2019:Education/Bringing People Together to Shape Future Education

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Education/Bringing People Together to Shape Future Education

Title

Bringing People Together to Shape Future Education

Session leader(s)

Full Name*	Email address*	Wikimedia Username (if you have one)	Affiliation	Country	Role, website or any other details you'd like to share
Dominik Theis	dominik.theis@wikimedia.de	Dominik Theis (WMDE)	Wikimedia Deutschland	Germany	Coordinator of the Free Education Alliance

Session type

Each Space at Wikimania 2019 will have specific format requests. The program design prioritises submissions which are future-oriented and directly engage the audience. The format of this submission is a:

• Roundtable discussion forum - 30 min / 45 min

Length of session

The length of the session is variable and adaptable to the requirements of the conference.

Description

Wikimedia Deutschland is part and backbone of the Free Education Alliance that unites different organizations and individuals that promote Open Education. The alliance is both a forum and a driving force for political and social change in the diverse educational landscape of Germany.

During this session, I would like to talk about the opportunities and risks of creating a forum of intersectoral exchange. In Ancient Rome, a forum was a gathering place of great social significance, and often the scene of diverse activities, including political discussions and debates. We used the idea to bring together civil society, educational practice and political decision-making bodies in order to discuss the future shape of the educational landscape.

The goal of the forum is to make decision-makers see and understand the advantages of Open Education and to start conversations. We use these conversations to set impulses in the educational sector, share our suggestions on reaching Quality Education (SDG 4), and pave the way for cooperation. Especially, since Germany’s national government agreed upon a comprehensive educational strategy, we are now trying to increase the pressure to the responsible authorities to implement said promises.

On the example of the forum of this year, I want to share my learnings and open up the space for sharing other intends of reaching the attention of decision-makers. I believe strongly that we all can learn a lot from each other by openly discussing our approaches to change educational policies.

Supporting work

Optional:

• Website of the Forum Open Education 2019 (in German)
• Documentation of the Forum open Education 2018 (in German)

Relationship to the theme

This session will address the conference theme — Wikimedia, Free Knowledge and the Sustainable Development Goals — in the following manner:

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal on Quality Education (SDG 4), aims to “ensure inclusive and quality education for all and promote lifelong learning”. This overlaps with our movement strategy goal concerning “knowledge equity” in many ways. As movement we want to break down the social, political, and technical barriers preventing people from accessing and contributing to free knowledge. Open Educational Resources are materials under an open license and therefore anyone can legally and freely copy, use, adapt and re-share them. Open Education as a whole can be an instrument to bridge knowledge gaps and provide knowledge equity as well as to contribute to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goal 4.

Session outcomes

At the end of the session, the following will have been achieved:

1. Exchange of ways of bringing together different stakeholders
2. Sharing ideas of initiating fruitful conversations with decision-makers
3. Learning of how to change educational policies through an open exchange

Relation to other Spaces

Global Advocacy for Free Knowledge: Trends, Challenges, and Opportunities

Requirements

The session will work best with these conditions:

• Room:

• Audience:

• Recording:

Slides !!