FLOSS4EduWestAfrica

COL in collaboration with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is using WikiEducator to develop free content, and to promote skills and literacy using Web 2.0 technologies. African educators worked with free content donated by the College of the Rockies, British Columbia, Canada to localise for the African context at a workshop hosted by the University of Education,Winneba, Ghana.

The Vice Chancellor and the Pro Vice Chancellor of the University of Education, Winneba (UEW) opened the workshop, which commenced Monday, 22 January and run till Friday, 26 January 2007. Among the participants were lecturers from the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN); The Gambia Technical Institute (GTTI); the Freetown Teachers College (FTC) in Sierra Leone, the Community Health Nurses Training School in Ghana;lecturers from the Home Economics and Technology Departments of the University of Education,Winneba and Officers from the Ghana Police Service, as well as the Coordinator of the President's Special Initiative on Distance Learning (PSI-DL) and her Deputy from Accra.

At this event, Moses Mabengba Bukari, Head of the Centre for Distance Education at UEW provided participants with an overview of Open and Distance Learning (ODL). There was active involvement of participants by way of discussions and contributions.

Mrs. Wilhelmina Tete-Mensah, the Deputy Registrar at UEW provided a presentation on Gender Mainstreaming Systems Management (GMS) and Kafui A. Prebbie, Instructor/Administrator at the Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) Centre at UEW engaged participants with ICTs for Development - ICT4D and Web-based Learning Technologies during the second day of the workshop.

Nicholas Kimolo, a Kenyan consultant and advocate of the FLOSS4Edu project facilitated the final three days of the Workshop.

It was at this event that the West African Chapter of the FLOSS4Edu was born and Mr. Kafui A. Prebbie www.kafui.com, was chosen as the West African Chapter Coordinator to steer the affairs and monitor the growth and activities of the chapter.