Changing perspective through wikis

 

Phones, computers, and mobile devices are essential tools for managing the economy, transportation, and also in the training sector! The Internet is much more than a series of 1s and 0s; it is a complex human system with its own mechanisms, codes and zones of influence. The pervasiveness of this environment in our lives is so important that the internet has become the breeding ground for the major transition from Homo Sapiens to the Homo Numericus.

At first glance, this transition appears chaotic, uncontrolled, unpredictable and completely diffuse, especially in wiki environments. But behind this apparent disorder, chaos in motion, it could be that a new fundamental is at work, with very specific properties. And its applications remain largely unknown.

This fast development can sometimes scare or simply demotivate. Why update one's skills if today’s technology becomes obsolete tomorrow? Who has never felt helpless and a little stupid in front of his computer? Who has never lost important files? Thought a message was sent by a human being when it was sent by a bot? Got lost within multiple versions of a document exchanged with colleagues? Felt outdated and out-of-touch? Or should we see all this as a challenge? The challenge of developing more social and writing skills and critical thinking, the challenge of generating more opportunities to make our projects successful, to see them adopted by the wider community, the challenge of moving "out of the box" in our professional practices. Anticipating developments and changes is one of the strategic skills that any person must acquire.

And this is the challenge and hope of the project WikiSkillls: getting you to hop into the wiki culture.

WikiSkills is a European project funded by the European Commission aiming to analyze and apply benefits of adopting a wiki-culture within educational settings. Traditional learning environments are often characterized by one-way knowledge transmission processes in which the teacher, as only source of knowledge, assigns a learning activity that is conducted autonomously by the student.

Through WikiSkills participants from different educational sectors, cultures and ages (schools, universities, professional and adult training) learn how to use wikis for their socio-professional development. The project developed, implemented and evaluated an innovative training curriculum focusing on how to make the best use of wiki environments in educational settings, so as to reach high learning objectives and foster a community of learners within Europe.

Through this, WikiSkills promotes innovative pedagogical approaches that foster creativity, competitiveness, employability and entrepreneurial spirit, equity, social cohesion and active citizenship.

 

To learn more about WikiSkills go to www.wikiskills.net

EU project managers gaining PACE



Holger Bienzle, die Berater® at the AIVD (on the left)

Holger Bienzle of die Berater® presented the PACE (Project Actors Community in Europe) project at the annual conference of the AIVD, the Slovakian umbrella organisation of adult education providers.

In the presence of high officials from the national ministries of labour and education and of EAEA, the European Association of the Education of Adults, the perspectives of transnational cooperation in the light of the upcoming new EU funding programmes were  discussed by more than 60 stakeholders.

PACE, the emerging Project Actors Community in Europe, which offers ample learning and sharing opportunities for European project managers, was very much appreciated by Slovakian adult educators as a chance to build on previous project management know-how.