Community building project communications

Work in progress, expect frequent changes. Help and feedback is welcome. See discussion page.

Key Messages

In general:

• WikiEducator is very cool, and great to be affiliated with...
• WikiEducator's vision/mission and philosophical foundation
• The focus on developing countries in the Commonwealth, especially Africa
  • secondary education - Africa as a priority
  • other education
  • my educational legacy
• The upcoming Learning4Content workshops for 53 Commonwealth countries (based on FLOSS4EDU workshops and OER Workshop Toolkit) + gender focus
• The connection to Open Educational Resources which is embraced by the Free Culture Movement
• The advantages and opportunities inherent in Open Licensing (i.e., CC-BY-SA)
• A development platform & tool for formal educators & informal educators (i.e., people who have something to teach);
  • an accelerated development platform
  • availability of free and open source software tool, with embedded instructional design prompts - eXe
  • a forum for sharing lesson plans, educational materials and building connections
  • a workspace
  • a place where I can achieve my goals - with support from other individuals, teams, groups, etc.
• Saves time and money
• part of the 'social responsibility mix'
• The Commonwealth connection (and related institutions, including the Commonwealth of Learning)
• The individuals, groups communities and institutional stakeholders already involved / segments
  • their vision, innovation, pride, passion, commitment
  • pioneering leadership
  • ability to effect change (i.e., make a difference, contribute to...)
  • ally in career development & build my reputation
• Growth: WikiEd nodes, projects, accomplishments and achievements, countries, user pages, etc.
• WikiEd is a dynamic, evolving and exciting 'work-in-progress'

Library of Messages

• Library of Messages - Media:Library of Messages.pdf
  • Need for a Wishlist

• Pre- and post-activities around Learning4Content workshops - per country
• Message to Institutions & Individuals: Give us your unused content / lessons, etc. (i.e., social responsibility messaging)

WikiEducator Purpose (revised)

The WikiEducator is an evolving community intended for the collaborative:

• planning of education projects linked with the development of free content;
• development of free content on Wikieducator for e-learning;

• building cohesive and sustainable communities of support for educators;
• building of individual, group, community capacity
• work on building open education resources (OERs) on how to create OERs;
• networking on funding proposals developed as free content.

There is a distinction between "A community of support" and "Communities of Support". Overall, WikiEducator can be considered a "community of support" - however, over time, as educators develop content, they will develop sub-communities or 'communities-in-communities' where they will benefit from support from each other. Thus, "communities of support" seems more likely, particularly as WikiEducator evolves.

Target Audiences

• Teacher / Educators
  • Africa
  • Asia
  • South Pacific
  • South America
  • Rest of Commonwealth
• Opinion leaders - education, culture, arts, etc.
• News media (within the WikiEd community; education and mainstream)
• Policy Makers

Thoughts & Musings

• if we're moving from the Innovator phase to Early Adoption, the the language of our communication has to reflect that...