Education/News/October 2020/Digital skills using Wikimedia Art + Feminism

Digital skills using Wikimedia Art + Feminism

Summary: Wikimedia Education, Nepal discussed the digital skills using Wikimedia on the topics of "Art+Feminism", a two days virtual workshop which includes mostly the female and pre-service teachers (Faculty of Education Students) participation.

Final banner enhancing digital skills using Wikimedia Art + Feminism
Screenshot of day one virtual workshop
Participant of Enhance digital skills using Wikimedia Art + Feminism Day 2.

Wikimedia education Nepal conducted a two-days virtual workshop on enhancing digital skills using Wikimedia Art+Feminism.

Digital literacy plays a vital role in involving a number of digital abilities to succeed in school, university, and throughout their lives. Globalization and the growth of new technologies through the 21st century have reformed our learning methods. The era of technology helps successful learning with the help of digital literacy which is a never-ending process.

To improve the digital skills of learners, it is important to encourage the use of ICT for learning. Wikimedia is one of the most popular, free and open-source, and reliable platforms for developing countries such as Nepal in this regard.

Wikimedia Education Nepal organized two days Virtual workshop on enhancing digital skills using Wikimedia Art+Feminism which took place online using MS Team. We have been discussing and applying one of the recent skills for the participants as part of Wikimedia for Education. Our workshop was registered by overall 107 people and there were 71 active participants on the day first, 37 people on the second day, and more than 50% of participants were female. Most of the participants were in the age range of 20 to 30 and they are college students’ of Education Faculty at Sanothimi Campus, Bhaktapur, Mahendra Ratna Campus, Kathmandu, and Janajyoti Multiple Campus, Sarlahi.

On the first day of the workshop, our special guest Mr. Rom Kant Pandey, Assistant professor at Tribhuvan University, gave presentations and discussed the topic of "Importance of Digital skills in 21st Century". Similarly, Mr. Sailesh Patnaik, Wikimedia Education Program Coordinator, gave a brief overview of Wikimedia Education. This was a virtual workshop, and 72.9% were female and 27.1% were male participants.

The first essential thing to enhance digital skills is to use the local language script (Nepali Unicode). We have successfully installed local language software packages on different devices such as PC, laptops, and mobile likewise we guide them to create Wikipedia accounts.

Most of the participants were newcomers to Wikimedia, so we discussed in the workshop about login/profile creation, use of Sandbox, search article, components of the article, and references. At the end of the first day of the workshop, we successfully created 36 user accounts. We provided internet support for the participants; but due to the unstable internet bandwidth, some participants were not able to create their Wikimedia account.

Similarly, on the second day of the virtual workshop, we invited our special guest Ms. Medhavi Gandhi, Regional Ambassador of South Asia Art and Feminism provided a Brainstorming presentation about Art and Feminism in Wikimedia. In the next session of the workshop, we learned how to create and edit different types of articles related to Art and Feminism.

We were able to teach them to set the heading, sub-heading, add a category, insert images from commons, and add a citation as well as referencing in different articles. This workshop has helped to improve our different types of 21st-century skills such as Critical thinking, Creativity, Collaboration, Communication, Technology literacy.

For the facilitation to create/edit and upload the files, me and Mr.Parshuram Updhayaya take the leadership to a successful virtual workshop.

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