L4C60/Report

L4C 60 &

OER DEVELOPMENT AND COMMUNITY BUILDING WORKSHOP

25/05/2009 TO 29/05/2009

KHULNA, BANGLADESH

FINAL REPORT

Sincere Thanks to


 * Commonwealth of Learning for planning the workshop and providing all the vital supports. 
 * Rupantar for all the excellent facilities and support for the successful conduct of the Workshop, including communication management, setting up of venue, food, accommodation and transportation. 
 * CEMCA for timely and very effective support for making available Bangladesh Visa in time.

INTRODUCTION
Commonwealth of Learning has decided to conduct a Learning for Content Development workshop (L4C60) in Bangladesh in association with Rupantar, an NGO having reach and activities all over the Bangladesh and engaged Mr. Anil Prasad from Kerala, India to facilitate the Workshop.

Rupantar has provided facilities and support for the successful conduct of the Workshop, including communication management, setting up of venue, food, accommodation and transportation. The day wise report of the workshop is given below:

DAY – ONE (25/05/2009)
The 60th Learning for Content Development Workshop of WikiEducator was organized in Khulna from 25/5/2009 to 29/5/2009 by Rupantar in association with Commonwealth of Learning (COL), Vancouver, Canada. The workshop was inaugurated by Mr. Alhaj Liaqat Ali, Editor of The Daily Purbanchal, a famous daily newspaper of Khulna. As special guests President of Khulna Press Club Mr. A. K. Hiru and Principle of ILACS Mr. Abdul Qayum were attended. The Inaugural function started with the introductory speech of Mr. Rafiqul Islam Khokan, Director- Rupantar followed by the brief introduction on the L4C, OER and the proposed Bangladesh Chapter of WikiEducator by Mr. P. Anil Prasad, Facilitator of the Workshop.

The Chief Guest has stated that WikiEducator is certainly a unique initiative. All the speakers have expressed hope that WikiEducator can be effectively used for supporting the education sector of Bangladesh as well as for realizing the goal of digital Bangladesh.

The first session of the workshop started at 11AM with making the participants to shuffle in the training room and form pairs and the pairs introduced each other. All the participants were participated in this group activity with much enthusiasm. Thereafter the participants were given a brief presentation on the history and features of WikiEducator followed my the demonstration of the basic editing features of MediaWiki, starting from account creation. After the presentation the participants were guided to creation of user accounts and practice basic text editing features of MediaWiki. The participants were also guided to create My sandbox page and they practiced more on that page.

DAY – TWO (26/05/2009)
The second day started with silent prayer as an expression of solidarity with the people suffered from the Cyclone Aila that caused heavy destruction in the coastal regions of Bangladesh on 25/05/2009 evening. Thereafter the participants themselves reviewed the learning activities of the first day.

On the second day features for uploading Image/Media and the ways of linking them to the WE pages has been introduced. During the tea break of the morning session the participants took their photos using the digital camera and the facilitator resized the photos for user pages and stored them in a shared folder. After tea break the participants uploaded their photos and linked the same to their user pages. The practiced the different attributes for image display such as type (thumb/frame), size, position and creating gallery etc. Thereafter various forms of templates and their usage has been introduced. The first template tested by the participants was Work in progress and thereafter placed Personal infobox template on their user pages. This was continued with the practicing of various pedagogical templates starting from Objectives on their My sandbox pages.

In the afternoon session collaborative video editing using Kaltura has been introduced to the participants. The production of MP3 audio using Audacity, a free software, has also been demonstrated to the participants by recording a recitation, converting the same to MP3 format and uploading to WE.

DAY – THREE (27/05/2009)
On the third day, in the morning session, first two hours were used to the features Talk/Discussion, History, Watch list etc and practicing of the same by the participants by adding messages on user talk pages, tracking history etc. Thereafter the participants used one hour to review the topics covered so far and also to fine tune their user pages.

Collaborative OER Development process started in the afternoon of the 3rd day with a group game. Wherein the facilitator has shown a picture to one of the participants and made him describe the picture from memory while others were requested to draw the picture in accordance with his description. They were also given chance to ask questions to the participant who has seen the picture in order to arrive at the correct picture.

Thereafter the participants were divided into four groups and each group was given a theme and asked to select a team leader, reporter, select a topic out of the theme for OER development and prepare OER content. Here a reverse process has been applied. The participants were asked to prepare the outline of the OER as per their imagination before formally presenting the features of OER and licensing types. Surprisingly the participants, through group discussions, arrive at good designs for OER and fine tuned them in accordance with the later presentation on OER.

DAY – FOUR (28/05/2009)
Entire morning session of the fourth day (3 hours) were used by group work for developing OER and to fine tune the same. This time was also used to develop the www.wikieducator.org/Bangladesh page to the Home page for the Bangladesh Chapter of WikiEducator (by Mr. M. A. Halim, Program Officer, Rupantar – he is now having wiki buddy certification).

In the afternoon of 28/05/2009 the groups were presented the OER they have developed and took feedback from other participants.

Thereafter a meeting to discuss the establishment of Bangladesh Chapter of WikiEducator has been held were in a working group and an advisory board have been constituted. Immediately after that first meeting of the Working Group was held and wherein it was decided that participants will conduct WikiEducator and OER awareness campaign in their institutions and each participant will bring in at least 5 new members to WikiEducator and train them in one month before deciding a date for the nation level inauguration of the chapter.

In the evening of fourth day the artists from the Rupantar Institute of Folk Theatre has presented Pot Song a unique art from of rural Bangladesh. Rupantar use Pot Song as a media for mass awareness. This living media has the direct effect on the people towards motivating them on specific messages in a rhythmic and catchy nature. Pot song is performed by a number of performers using a Pot that is a pictorial view of what is being sung. The picture is painted on canvas that specifically indicates the messages that are intended to be focused for the audience. The Pot song has the duel effect of audio and visual and is usually quite attractive. This in turn pawed way for the discussions on how Pot Song can be used for campaigning for Bangladesh Chapter of WikiEducator as well as to promote the development and use of OER in Bangladesh.

The participants of L4C, Officials of Rupantar including Chief Executive and Director and other guests have attended the cultural event as well as the dinner.

After the cultural program Rupantar has hosted a dinner for the participants.

DAY – FIVE (29/05/2009)
The fifth day was entirely devoted to outdoor community building activity by way of a sightseeing trip to Sundarban the largest littoral mangrove belt in the world and some other places of historic importance. During the trip the participants shared more information about them, their aspirations and future plans and discussed whatever projects can be initiated on WikiEducator in Bangladesh.

GENERAL EVALUATION OF THE WORKSHOP
The workshop has been organized in a way that provided lead role to the participants throughout the workshop and importance to community building.

The participants were found very much attentive throughout the workshop and more enthusiastic and confident about the development and use of OER using WikiEducator at the end of the workshop.

The participants were also given a handbook and a CD containing useful open source software including open office to promote the use of open and free software.

OUTPUTS

 * 1) A handbook for the participants prepared by the facilitator and copies prepared by Rupantar.
 * 2) A compilation (Tool Kit) of very useful open and free software compiled by the facilitator and the CD copies prepared by Rupantar.
 * 3) User pages added to WikiEducator by the participants.
 * 4) Content generated by the participants through group discussions (details available at http://www.wikieducator.org/L4C60.
 * 5) Home page for the Bangladesh chapter of WikiEducator available at http://www.wikieducator.org/Bangladesh
 * 6) Images uploaded in WikiEducator by the participants.
 * 7) A working Group to facilitate the establishment of Bangladesh Chapter of WikiEducator.
 * 8) An Advisory Board to guide the Working Group.
 * 9) Above all enthusiastic 17 new members to support WikiEducator and OER movement in general.

ANTICIPATED OUTCOMES

 * 1) A Well Networked OER Community in Bangladesh
 * 2) A good OER Ecosystem in Bangladesh

LESSONS LEARNT

 * Participant Centric approach will facilitate higher degree of involvement in Workshops like L4C.
 * Participant Centric approach in turn will facilitate community building.
 * IT assisted OER development is the most effective way of OER development.