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

Tue Jun 23 10:33:43 UTC 2015

Hi Bjoern,

Thanks for the update. I'd seen that the project had been withdrawn but 
didn't really feel in a fit position to comment as I hadn't looked in to 
the tender in any detail.

What I would like to say is that I have every respect for the work that 
Josie Fraser and the DigLit team have been doing related to Open 
Education in Leicester. I'm pretty sure that they will have applied 
their professional judgement to any decisions regarding the content of 
the tender and the nature of the work they were proposing. It is 
unfortunate that those who make decisions on how money is spent often 
have relatively little understanding of the nature of the work and its 
long-term goals. I also personally have reservations about the 'woman on 
the bus' test....

£30,000 may seem like a lot of money but it needs to be put in 
perspective. As my colleague pointed out to me: "Putting that amount 
(30,000 GBP) into Spending stories tells me that the amount is only 
about 10% of the highest salary for academy staff: 
http://www.theguardian.com/education/2011/nov/14/academies-pay-200k-salaries".

Improving digital literacy is a very worthy cause and I wish the DigLit 
team every success with continuing to improve the situation in Leicester.

Thanks

Marieke

On 23/06/2015 11:22, Bjoern Hassler wrote:
> 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 some of you may have seen that this project has been withdrawn.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 <http://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 Here is an article that explains why the project was withdrawn: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 
> <mailto: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 <http://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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-- 

Marieke Guy
Project Coordinator | skype: mariekeguy | tel: 44 (0) 1285 885681 | 
@mariekeguy <http://twitter.com/mariekeguy>
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