[Open-education] Wikipedia Information Literacy for Schools - tender opportunity

Tue Jun 23 10:22:25 UTC 2015

Dear all,

some of you may have seen that this project has been withdrawn. The project
description is also no longer available online, but if you search "site:
www.digilitleic.com wikipedia" via Google, you can still view the cached
page. I do agree with the sentiment and outlook of the project, and the
importance of the focus on Wikipedia: It simply is the go-to site for
school-age students to find information, and this is something that
teachers are aware of, and need support for this relatively new form of
media. Importantly, the project responded to what teachers had identified
themselves as a priority. As I interpreted the project, it was about
digital literacy, critical thinking, and cross-cultural engagement
(inclusion, respecting different points of view, etc).

Here is an article that explains why the project was withdrawn:
*Scrapped: "Nonsense" £30,000 plan to teach Leicester kids to spot
Wikipedia inaccuracy*
http://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/Scrapped-Nonsense-30-000-plan-teach-Leicester/story-26728515-detail/story.html

Assistant mayor for children and young people Sarah Russell [...] said: *"When
I heard about this I sent an email saying 'This seems to be a nonsense
post. Please can you get someone to convince otherwise?' No one was able to
so I have stopped it. It is vital that children are taught to use the
internet critically and teachers will do that but this project didn't seem
necessary to me. It failed the 'Woman on the bus test.'"*

Of course, education needs to be accountable to the general public (the
proverbial "women on the bus"), but should we not first and foremost listen
to teachers, who are the professionals entrusted with a large part of
children's education? To those who are familiar with the challenges in the
UK, will know that often this doesn't happen - the cancellation of the
project being a case in point.

Note that many of the comments on the article are critical of it - clearly
the people who posted share a sentiment similar to this email. Similar
comment to Sarah Russell's tweet here:
https://twitter.com/Sarah_Westcotes/status/612180041267585024 (to which
I've also responded).

I should say that I don't have any affiliation with Leicester City Council
etc, so these views are just my own. In my opinion, it's a shame the
project has gone to waste. I'd be interested to hear from others who feel
the same, and to see whether we can do anything about it. I would certainly
love to see some teacher professional development materials (with classroom
activities) around Wikipedia.

All the best,
Bjoern

On 9 June 2015 at 15:32, Josie Fraser <josie at josiefraser.com> wrote:

> Dear all, we've just opened a tender for a short project (August
> 2015-November 2015) to create challenging and fun information literacy
> resources for secondary school aged learners (13-14 years old). Please do
> pass on to anyone you know who might be interested. The appointed
> organisation/team will have to be able to come to Leicester (UK) to consult
> with school staff and learners.Deadline is 30th June.
>
> Many thanks! Josie
>
>  http://goo.gl/pccyU9 <http://t.co/wdw90XHXfW>
>
>
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>

-- 
Dr Bjoern Hassler
Cambridge-Africa
University of Cambridge
www.bjohas.de

Open Educational Resources for Teacher Education
http://oer.educ.cam.ac.uk/

OER for School-based teacher professional learning in sub-Saharan Africa
http://www.oer4schools.org
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