eL4C37 Workshop report
Learning4Content
37th Online Workshop (April 19-30, 2010)
Basic Wiki Skills and Collaborative Learning
Contents
Expected Output
The expected outcomes of this workshop were to:
- to teach and train the use of the new Rich Text Editing WikiEducator tutorials 1-10;
- explore the concept of open education using an open source software platform and integrated technologies in the process;
- inform about WikiEducator's concept and new developments including inform on active OER content on WE.
Overview
EL4C37 was a 10-day basic wiki editing skills Learning4content online Workshop teaching Rich Text Editing under the Learning4Content initiative of the OER Foundation, which took place from April 19-30, 2010.
The workshop was one of the OER Foundation's monthly Learning4Content workshops and was led by Patricia Schlicht, in addition to Dr. Ramesh Sharma, currently University of Guyana, on secondment from the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), New Delhi, India, and Dr. Gita Mathur, Gargi College, India, who both kindly offered to assist with facilitating this workshop.
The facilitators used Google Docs to share workshop instructions, to edit and to improve on content, where appropriate.
Participants received instructions daily using Gmail Group emails.
The tutorials and forum discussions were conducted on WikiEducator
Live Session on WIZIQ
EL4C37 had one live online session over one hour on WiZiQ, on Saturday, April 24, the end of week 1. The live session was attended by 16 Learners. All three facilitators attended and presented on experiences, gave guidance or background information. The recording is available in the workshop schedule or can be viewed here.
Outcome and Demographics
The workshop consisted of the following demongraphics:
Demographics
Participants: 56 (Female: 27 / Male: 29)
Including Facilitators: 3 (Female: 2 / Male: 1)
Withdrawal: 2 (Participants: 54)
Countries: 19
Learning contracts signed:11
Two withdrawal resulted due to time constraints.
Two late registrations
Country Participation
19 countries participated. They were:
- Bangladesh
- Canada
- Ethiopia
- Fiji
- Finland
- Greece
- Guyana
- India
- Italy
- Malawi
- Morocco
- New Zealand
- Nigeria
- Saudi Arabia
- Sudan
- Trinidad and Tobago
- Uganda
- USA
- Zambia
Total Educators trained by Region
- 3 Caribbean Educators
- 8 African Educators
- 4 European Educators
- 18 South Asian Educators
- 8 North American Educators
- 0 Central American Educator
- 5 South American Educators
- 7 Oceania/Pacific Educators
- 1 Middle East Educators
- plus two withdrawals (Oceania/Pacific: 1; South Asia: 1)
Gender distribution by Country
North America
| COUNTRY | TOTAL COUNT | Male | Female |
 Canada
|
2 | 2 | |
 USA
|
6 | 1 | 5 |
Africa
| COUNTRY | TOTAL COUNT | Male | Female |
 Ehtiopia
|
1 | 1 | |
 Nigeria
|
1 | 1 | |
 Malawi
|
1 | 1 | |
 Morocco
|
1 | 1 | |
 Sudan
|
1 | 1 | |
 Uganda
|
2 | 1 | 1 |
 Zambia
|
1 | 1 |
Southeast and South Asia
| COUNTRY | TOTAL COUNT | Male | Female |
 India
|
18 | 10 | 8 |
 Bangladesh
|
1 | 1 |
Caribbean
| COUNTRY | TOTAL COUNT | Male | Female |
 Trinidad and Tobago
|
3 | 1 | 2 |
South America
| COUNTRY | TOTAL COUNT | Male | Female |
 Guyana
|
5 | 3 | 2 |
Europe
| COUNTRY | TOTAL COUNT | Male | Female |
 Finland
|
1 | 1 | |
 Greece
|
1 | 1 | |
 Italy
|
1 | 1 |
Middle East
| COUNTRY | TOTAL COUNT | Male | Female |
 Saudi Arabia
|
1 | 1 |
Oceania/Pacific
| COUNTRY | TOTAL COUNT | Male | Female |
 New Zealand
|
4 | 3 | 1 |
 Fiji
|
3 | 3 |
Conclusion
I am very grateful to Dr. Gita Mathur and Dr. Ramesh Sharma for having come in, to assist with facilitation. I enjoyed the interactions and active participation from both, the facilitators, and from participants.
eL4C37 used the Gmail Group emails for the first time as integrated tool to communicate with participants. While I found, it worked well for communicating instructions, I find the flow of return emails not very user-friendly in Gmail and interactions are more difficult to monitor. I also had more one-on-one time with individual participants compared to before where I would have had both, one-on-one teaching time and group responses that let's others benefit more from the learning experience others have.
While it cuts the incoming email traffic a facilitator normally has to manage, I am not sure if Gmail is the most effective way of communicating with participants. It is a great tool for sharing documents you collectively work on (Google docs) such as instructions before sharing. This could also be done on the Wiki directly in a 'facilitators working room', which the eL4C37 team also made used of in the setup phase.
Overall I am satisfied with the outcome of this workshop and hope to be able to conduct many more. Special thanks once more to Dr Mathur and Dr Sharma for so generously giving of their time.
--Patricia Schlicht 03:43, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
