Workshop Report

WikiEducator Learning4Content and Collaborative Learning
How can you make it work for you?
October 20 - November 3, 2010

Another free WikiEducator Online Workshop under the Learning4Content project

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Background

The WikiEducator Learning4Content and Collaborative Learning - How can you make it work for you? free online workshop was held from October 20 - November 03, 2010.
The workshop's objectives were to provide basic training to the participants in learning Wiki skills so that they can adopt and make use of WikiEducator platform in their teaching learning setting. Truly the theme "How can you make it work for you?" is so fitting for this purpose.

Expected Output

The expected outcomes of the workshop were:

• Help participants to acquire basic wiki editing skills which they would practice and demonstrate on their User page;
• Provide them with an authentic WikiEducator experience
• Help them to achieve the community certification (and community kudos) of a WikiApprentice Level 2 or even WikiBuddy during this workshop. The skills participants will demonstrate on their User page would be used for our community certification according to our WikiMaster typology.
• Provide opportunities for the participants to give the gift of knowledge by developing or donating a teaching resource for our community.

Resource Requirements

This free wiki workshop was presented online over 8 working days and required approximately 15 - 20 minutes per day of practical exercises after reading the instructions. We advised all participantts to dedicate about 1 hour a day to ensure good practice of the instructions and guidelines provided. This time period also made allowances for the sometimes low internet connectivity. The course was presented asynchronously -- so as to allow participants to work at times which fit their own schedule.
Daily instructions were provided to the participants and WikiEducator Moodle platform was also used to establish interaction with the participants.

Programme Schedule

Day 1: Wednesday, 20 October 2010

• Instructions for Day 1

Day 2: Thursday, 21 October 2010

• Instructions for Day 2: So what about quality in open wiki authoring?

Day 3: Friday, 22 October 2010

• Instructions for Day 3: how to personalize your own WikiEducator preferences

Day 4: Monday, 25 October 2010

• Instructions for Day 4 - Achieving your first WikiEducator certification!

Day 5: Tuesday, 26 October 2010

• Instructions for Day 5: Internal and External links

Day 6: Wednesday, 27 October 2010

• Instructions for Day 6 - Images and your 2nd wiki certification!

Day 7: Thursday, 28 October 2010

• Instructions for Day 7: Collaborative Editing

Day 8: Friday, 29 October 2010

• Instructions for Day 8: Communication and Interaction

Day 9: Monday, 1 November 2010

• Instructions for Day 9: Working offline, converting and uploading teaching materials

Day 10: Tuesday, 2 November 2010

• Instructions for Day 10: Share your experiences, thoughts and suggestions

Target Participants

The training programme was targeted at educators who wish to use online mode of instructions for the benefit of their students, teachers who wish to have online collaborations with other colleagues, and anyone who has interest in learning more about WikiEducator.

Outcome and Demographics

The workshop consisted of the following demographics:

Demographics

Total Participants: 61
Female: 37
Male: 24

There were four registrations, which could not be accomodated this time because their registrations were received at the stage when the workshop was in advanced stage. They were advised to register for next eL4C47 - WikiEducator Learning4Content Workshop for Community Colleges (In collaboration with CCCOER) which is going to be held from 17 to 30 November 2010.

This workshop was facilitated by Ramesh Sharma and Patricia Schlicht.

Country Participation

The participants (including facilitators) were from the following 21 countries :

Wiki Discussions

• Concerns about the quality of educational resources developed using an open authoring approach
  

Useful discussion was held at the page on [Thoughts on Quality].

Main participants who expressed their views are:

 1. Savitha Harish
 2. Pulin Bhatt
 3. Brenda Hallowes
 4. Claire Robinson
 5. Becky Neep
 6. Ronja Skandera
 7. Wilhelmina Louw 
 8. Ashwini Datt

• Ideas for a wiki project

Following colleagues expressed their intention of working on a [Community Development Learning Project]

 1. Wilhelmina Louw 
 2. Brenda Hallowes

Top 5 high performing participants

Congratulations to the top 5 high performing participants in terms of number of edits so far on the wikieductor site!
They are:-

 1. Wilhelmina Louw        179 edits
 2. Savitha Harish         120 edits
 3. Deborah Cordier        103 edits
 4. Cheri MacLeod          82 edits
 5. Brenda Hallowes        77 edits

Reflection

I am very grateful for full support extended to me by my colleague Patricia Schlicht as Co-Facilitator. My wholehearted thanks also go to Dr Wayne Mackintosh for his support, encouragement and visit to our "place" time to time, although he is quite busy in conducting a series of Free webinars on OER. You may like to know more about Open Access by visiting [this link].

In addition I would like to thank all the participants for their time and zeal to learn the skills for collaborating online and develop OERs as part of this project. The facilitators and participants interacted with each other through their respective user-pages, Moodle Forum and by email. I observed that participants were not hesitating when they needed some assistance (good sign of an active participation!). I am sure that they will continue to practice these skills they have learned now. All the best. -- Ramesh Sharma, PhD 04:55, 5 November 2010 (UTC)