FLOSS4Edu Pacific Workshop/Capacity building group

Sustaining support resources

The group felt strongly that a key factor to building capacity within our immediate communities we needed to ensure that we take on the need for educational and technology, we own this belief and we support this throughout all our interactions with others in our communities. One of the ways we can do this, is to focus on how we might be able to influence our own immediate networks through using and communicating through these technologies and taking opportunities to demonstrate how effectively these technologies work. One of the best ways to do this is to ensure that we are fully competent in the use of the technology.

As Ambassadors for WikiEducator we understand that we have a responsibility to take up the challenges we are presented with in our countries and explore and expand the capabilities of WikiEducator as a technology that can enable us to create and develop effective educational resources.

As with all newly learned skills we need to practice these skills frequently. To demonstrate competence we need the confidence to facilitate workshops in WikiEducator within our communities. The development of a Workshop Pack along with facilitation directions would assist in this activity. We are aware that some of our communities are very small and remote so collaborating with neighbours or larger communities might assist in building this capacity, skill and knowledge. This environment also provides us with a platform upon which to share our experiences and success stories.

This network gives us the opportunity to support each other to grow capacity in the Pacific through collaborating on local initiatives and establishing local hubs.

Levels of Ambassadorship?

The idea of Ambassadorship lead us consider that there might be levels of Ambassadorship that might be applied. These are described below:

• level one - being able to explain what wiki is and your experience on this workshop
• level two - being able to explain the lessons learned from this workshop and being able to demonstrate the use of wiki
• level three - being able to talk about wiki, demonstrate wiki and then teach someone else how to use wiki and contribute

As an ambassador you need to be able acknowledge the contribution of those you are talking to and report these experiences back to the community.

We also needed to determine what resources would be needed to enable this to occur.

Networking

• start small in your immediate circle e.g. collegues. Then build the network by approaching wider networks.

Workshops

• Become familiar with the resources available to running workshops in our countries
• Using travelling school supervisors to help spread the information
• include workshop in in-service training opportunities
• include in pre-service training trainee teachers
• include in local conferences and professional development sessions
• raise awareness within the existing media mechanisms, e.g. education radio, TV,
  • start a dialogue using these media

Techology (hardware)

• identify access to computer equipment
• provide other computer equipment as required
• power sources
• improve accessibility through technology like flash drive

Timeframe

• immediate or short term, speak to colleagues
• mid term, plotting out the professional development, in-service & pre-service training opportunities which will take place within the next year that we might be able to tap into and make contact with organisers as to the possibility of including information on Open content/software/tools within the upcoming training sessions.
• Longterm,report back to the community on the opportunties the eventuated and what the experiences were.