In collaboration with the Dr. G. Shankar Government Women’s First Grade College and PG Study Centre, Ajjarkadu, U. B. Pavanaja, editor of Vishva Kannada and secretary of the Karavali Wikimedians User Group, has begun a study on the usefulness of Wikipedia as a learning platform.
With the help of Bhaskar Shetty S, the principal of Dr. G. Shankar Govt. College, and Ramachandra Adiga G, the department’s head of computer science, Pavanaja said that as part of a research project, they had started a Wiki-e-learning course for the students. T N Lokesh, an education psychologist from the NMKRV College for Women in Jayanagar, Bengaluru, and Vaidehi P S, an expert in cognitive skills, have been brought on board as project collaborators.
The course was created by Pavanaja of Karavali Wikimedians, who work on the Tulu, Kannada, and Konkani language Wikipedias and other Wikimedia (Free Knowledge) movements in the Indian languages that are spoken in coastal Karnataka as well as north Kerala. This same project is sponsored by the Wikimedia Foundation.
He claimed that the certificate programme would enhance the students’ curriculum vitae. The weekend sessions are arranged in order to avoid interfering with normal classes. Computer labs are used for practical training and hands-on instruction. Each month, lab sessions will be followed by online exchanges.
“The resource people will review students’ tasks, provide feedback, revise their work as necessary, provide further work, and assist them as needed.” There will be online gatherings using Google Meet or comparable services. “The entire certificate programme will last a full year,” she added.
Wikipedia, Wikisource, Wiktionary, and Wikiquote are all in Kannada. At the start, midpoint, and end of the course, cognitive skills assessments are given. So far, students have contributed 620 articles, 954 articles have been revised, and 17.6 million bytes have been uploaded. The average number of articles viewed is about 703K.
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