WikiEducator:About

Introducción
WikiEducator es un proyecto comunitario que trabaja de manera colaborativa junto al Free Culture Movement con el objetivo de alcanzar una versión gratuita del currículo educativo para el año 2015. Motivados por una agenda de aprendizaje para el desarrollo, nos enfocamos en:


 * brindar habilidad en el uso de Mediawiki y tecnologías de software libre relacionadas las cuales permitan la colaboración masiva en la autoría de contenido de libre acceso;
 * desarrollar contenido de libre acceso para su uso en escuelas, centros de formación técnica, universidades, institutos profesionales y ambientes educativos informales;
 * facilitar el establecimiento de redes comunitarias y la colaboración entre iniciativas educativas existentes, las cuales involucran el uso y creación de contenido de libre acceso;
 * fomentar nuevas tecnologías que ampliarán el acceso, mejorarán la calidad y reducirán los costos asociados a proveer educación, principalmente a través del uso de contenido de libre acceso.

El señor John Daniel, Presidente y CEO de la Commonwealth of Learning es el patrocinador de WikiEducator. El proyecto ha adoptado un modelo de gobierno comunitario el cual es coordinado por la International Advisory Board provisoria. Los auto proclamados ambassadors for WikiEducator promueven el proyecto alrededor del mundo, y nuestro technology roadmap nos ayuda a hacer realidad el futuro.

La infraestructura técnica de Wikieducator es apoyada por la Commonwealth of Learning (COL). La COL es una organización intergubernamental creada por las naciones miembros de la Commonwealth (conocidos como Commonwealth Heads of Government) para motivar el desarrollo y el uso compartido de aprendizaje abierto (open learning), así como conocimientos, recursos y tecnologías basados en la educación a distancia. La COL ha invertido considerables recursos del presupuesto del programa en construir capacidad para conteido de desarrollo libre, lo que se hace más notable a través de la iniciativa de la Universidad Virtual para Pequeños Estados de la Commonwealth (VUSSC).

Estrategia
WikiEducator aims to build a thriving and sustainable global community dedicated to the design, development and delivery of free content for learning in realisation of a free version of the education curriculum by 2015.

thumb|270px|left|Levantando la comunidad WikiEducator In realisation of this vision, the WikiEducator strategy will focus on:


 * Building the capacity and skills of the community to engage meaningfully in the mass-collaboration required for the design and development of high quality learning resources, for example capacity building workshops.
 * Developing free content and knowledge to support the development of open communities and free content developers so that resources can be reused in multiple contexts, for example the Newbie Tutorials.
 * Ensuring smart connections through appropriate networks, ecosystems and the smart implementation of free software solutions to fill the gaps between existing mainstream technologies and the unique requirements of asynchronous learning thus widening the reach and access of free content in the developing world. This is achieved through community nodes on WikiEducator (e.g. FLOSS4Edu), technology think tank meetings (e.g. Tectonic Shift Think Tank) and fostering strategic relationships with the freedom culture (e.g. Wikiversidad and the WikiMedia Foundation).

The strategy is divided into three distinct phases. 

Phase 1: Establishing foundations (May 2006 - Dec 2007)
This phase involves setting up the technologies and processes to facilitate community development for free content. This is achieved by:


 * building capacity to participate;
 * developing free content on how to develop free content;
 * through a process of self organisation, providing the community the freedom to determine the kinds of projects, structures and communication mechanisms for WikiEducator;
 * establishing a democratic governance model from the community for WikiEducator;
 * collaborative and democratic development of community policies that support and promote the values of the WikiEducator community;
 * strategic relationships networking to ensure the right connections for a sustainable community.

Phase 2: Scaling up free content development (Jan 2008 - Dec 2008)
The prime purpose of Phase 2 is to scale up the rate and quality of free content development building on the foundations established during Phase 1. Phase 2 will be realised through ongoing community development with special emphasis on scalable capacity development, including for example:


 * The Learning4Content project which aims to provide free training for educators in return for a lesson of free content on WikiEducator
 * Establishing clear pathways for a wide range of skilled individuals to contribute to WikiEducator projects by:
 * Developing a one stop "portal" which clearly communicates which projects need help and support;
 * Differentiating and communicating the skills requirements for individual projects, for example learning design, content design, multimedia and visual design, linguistic design, research and technical design;
 * Policy and practice guidelines for the design and development of learning content drawing on the research and experience of distance education, for example the Learning Design project.
 * Establish quality assurance mechanisms appropriate for educational content, for example implementation and refinement of the FlaggedRevs initiative.
 * Development and implementation of a fund raising strategy for the WikiEducator community.
 * Seeding the establishment of regional and national chapters of mainstream WikiEducator initiatives.
 * Ongoing refinements to existing technologies and the search for free software solutions to scale up the rate of free content production.

Phase 3: Sustainable implementation of free content in education (Jan 2009 - )
The purpose of this phase is to prioritise activities which implement free content into mainstream educational activities. The success of the free content movement in education will be measured when real students enroll in real programmes using free content.

The flagship project will be the Commonwealth Computer Navigator's Certificate to collect evidence on the merits and value proposition of free content in real educational contexts.

Quick facts and highlights
WikiEducator was established as a collaborative authoring environment to support VUSSC and COL's eLearning initiative. A review of WikiEducator's early history shows exponential growth with numerous free content initiatives emerging around the world.

Highlights up to an average of a 1000 hits per day

 * WikiEducator site launched, May 2006
 * Community values associated with social inclusion, freedom, education and innovation profiled on the Main Page, 6 August 2006
 * First VUSSC Boot Camp is hosted in Mauritius, 7 - 25 August 2006
 * Sir John Daniel announces the development of the Commonwealth Computer Navigator's Certificate to coincide with Software Freedom Day, 12 September 2006.
 * The Open Education Content project commences on WikiEducator, 21 September 2006.

Highlights up to an average of a 4000 hits per day

 * WikiEducator's brochure is produced and available for download (899KB), 25 October 2006.
 * The East African Chapter of the FLOSS4Edu project was launched during the Open Education Resources Workshop, November 2006.

