Learning4Content/Workshops/Face-to-Face schedule/L4C11/Report
Contents
Face to Face Workshop Report L4C11 Port Moresby
Facilitator:
- David Leeming
- Leeming Consulting,
- Honiara,
- Solomon Islands
- tel: +677 76396
- email: leeming AT pipolfastaem.gov.sb
See also the WikiEducator L4C11 home page
Acknowledgements
The facilitator wishes to thank the following:
- The Undersecretary and COL Focal Point, Mr Ouka Lavaki, and Professor Abdul Mannan, Director of the UPNG Open College, for giving their strong support to the workshop, and releasing the participants to attend
- The participants who where an outstanding group and who made the utmost of the opportunity
- COL for their prompt and reliable support, in responding to questions and requests.
Background
The workshop was organised by the COL Focal Point for PNG, Undersecretary Ouka Lavaki. The workshop was held between 11th and 14th August, 2008.
Venue
Flexible and Open Distance Education Cenre (FODE), Education PNG, Waigani, Port Moresby, PNG
Participants
16 participants attended the workshop, consisting of course writers, curriculum officers and DFL educators from a number of tertiary institutions and the Department of Education. There were 4 women in the group.
The participants' list is given on the L4C11 page.
Preparations
The following pre-workshop organising was carried out by the COL focal point.
- Finalising participants list
- Finalising venue
- Printing handouts, photocopying
- Organising lunch and refreshments
- Pick up and drop off of the facilitator
Handouts included:
- The agenda
- Cape Town Declaration
- The 11 workshop lesson notes (about 70 pages)
- The electronic copies of the lesson notes, lesson slideshows and other useful items such as Open Office 2.3 was made available for participants to copy
Workshop
The workshop went ahead according to the schedule, as described on the Facilitator's Guide. There were no departures from the guide as described, Day 1-3. All items on the schedule were completed.
Each participant created a user page and was able to use the info they had previously completed on their registration page.
Being course writers, most participants did very well with their example learning materials, which are linked on the L4C11 page. They were encouraged to complete these and develop them further.
A few of the participants were quite advanced in terms of ICT knowledge and ability to apply their new skills. They were also strategic persons - Directors or heads of departments - who were able to understand the new paradigm of of OERs and the utility of the Wikieducator.
Consequently, this workshop has seeded some key capacity that will be built on quite effectively and rapidly. Professor Mannan, for instance, and his IT Manager Alfred Vahau, are already planning a series of cascading training workshops for Wikieducator.
All participants were joined to the Wiki-Alumni google email list, which is a community of L4C workshop participants from around the region.
One linked activity ongoing in PNG - with trials for the One Laptop Per Child Oceania programme - was mentioned as an example of how the Wikieducator and OERs can help with educational programmes in PNG. An "XS" School Server with two "XO" laptops were demonstrated to the participants, showing them materials exported from the wikieducator to the server. This included about 40 of the “Biology for Elementary Schools” lesson plans exported as an IMS package from the Wikieducator content section, installed with a simple index page on the school server.
The debate on quality went particularly well. A new technique was introduced. This is incorporated into the Facilitator's Guide and includes:
- Run the debate a the end of Day 1.
- Give the participants a good chance to give oral feedback from their group sessions.
- Create a feedback page for each group, linked to the workshop page
- At the beginning of day 2, run an activity whereby each group nominates one person to enter feedback into the relevant page, with the others adding additional feedback sing the discussion page of that feedback page. This serves the purpose of recording feedback whilst learning about collaborative development and use of the discussion pages.
We also tried a live collaboration with L4C12 in Tonga, facilitated by Wayne Mackintosh. At an arranged time, participants where shown the participants list for the other workshop, and were invited to make comments on the discussion pages of the other workshop participants' user pages. This worked very well as a learning exercise and also to illustrate the collaborative features. Wayne also demonstrated how skilled users can help others by editing and improving their pages - a technique to be incorporated in future workshops.
Participants completed Learning Contracts before the workshop, which are to be sent to COL directly by David Leeming.
Training certificates will be prepared by COL and sent to Ouka Lavaki, for each attendee.
Please view the L4C11 page on the wikieducator at the address given above, to view outputs from the workshop.
Issues for PNG Department of Education
Consider developing new curriculum materials and porting existing materials to the Wikieducator
PNG Education might wish to consider developing policies regarding open curriculum content, and consider how to link the curriculum and FODE officers' new skills to official policies.
New materials for the OLPC programme in PNg can be created using the Wikieducator and easily exported to the "school servers", as understood by Nicholas Rueben and Brian Monie.
A section could be created for PNG on the Wikieducator.
Lessons learned for facilitators
In this particular workshop, the following lessons were learned for future reference:
- It is essential to give good summaries and recap on what has been learned, at the beginning of each day. It is important to outline the objectives for each session clearly.
- It is important to help all participans to create their content pages early on during the workshop, and give advice on a good naming scheme, avoiding characters such as slashes, dots, etc (which cause confusion)
