Dear Wikimedians,
CIS-A2K in its sustained efforts, to enhance the content and reach of Kokani Wikepedia, has signed an MOU for a period of five years with Goa based Nirmala Institute of Education, during the last month. Harriet Vidyasagar, as a Wikimedia volunteer, has put in a significant effort with CIS-A2K towards getting this collaboration happen. Please join us in applauding her for the tremendous efforts she has been putting towards making open knowledge grow in Konkani.
The institutional partnership with NIE has two key objectives. One is a pilot project to design, develop and execute a certificate course titled “Teaching in the Age of Wikipedia’, which is aimed at Middle and High School Teacher-trainees and Teachers. We hope that this will enable the Teacher participant to have a) a comprehensive understanding of the changes brought in by the digital technology to the knowledge domain; b) an introduction to various openness movements that inform the discourse on Open Educational Resources; c) exposure and training to participate on open knowledge platforms like Wikipedia; and d) practical examples and best practices of using Wikipedia and sister projects within the classroom context (e.g. the IT@School initiative in Kerala). We hope to develop this as an Open Course and solicit active participation from Wikimedians, especially those who have rich teaching experience or have been actively working in the education sector. We also hope that the lessons from this may help in creating a model that could be emulated elsewhere in the South Asian context.
The other objective of this partnership is to dovetail Konkani Wikipedia into the projects that Teacher Trainees at NIE take-up.
We will create a project page on Meta and document the plans and progress and solicit your active feedback. We will notify through the list once the page is created.
We apologise for the slight delay in sharing this information.
Best, Vishnu (CIS-A2K)