eL4C35 Workshop Report

Learning4Content
35th Online Workshop (Feburary 8-19, 2010)

Regional Caribbean Basic Wiki Skills and Collaborative Learning

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Expected Output

The expected outcomes of this workshop were to:

• to teach and train the use of WikiEducator's tutorials 1-10
• explore the concept of open education using an open source software platform and integrated technologies
• inform about WikiEducator's concept and new developments including inform on active OER content on WE.

Overview

EL4C35 was a 10-day basic wiki editing skills Regional Caribbean Online Workshop under the Learning4Content initiative of the OER Foundation, which took place from February 8-19, 2010.
The Caribbean Regional Learning4Content workshop came together as a result of Patricia Schlicht's presentation to the Caribbean Educator Network Advisory Board in the Elluminate Virtual Boardroom a few weeks ago. The workshop drew wide interest on the Caribbean Educator Network (CEN)and was also promoted on other social networks such as Facebook and Linked-In. LeRoy Hill, the owner of the CEN has been very helpful in trying to mobilise Caribbean Educators through his personal network to participate in this training workshop. In addition, Dr. Ramesh Sharma, currently University of Guyana, on secondment from the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), New Delhi, India, also initiated teachers at the University of Guyana, and in his department to participate in this workshop, all with very good results.Robert Kruhlak supported the workshop by helping to compile email addresses into a list using Notepad, which could be used to invite participants into the Google forum. All efforts to assist have been very much appreciated.

Patricia as the lead facilitator of this workshop, collaborated with User:SteveFoerster and Wayne Mackintosh.

Invitations - after participants initial registration on the Wiki - were sent from the Google Discussion Forum via emails and to participants' email addresses as well, with a request to:

• accept the invitation with instruction on how to do this, and
• introduce themselves in the forum.

Further instructions were posted in the Google forum on how to create an Account on WikiEducator. Preparation instructions with useful tips were sent to all participants and posted in the Google forum as well. This was done to ease the start of the workshop, and to enable participants to get a good start.

Workshop instructions were posted for Day 1-10 including a 3-question discussion activity as part of tasks for Day 1 and several other helpful links. Reference to the new Rich Text Editing features was made. This workshop is the last workshop that teaches the Tutorials before the new RTE feature was published. All further tutorials will be taught with a combination of both options (RTE and regular Wiki syntax). The Tutorials have been rewritten by Robert Kruhlak.

The tutorials and forum discussions were conducted on WikiEducator or linked back to WikiEducator from the Google Forum.

Live Session on WIZIQ

EL4C35 had one live online session over one hour on WiZiQ, on February 14, 2010, the end of week 1. The live session was attended by 16 Learners. Wayne Mackintosh attended the Wiziq Live session [recording will be available in due time due to technical difficulties), and Dr. Sharma presented on his experiences with WikiEducator and plans for Guyana.

Outcome and Demographics

The workshop consisted of the following demongraphics:

Participants: 83 (Female: 47 / Male: 36)
Withdrawals: 7 (Female: 5 / Male: 2)
Including Facilitators: 1 (Female: 1 / Male: 2)
Countries: 30 Learning contracts signed: 16 (and 1 in progress)

All withdrawal came due to time constraints, most were interested to register later but could not attend at this current time, to benefit from the course.

Caribbean Country Participation

11 Caribbean countries participated. They were:

• Anguilla
• Bahamas
• Dominica
• Dominican Republic
• Guyana (13)
• Jamaica
• St. Maarten
• Netherlands Antilles
• Saint Kitts and Nevis
• Saint Lucia
• Trinidad and Tobago (20)

Total Educators trained by Region

• 49 Caribbean Educators
  
• 11 African Educators
  
• 8 South Asian Educators
• 2 North American Educators
• 1 Central American Educator
• 4 South American Educators
• 2 Oceania/Pacific Educators
• 2 Middle East Educators

Gender distribution by Country

North America

COUNTRY	TOTAL COUNT	Male	Female
Canada	3	1	2

Africa

COUNTRY	TOTAL COUNT	Male	Female
Kenya	1	1	1
Namibia	1	1
Nigeria	3	1	2
South Africa	1	1
Tanzania	1	1
Tunesia	2		2
Uganda	2	2

Southeast and South Asia

COUNTRY	TOTAL COUNT	Male	Female
India	7	5	2
Pakistan	1	1

Caribbean

COUNTRY	TOTAL COUNT	Male	Female
Anguilla	1	1
Bahamas	1		1
Dominica	2	2
Dominican Republic	1		1
Guyana	13	2	11
Jamaica	7	1	6
St. Maarten	1	1
Netherlands Antilles	1	1
Saint Kitts and Nevis	1		1
Saint Lucia	1	1
Trinidad and Tobago	20	5	15

Central America

COUNTRY	TOTAL COUNT	Male	Female
Mexico	1	1

South America

COUNTRY	TOTAL COUNT	Male	Female
Argentina	1		1
Chile	1	1
Peru	1	1
Venezuela	1		1

Europe

COUNTRY	TOTAL COUNT	Male	Female
Finland	1	1
Portugal	1		1

Middle East

COUNTRY	TOTAL COUNT	Male	Female
Saudi Arabia	2	2

Oceania/Pacific

COUNTRY	TOTAL COUNT	Male	Female
New Zealand	2	2

Conclusion

I enjoyed the interactions and active participation from both within the Caribbean and in additional regions around the globe actively participating in this workshop. Trinidad took the lead in signing up the most participants (20) followed by Guyana (13). There were quite a few countries who had not yet been exposed to this extent to Open Educational Resource development, so it became an eye-opened experience. This is only the beginning and additional initiatives targetted at the Caribbean will emerge. OER Nigeria and OER South Africa have opened WikiEducator country portals and are in the process of establishing a new WikiEducator network in their respective countries.