different. This community is for discussion and sharing your opinions and views. We are in a transitional stage and nothing is set in stone…”.
The comments I submit are my authentic and constructive responses to the questions posed in the BC Ed Plan forums, AND in response to the comments ALREADY posted in those forums.
Ken stated, “Ask for a forum to say what you want and put your ideas there”.
That’s what I did. I raised these issues here back in November. And asked for such a forum here back in February. And here in March.
Ken stated, “In the other forums where you’re asked for input on specific questions provide it and stay on topic. Why is that so hard?”
It isn’t hard. My concern is regarding unneccessary censorship stifling authentic participation and learning. I was pleased to see a Moderator recently copy comments from another forum and post them to an even more appropriate forum. I was pleased to see a new forum recently created for the website. These are both things that I previously asked for, and I am pleased to see those improvements.
Regarding being on-topic or not, understand that a question is not independent of the context in which it is asked. And the context of each citizen is unique, so it is only reasonable to expect a diverse selection of responses to any one question.
Unnecessary censorship only robs us from being able to view, consider, question, support, oppose and improve on the comments of others. Unnecessary censorship hurts us all and does not contribute to a healthy democracy.
Ken stated, “the fact that they are asking us how they can make it better gives me confidence they recognize that some of the current ways they’re doing things are problematic”
I agree.
Ken stated, “I say give them a chance”
Clearly I am, or I would have stopped visiting and contributing to the BC Education Plan website. However, this altercation regarding censorship is not something to be swept under the rug either. It happened. It appears it is being corrected. And hopefully we are all learning from it. That’s a good thing.
Ken stated, “Continually raging against the machine for presumed past injustices and accusing the moderation team of censorship isn’t productive and doesn’t help make it better for the future”
I disagree. First of all, I do NOT share your negative depiction of my persistent effort to help improve the BC Ed Plan. I think that my persistent opposition to censorship on this website is a good thing. And I think the BC Ed Plan reaction to my efforts is a good thing. And I think that this public dialog about the topic is a good thing. These are not things to be discouraged.
I am proud of the many comments I have contributed to the BC Ed Plan and every one of them was authentic and constructive (some are here, here & here). And I think that my comments were productive, not only because a Moderator already stated, “Many of your suggestions, by the way, are ones we have already started to mock up”, but also because I don’t think we would be able to have this conversation right now if I had not been as persistent as I was.
Frankly, I think this project would be more productive if participants were encouraged and thanked for their contributions rather than censored, discouraged and chastised. For the most part, I think that Moderators have been encouraging participation. But the censorship was unneccessary and I think we are all better off now that it appears it is being addressed.
Ken stated, “There is no government conspiracy theory here to stick it to the little man, as you appear to believe”
Again, those are YOUR own thoughts and arguments, not mine. I am not interested in your conspiracy theories.
I think there are usually a variety of forces pulling and pushing toward any outcome. But the fact remains that comments were unnecessarily censored, repeatedly, and I think that unnecessary censorship hurts us all.
Ken stated, “The tools and methods are a bit wonky and we and they know it and want to fix it. So tell them how and move on”
Agreed. That’s exactly what I’ve been doing and will try to continue to do.
What’s missing here in all this interaction is that there is no identifyable figure we are speaking to. We have the anonymous “answer person/people” who reply, but there is no face or voice to this. We, the contributors, don’t have a face we can attach to, it seems we’re speaking to one another or to empty space. Successful endeavors these days are realizing people need a person, an icon, even a caricature, who personifies their product or event; hence the re-emergence of brand figureheads (think Danny the Telus Installer) to give a face and a personality to the thing.
Ron, are you suggesting the moderators be more active on the site?
It’d be nice to have the actual minister on the site, replying to comments.
We’re exploring this idea, Rob. We’re also exploring the idea of having guest moderators take the wheel at times (e.g., ministry program area staff, educators, business folks, etc.), as they may be better able to answer very specific questions people might have.
I would like to read comments from all our “Education Leaders”. Not written anonymously. Not written by a “ghost writer”. Just authentic, frank, constructive, visible and interactive participation.
I am wary of all the closed-door consultations, top-down decision-making, and meaningless rhetoric in public education.
Let’s discuss the issues openly, and skim the best ideas from the top
There are some edtech types in every school district & every post-sec institution who would be excellent sources of good ideas and best practices re new online toolset for communication, collaboration & decision-making. We would be wise to leverage those valuable human resources.
It might be very productive and worthwhile to host a face2face conference to brainstorm and develop a vision of what and how such an online communication, collaboration & decision-making system could be.
Using a well crafted mash-up of Open Source technologies I suspect that we could create and continuously evolve a solution that would be practical, engaging, easy to use and powerful.
Good suggestions. FYI, this online forum is only one way we’ll be asking for input on what our new site might look like and include. Over the next few weeks we’ll be hosting face to face user experience sessions to gather more feedback. This site has to work for all of you, so it’s crucial we involve you. I’m not up on the details yet on the where and the how, but I’ll let this community know when I find out.
I would like to see more parent supports. Maybe videos, webinars, on a variety of topics. Studying help. Studying techniques. How to talk to your kids about variety of topics. Parents are part of a team and are offered very few supports
Great ideas. Some of these may suit our site, some our broader ministry site, and some district sites. No matter what, it would be great to see these resources made available in a seamless and easily organized way.
Would you also be interested in having a Contribute feature too if you find resources you’d like us to put up on your behalf?
You are not fooling anybody by seeking public input on every issue when your policies are predetermined. The situation our province is in is EMBARRASSING!
There must be ample indication that input is received by the decision makers with respect and commitment to acknowledge in future decision making. My biggest fear would be that this is just a futile exercise in public relations. We all have good reason not to trust our government these days.
Having gone through a similar exercise in the 70′s only to find a change in government meant all positive changes were abandoned. It would be extremly worthwhile to revisit the work that was done back then by the Sullivan Commission. Having dedicated over 35 years of my life to public education I know that there is very little that’s new in improving teaching and learning. We reinvent the wheel believing that we have come up with something new. Not so. Good teaching has always been good teaching and effective learning always results.
Politics and education are not a good mix.
I like the vote option. I feel like I can officially agree or disagree with a comment, and likewise, the few times I wrote in, I appreciated the plus votes I got. I don’t understand why the voting option gets closed off after a certain point. I would keep it open or valid, as some people may be just discovering the site and while you can read older posts, you can’t vote on them after a certain time. What happens to the many posts that get votes? Does anyone in the actual ministry read them?
Do you mean the thumbs up/down button, Heide? If so, yes we do pay attention to the votes – in fact, that’s why we put them up there.
As the head of the moderation team, my preference would be to replace the thumbs up/ thumbs down button with a five star rating system. This, in my opinion, gives far more useful and precise feedback. If you’re kind of so so on a topic, for example, you can give it three stars out of five, whereas with the current method you can only do a thumbs up. In this case, thumbs up overinflates how you really feel about the comment.
What do others think? Do you like thumbs up/down or would you rather see a 5 star rating?
Another idea we’re considering is a prompt for you to add a comment to your rating. Some people add one anyways but we’re thinking a prompt when you rate might further compel you to chime in and support why you gave the rating you did. We’ve had a lot of comments from people wondering why others have rated the way they did and have asked for reasons. Maybe this will do the trick.
Perhaps it could be used in combination as a means of prioritizing issues.
For example, a rating system out of 5 or 10 for topics, and a thumbs up/down for replies to that topic.
This way the government can assess how important a particular subject/theme is according to the relative rating it receives, and within the context of a particular theme, up-votes for particular replies might be indicative of the public’s positions on said themes.
I like the Polls section and the ability to quickly and easily make a statement about where my interests and priorities might be. This comment section seems wordy and complicated at times. Parents are busy people and I think that the more straightforward it can be made….the more parents you might get to participate.
Thanks for your comment, Orra. The polls are proving to be quite popular with a lot of people and provide us with a quick snapshot on how people feel about certain topics. By no means are they scientific or the basis upon which we’ll make any meaningful decisions – they’re more of a general temperature check, really.
Engage the experts: include a representative sample of teacher’s comments on the directions that government is taking in terms of educational ideology and practice. Teachers are the experts and know the situation from the important perspectives – classroom, kids, parents, as well as pedagogy, philosophy, practicality.
It seems the educational reform effort has been initiated in this province by government appointees, while trying to eliminate the opinions of those that know education best. If this isn’t rectified, my engagement as a parent with this process is in jeopardy.
You could put the money being spent on this website into the public school system instead. I would really like to know what the budget for this PR project is and what really will get taken from it. I was an active poster previously but I’ve quit posting because I can’t see what good will come from all of it. I believe that the ministry will use the comments that they like to justify whatever further cuts and changes they want to make and throw out the rest. That will be a true waste!
I have a great idea. Tell us what this website and the people running it cost the government.
Then we could decide if it is worth the effort.
Not a chance????
This website was built and is run by current ministry staff. Sharing with the public our vision for the future of BC’s education system and providing people a venue for sharing back is important to us so we think there is tremendous value in it – especially since many of your ideas are being acted on.
Which of our ideas is being acted upon? can you back up that claim with any substantial evidence?
…or do you only mean that our ideas regarding site design are being acted upon?
Believe me, I’m working on that. Look for a report soon that correlates comments against actions that we’ve identified in the Actions section of our website (http://www.bcedplan.ca/actions/welcome.php). This is a massive job, as we have over 5000 comments to date. Right now it’s a 130 page document!
Polls created by readers.
A possibility. Polls would need to meet our Moderation Policy, of course.
Prior to the opening of this forum, I collected 15 comments and suggestions here.
Richard, these are all great suggestions, and finally under Question 21 they have a proper home! All of the comments under this question will be seriously looked at when we plan our redesign, so I appreciate you bringing them to our attention once again. In fact, rather than a link I’m going to copy your suggestions over for you. See below:
One thing that’s important for our education system in the future is to improve upon this BC Education plan website.
To help with that, here are links to several related threads regarding problems and suggestions that have been posted elsewhere on this website. Each link connects to only the first comment in the thread; you must scroll down to read the rest of the comments.
1. Indented Format of Comments Inhibits Discussion
2. Forums Closed to Commenting
3. Page Number Links Removed
4. Search Function Broken
5. Examples of Internal & External Search Failures
6. Decision-makers Should Read Original Citizen Comments
7. Citizen Comments Not Reflected In Summaries
8. Not Following Through / Poor Communication
9. Summary Forums Closed to Commenting
10. Some Suggestions for BC Ed Plan Website Improvement
11. Partisan/Biased TV Ads for BC Ed Plan Website
12. Suggestions for Online Comm & Collab System
13. Lack of School District Support
14. Continued Lack of School District Support
15. Original Comments from Citizens VS Summaries
Click “Reply” to add additional suggestions, comments & links.
Many of your suggestions, by the way, are ones we have already started to mock up. The indenting of comments, for example, has been a thorn in our side since Day 1 so it was tops on my list of things that has to go as well. And the Search comments tool has been problematic for months. It’s another one we know we need to fix. I’d like to see many more advanced search features as well, such as search by author, most commented, most recent, etc. – all common features nowdays.
Several of your other suggestions centre around reporting. As the head of the moderation team this is my primary responsbility and is one I am very hard at work at right now. I’ve started with the summaries to date under each post, but am working on a much more detailed document right now. I am doing my very best to capture all the highlights and best examples, but it will be difficult to please everyone. But what I’d like to see moving forward is a greater opportunity for people to tell us if we’ve missed anything important and to bring in what is missing. This needs to reflect what is important to citizens, not the ministry, so we’re exploring a variety of options for doing this.
Thanks for copying 12 of my 15 comments to this forum.
Is there any reason you didn’t copy the remaining 3?
Comments #13, 14 & 15 are still over there.
Didn’t see them, Richard – I was only looking at your first post numbered 1-12.
I’ve added them above.
Thanks, Mike.
Overall I question the value of the money being spent on the bcedplan site. It was made quite clear that bced plan was a biased vehicle for the government to attack teachers during the labour dispute with the attack ads on radio and TV attacking teachers, paid for by tax payers dollars under the bcedplan brand (and budget?)
I have commented before about the bcedplan having lost its supposed neutrality when it was used to launch those attack ads. My comments were deleted, even though they were not off topic. It seems bcedplan does not like being questioned on this topic. I challenge you to post this comment.
Having said that, I agree with other posters that unless the Minister and his deputies are actually paying attention to the discussion here, then there is little value. The Ministry of Education has a long consistent history of gathering feedback and then ignoring it. It would be nice to see responses from the minister or his officials to topics as well in the forums.
Thanks for your comment, Aaron. As we’ve said before, the advertisements were paid out of the central government information budget and not the Ministry of Education’s. The BC’s Education Plan team was most definitely not involved in this.
I’m sorry to hear you think we’ve lost our neutrality. As the head of the moderation team I assure you that is not the case. Each and every comment that comes in is evaluated against the standard government moderation policy, and if it meets the policy it goes up — regardless whether it is supportive or opposed to the Plan. Even a quick look through our 21 forums on the site will show that to be the case. All opinions and views are on view.
You also have my assurance that the minister and deputy are aware of what people are saying on the site. We provide regular reports to them on all aspects of the project. The summaries to date in each forum are also shared with them. Ministry staff in the various program areas are also updated regularly. We then have them provide us with updates of their own on how these ideas are informing their work. See our Actions pages for these updates. We add more every month or so.
Admittedly there is more we can do to share back with you on what we’re doing. This is a big and important project that we are trying to get right, so you have our word that we’re refining our processes to make this work. Keep your ideas and suggestions coming for how we can do this better. It’s important to us.
all these comments are being read. The main themes are also being captured and shared across the ministry so program area staff learn what is important to the public. Our Actions pages provide updates on our progress on the Plan, and many of these updates are a direct result of what people have told us.
Sorry, but the anti teacher ads had the bced plan brand splattered all over them. Someone in your group approved of them. You can’t disassociate yourself from the ads just because they were paid out of another budget, they are still tax dollars wasted. Government seems to have lots of money for anti teacher ads, but no money for classroom improvements.
What you should keep is the open ended questions that result in a variety of perspectives being articulated from a range of participants. What you should add is feedback by way of ThoughtStream software or other form of analysis that would be helpful in synthesizing and connecting ideas into categories of responses. These themes then could to be later prioritized by participants as a way of reflecting forum opinions – informing the Minister. I agree with Bruce’s comments wholeheartedly. I hope this is not an empty PR exercise.
It is quite disturbing that a major program like ‘ERASE’ can be foisted upon us without proper discussion and public input. It seems that the details of the program could have had a proper analysis and vetting by the public using this site. Having the details of all major educational changes open for discussion by the public in advance of the implimentation phase is what would make this site matter. If all the “red meat’ is kept only for the insiders than perhaps the bcedplan is just a fake public input mechanism. If decisions are already made before the public conversation begins, our time here is truely being wasted in a cynical calculated manner.
I think the main reason that this website has lost most of its posters and readers is simply that no evidence has been provided that the minister and his deputies have read anything that has been written here. Some indication of what our minister thinks of what his subjects are asking would help. Perhaps if Minister Abbott were to get a special shaded account and he threw a few responses publicly into the mix it would establish that someone actually cared about this site.
With respect to any subjects regarding what to change about education, I would really like to have a complementary official statement from the government that outlines what the ‘problem’ is in that area which justifies the need for change.
…if the change-motive comes from a different interested party, some sort of official explanation from that specific interest would be great too.
Transparency is important. Often the justification for change-efforts is based on social memes that do not have a sound foundation in reality.
I’d like to see a post tagging option. If I write about flexibility, I’d like to be able to tag my post as referring to that subject. Then, to click on that tag, it’d be nice to see a page with all posts tagged with the same tag.
It seems that this is done on the government end of the discussion already…at one point there was a stat reporting subjects based on such tags/themes…
Great suggestion, Rob, and one we can hopefully implement. It would be great if people could tag their comments under particular themes (e.g., special education, professional development, technology) and then be able to search for them under those tags later.
I would like rules regarding copyrighted material relaxed. Mod. removed some of my posts because I had scanned a piece of a book I had bought and displayed it online for people to read it. I went to the trouble of emailing the author to ask for permission and GUESS WHAT,.. he did not respond! He is probably saying, if you are not making money out of it and you are publishing the whole book, please, continue to advertise it and LEAVE ME ALONE! I think the copyright rules are being applied in the wrong way here. No one is making money out of this!
A rule of thumb a lot of the time for copyrighted material is no more than 500 words of text, copied correctly with author, book, page number and publication date attributed.
Thanks! I wish this had been told at the time of the violation, so that I could somehow … edit things. I had provided all the info you indicate!
I would love to see an Ask the Minister section.
Thanks for the suggestion, Bill. I doubt we’ll go this route though as we don’t want to put delays or roadblocks in the way of people leaving comments. The vast majority of people who comment are pretty honest.