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)