WikiEducator
‘Turning digital divide into digital dividend’
‘A platform for sharing and learning’
A Community for development and
sharing of OER
Dr. Dilip Barad
Dept. of English
Bhavnagar University
National Conference Technology in ELT,
1/30/2009 1
Changa, Gujarat, INDIA

Outline of this presentation:
Introduction to WikiEducator:
•
The purpose of using WikiEducator:
•
How to use WikiEducator:
•
Synergism of WikiEducator and Moodle:
•
Benefits of WikiEducator:
•
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1/30/2009 2
Changa, Gujarat, INDIA

• What are the most important
technological innovations in the
history of education?
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1/30/2009 3
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The Blackboard
• The inventor or introducer of the blackboard
deserves to be ranked among the best
contributors to learning and science, if not
among the great benefactors of mankind.
• Josiah Bumstead -1841.
From Wayne’s introduction to the WikiEducator Project.
•
http://www.wikieducator.org/User:Pschlicht
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The Motion Picture
• The motion picture is the most revolutionary
instrument introduced into education since
the printing press.
• Hoban 1940.
http://www.wikieducator.org/User:Pschlicht
•
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1/30/2009 5
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Television
• It now seems clear, however, that television
offers the greatest opportunity for the
advancement of education since the
introduction of printing by movable type.
• Stoddard 1957.
http://www.wikieducator.org/User:Pschlicht
•
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Computers and Internet
• The impact of computers on society, and
hence on education, has been compared to
that of movable type and the printing press
since Gutenberg.
• Caffrey and Mossman 1967
http://www.wikieducator.org/User:Pschlicht
•
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• How well are we doing, given all these
technological innovations in education?
• Even today, the number of kids not going to
school is larger than kids going to the
schools…
• CAN WE MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE???
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What is WikiEducator?
• WikiEducator is a community resource supported
by the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) for the
development of free educational content.
• COL is an intergovernmental organization created
by Commonwealth Heads of Government to
encourage the development and sharing of open
learning and distance education knowledge,
resources and technologies.
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Is sharing knowledge something new?
• When:
– Parent shares their experience while bringing up
children
– Teachers shares their knowledge in the classroom
– Researchers share their findings with their peers
• We share knowledge freely…
• When we give knowledge away, we still have it for our
selves to use!
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1/30/2009 10
Changa, Gujarat, INDIA

The essential Freedoms
Freedom 1 – Use
– The freedom to run a programme, for any purpose.
Freedom 2 – Help yourself
- The freedom to study how a programme works, and
adapt it to your needs. (Access to the source code is a
precondition to this.)
Freedom 3 – Help your neighbour
- The freedom to redistribute copies.
Freedom 4 – Help your community
- The freedom to improve the programme, and release
your improvements to the public.
- Source: Richard Stallman www.freedomdefined.org
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What is the purpose of WikiEducator?
• WikiEducator's purpose, is to give such
freedom, along with -
– to build an evolving community intended for the
collaborative planning of education projects linked
with the development of free content;
– collaborative development of free content on
Wikieducator for e-learning;
– collaborative work on building open education
resources (OERs) on how to create OERs.
– encourages democratic use of the Web.
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1/30/2009 12
Changa, Gujarat, INDIA

The WikiEducator is a community
which believes in:
• The social inclusion and participation of all
people in our networked society (Access to ICTs is
a fundamental right of knowledge citizens - not
an excuse for using old technologies).
• In the freedoms of all educators to teach with the
technologies and contents of their choice, hence
our commitment to Free/Libre and Open Source
technology tools and free content.
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1/30/2009 13
Changa, Gujarat, INDIA

The WikiEducator is a community
which believes …
• That educational content is unique - and by
working together we can improve the
technologies we use as well as the reusability
of digital learning resources.
• A forward-looking disposition working
together to find appropriate and sustainable
solutions for e-learning futures.
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1/30/2009 14
Changa, Gujarat, INDIA

• WikiEducator is a dynamic and exciting
community of educators who believe
passionately that learning materials should be
free and open to all.
• Recent survey gave the result that WikiEdu is
used most to research innovative educational
trends and ideas.
• See for what other purposes it is used…
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WikiEducator is used for …
• Response Percent
to research innovative educational trends and ideas 71.2%
•
to learn wiki skills 70.4%
•
to develop free content materials 69.0%
•
to connect to the WikiEducator community 58.4%
•
to grow personally 45.1%
•
to build relationships with specific individuals within
•
the WikiEducator Community 32.7%
• to build my network 29.2%
• just curious - no particular interest 4.0%
• 71.9% of users are teachers, lecturers or trainers
Source: http://www.wikieducator.org/images/f/f6/WE_Survey_04262008.pdf
•
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How to use WikiEdu?
Create free account at www.wikieducator.org
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1/30/2009 17
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Once you are log in, type the name of the page you
want to create. If you want to create page of ESP, type
www.wikieducator.org/ESP in address bar. If there is no
page written on it, following screen will be displayed…
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Click ‘edit this page’ and start typing as in MS … Once it is done, DO NOT FORGET to
click ‘SAVE PAGE’ and ‘Watch this page’ at the bottom of the page…
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1/30/2009 19
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Your page is created…
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1/30/2009 20
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What next….
• Give link (www.wikieducator.org/ESP) to other
teachers.
• Ask them to edit the text and enrich it with better
ideas and examples.
• As and when anybody will edit the page, the
creator will get email that the page is edited and
whether he want to keep the change or not.
• Once the page is complete, give link to students
as their reading resource.
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1/30/2009 21
Changa, Gujarat, INDIA

To edit WikiEdu page is as easy as
child’s play…
• Ready reference for editing tools
• Within a few minutes, using these tools, pages
like
– www.wikieducator.org/user:Dilipbarad
– www.wikieducator.org/Literary_Criticism
can be created/shared/edited/updated.
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Synergism of WikiEdu and Moodle
• Once the study material is created and shared
with student, now it time to check their
progress.
• Are students learning from the e-resources
developed or not?
• To measure their progress, we can use Moodle
and its Quiz function.
• Moodle has a facility to create quiz with
instant result and feedback.
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Moodle Quiz
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Instant Result on Moodle
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1/30/2009 25
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Benefits of WikiEducator
Gyan Bantane se Badhata hai !
• All over the world, teachers, content developers, researchers
join their hands on WikiEdu platform to share their expertise.
• The content is developed, re-used and adapted to our
teaching environment.
• It empowers teachers by enabling them to create knowledge
resources online and making it available across the globe.
• For students, it is an excellent tool for collaborative learning.
• Students and teachers can together create learning group on
WikiEdu and share their experiences and learn through
sharing knowledge, expertise and experiences…
• WE is building capacity among teachers/educators to develop
free content for learning, and prioritize wiki skills training.
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Thank You…
• Your questions / doubt / suggestions /
comments are invited –
dilipbarad@gmail.com
• Tell me and I'll forget, show me and I may not
remember, involve me, and I'll understand.
• Imagine a world in which every single person
is given free access to the sum of all human
knowledge. That’s what WE stands for.
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1/30/2009 27
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