By Deji Abdulwahab
Mrs Oby Ezeilo, the lead trainer, Reading Wikipedia in the Classroom Programme says the programme will assist teachers and students to improve their Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) skills, content writing skills and reading culture.
Ezeilo said this on Tuesday at the Opening Ceremony of the Reading Wikipedia in the Classroom Programme in Onitsha, Anambra State.
The programme was organised by the Wikimedia Foundation with other partners for secondary school teachers in Onitsha.
Ezeilo added that the programme would provide them with an alternative format for learning new things outside the regular school curriculum, while improving Wikipedia.
According to her, the programme also addresses teachers research skills, such as the ability to make sense of information, the ability to verify, evaluate, and sift reliable information from information chaos, and the ability to use the information to create new knowledge.
“By tying Wikipedia to
the components of UNESCO’s Media and Information Literacy (MIL) framework,
it assists instructors to understand and use Wikipedia as a learning tool.
“In addition, this training will help to bridge the digital gap by encouraging
collaboration among teachers and students and foster better relationships.
“In this programme, we will train 50 teachers selected from junior and senior
secondary schools in Onitsha Anambra State with special beam on DMGS
selected teachers,” programmer’s lead trainer said.
According to her, the programme will run for a period of one month.
“Within this period, there
will be four in person session that the participating teachers will physically attend and few online sessions. The programme will be very interactive.
“There will also be assignments and workshop sessions. It will be conducted by wikipedians who are certified trainers in the Reading Wikipedia in the Classroom Programme.
“The Reading Wikipedia in the Classroom programme is a flagship education
programme of Wikimedia Foundation designed to help teachers of secondary
school develop vital media and information literacy skills for the 21
st century.”
According to Ezeilo, Wikipedia is a free online multilingual encyclopedia written
and maintained by a community of volunteers through open collaboration and a wiki-based editing system.
“It is the largest and most-read reference work in history. It is hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation, an American non-profit organisation, funded mainly through donations.
“Since its creation on January
15, 2001, Wikipedia has grown into the world’s largest reference website
attracting over a billion visitors every month,” she said.
