15,000 Kerala schools to come under SchoolWiki  

Thiruvananthapuram: The IT@School Project of the Kerala government will introduce a revamped SchoolWiki to foster a culture of collaborative content deployment in 15,000 schools on November 1, the Kerala Formation Day.

SchoolWiki, which was first launched in 2009 on the lines of Wikipedia, had gone into oblivion two years later without any updates.

"This prompted IT@School to revive the portal with much-needed modifications, amply supported by Wikipedia members. Teachers and students were given specific training for using SchoolWiki and to identify and assign district level admins for data accuracy and modifications," IT@School Project Executive Director K. Anvar Sadath said.

The revamped portal, www.schoolwiki.in, is in Malayalam and features content collection jointly undertaken by the students, teachers, alumni, and public.

The schools would be able to key-in and update their basic details such as infrastructure data, renowned alumni, school websites, school map, blogs, various clubs and forums, class magazines, supporting images and videos.

SchoolWiki has been prepared using Wikimedia Foundation's MediaWiki software and has been designed in such a way that schools can register into the portal using their school codes and upload their contents.

"Awards would be given to those schools that make use of and maintain SchoolWiki in the most effective manner," said State Education Minister C. Raveendranath.

IANS