Commonwealth Computer Navigator's Certificate (CCNC)

Coinciding with Software Freedom Day 2006 (16 September), Sir John Daniel, President and CEO of the Commonwealth of Learning (COL), announced plans to institute the Commonwealth Computer Navigator's Certificate (CCNC). This COL initiative will widen access to ICT skills training using free software and will be distributed as free content for anyone to use, modify and distribute.

The Navigator's certificate will equip many prospective learners on their voyage to become full participants in our knowledge society. It will be closely associated with the Virtual University for Small States of the Commonwealth, whose creation COL is facilitating on behalf of 24 small states. "Free content is a new miracle in education" said Sir John. "We must dispel the myth that developing societies can't participate equally in virtual methods of educational design and delivery. We can do this by creating more opportunities to acquire the prerequisite ICT skills, thereby throwing a wide bridge across the digital divide".

The content development for the course is in progress. Indian WE community is encouraged to activiely participate in the content development process to complete the CCNC course development in the current year itself.

India Chapter of WikiEducator Inaugurated

The eminent agriculturist scientist and Honorable Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha) Dr. M.S. Swaminathan(father of indian green revolution) has inaugurated the India Chapter of WikiEducator and launched the india page in various languages in the presence of Shri. Jainder Singh IAS, Secretary, Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in a national event held at India International Centre on the 15th November 2008 at 2:30 p.m. The virtual presence (through Skype) and real sonorous voice of Dr.Wayne Mackinthosh, Education Specialist COL and the Founder of WikiEducator, set the wiki mood and collaborative mode of the programme. Dr. R. Sreedher, Director CEMCA has chaired the function. This function was organised by Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia (CEMCA) in association with GKP, OWSA and Acharya Narendra Dev College. Dr. Savithri Singh made a presentation on how Wikieducator will be useful for India. Dr. Savithri Singh email, Wikieducator Council member and Mr. P. Anil Prasad, WikiEducator Ambassador coordinated the event. Interim Advisory Board for the India Chapter members present were:

1. Dr. Savithri Singh, Principal, Acharya Narendra Dev College, University of Delhi, New Delhi.
2. Dr. Pankaj Khare, Director, International Division of Indira Gandhi National Open University, New Delhi, India.
3. Dr. R. Sreedher, Director, Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia, New Delhi.
4. Dr. Gita Mathur, Reader in Botany, Gargi College, New Delhi.
5. Mr.Anil Prasad, Nodal Officer (Web), Finance Department, Govt. of Kerala.
   

For details of programme please see Wikieducator Launch.

Please visit Picture gallery to see more pictures taken at the event. And Website of CEMCA for a full Video recording.

Dr. Savithri Singh, Principal of Acharya Narendra Dev College, University of Delhi has been declared elected on September 15, 2009 as the Deputy Chair of the WikiEducator Community Council. WikiEducator Community Council (WCC) has elected the following Office bearers of the Council:

• Chair: Wayne Mackintosh
• Deputy Chair: Savithri Singh
• Executive Secretary: Nellie Deutsch (With voting rights on Council)

Face 2 face Workshop at CIET, NCERT, 27 July - 29 July 2009

The workshop is being conducted by Acharya Narendra Dev College for the faculty of NCERT.

See earlier announcements from here...

How can u participate

Here you can use the existing content, review the content, collaborate with the development of content and start new Online Free and Open Distance Learning Projects. You can also share your existing ODL pages/projects, if you can make it free under Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike License. The community also welcome you to be a part of community discussions on Wikied-India google group.

We would also appreciate if you can be a part of Team India to lead and direct this India Node on WikiEducator.

If you are new to Wikieducator, don't worry, there is online wikieducator tutorial to help you round the clock. WikiEducator online tutorial is a classical example for how online ODL lessons can be developed and arranged. Please visit the tutorial pages right now…

Indian WikiEducator Community

The Community members of WikiEducators in India are listed here.

WikiIndia Members

Dr. Dilip P. Barad holds Ph.D. degree from Saurashtra University and M.A. from Bhavnagar University where he teaches in the Department of English as a senior lecturer.He has recently (in Dec 2008) cleared GSET (Gujarat State Eligibility Test) for the eligibility for lecturership. He has vast experience of teaching communication skills to the students of Business Management and Commerce. He taught Business Correspondence and Communication Skills at NRV Institute of Business Management and JJCET Commerce College (Saurashtra University), Junagadh (Gujarat) for 10 years. He has presented research papers in several international and national seminars/conferences and has also published research papers in journals and magazines. He has done his Ph.D. research on Thomas Hardy and his areas of interest are CALL, Literary Criticism, use of ICT in TELL, Business Correspondence, Communication Skills, English Language and Literature. He has successfully completed C.I.C.(Certificate in Computing) from IGNOU, so he has first hand experience of distance education and have good exposure to SLM and OERs. He has applied for counselling for English course under Ambedkar Open University. and IGNOU courses for B.A., M.A. and other English Language Courses. Being co-ordinator of fully computerized, LAN based language lab (which runs under Ambedkar Open University.), he has good experience of working for Open universities and he is associated with text book & material production for the same courses.

Having a wealth of experience and exemplary credentials Dilip P. Barad, Ph.D has steadily increased his participation in WikiEducator since July 2008. Dr. Barad is also an excellent ambassador for WikiEducator as he frequently speaks of the benefits of accessing and in contributing to WikiEducator. Dr. Barad has an excellent user page that showcases how text, photos and rich media can be used to portray information and ideas. The Userpage of Dr. Dilip P. Barad was selected as the UPE award winner for March 2009.

Meet here WE's featured earlier...

Anubha Das wins UPE 7/2009

Dr Anubha Das, Assistant Professor of Zoology in Zakir Husain College, University of Delhi has been selected for the WikiEducator User Page Expo Award for July, 2009. Dr. Yanubha has become a member of WikiEducator community on 2nd March 2009.

The User Page Expo Award is a monthly feature to honour innovative user pages of the new members of WikiEducator community.
Dr. Dilip P. Barad was UPE Award Winner for March 2009.
Dr. Gita Mathur was UPE Award Winner for December 2008.
This is the Third UPE Award to WikiEducators from India out of the total 12 UPE Awarded so far. Cheers!

Interesting WikiEducator Stats for July, August & September 2009

The latest Monthly statistics indicate that out of the Top SIX Pages with Maximum Edits, FOUR are from India. This has continued for July, August & September too! Shows that the Indian WikiEducators Community is most active. Cheers!

WikiEducator-India members at a Linux Meet

See the Presentation Slides of "Gita-Promila Freed.in Talk" delivered on Feb.21, 2009, at a meet in JNU, New Delhi Presentation Slides‎. Also see the section 1.8 on page of Gita Mathur. The discussion included Gargi Faculty's experience with WikiEducator at the meet organised by Linux-Delhi Group.

Please see archived news here...