Hi all,
Yesterday I had a call with Tighe and Vahid on me joining the collab: Hi!
One of the subjects that came around in our call was question in what stage
other collab members are with their education programs at universities.
But let me first introduce how we came to that question. I am organising
the education program for the past three years in the Netherlands and in
Belgium. So far we have done projects at 6 universities/colleges,
organised/organise 7 courses, and organised or participated in 26 education
sessions/trainings/workshops/edit-a-thons. In most of the universities we
have done trainings/workshops/edit-a-thons in Wikipedia that were individual
activities, like organised by individual students, or student groups, or
staff members. In two universities this has grown further to courses every
year, but those are courses that are done in the capacity of the individual
teachers/professors involved, and not done as a university as a whole.
There it is important to keep the Wikipedia collaboration active and
continue over the years, this we (Wikimedia) set as strategic priority. And
at one university this has evolved further to a situation where the
management of the university recognises the collaboration with
Wikipedia/Wikimedia, and as the university exists now for 40 years
(Maastricht), they want to do broader activities with Wikipedia this year.
After my suggestion they have adopted the idea that we also organise a
knowledge session and workshop for all the staff of the university that is
interested to learn more about the possible collaborations with Wikipedia.
There they get a introduction about Wikimedia, but especially also talks
from their colleagues in the university that did the courses in the past
years. We are happy with this development as this gives us stable ground at
the university.
Vahid asked me if the there are phases to be recognised, and I had to
answer yes and no to this. In the past month I already tried to think about
this and came to the conclusion that the support and help from the
university library staff is important for the developments, but at the same
time makes it more complex and not that simple. But if I would define
phases, we have seen so far three phases (but not every university is at
the same phase): the first phase I would describe as having trainings,
workshops, edit-a-thons that are only done once, have an open character,
etc. The second phase I would describe as teachers/professors organise a
course with us. The third phase I would describe as the phase where the
management of the university recognises the collaboration somehow and takes
us seriously.
These three phases describe just one possible route, the one bottom-up in
the university. We also tried another route, top-down, as in 2015 we tried
to talk to university management boards to have Wikipedia used in their
courses, but that failed completely.
I am aware that in many places in the world a different approach, tactic,
program, etc is used/set-up, but does anyone of you recognise in your local
edu collaboration the steps/phases we are going through?
It would be interested to see where you are after/in these steps, what you
have done, so that can inspire us for possible approaches and activities.
Further I am also interested in other approaches and activities, good ideas
are worth copying. I would love to hear from you at Wikimania how you how
you do it, what steps you took/take, let's meet!
And if you want to learn from how we have done it, just ask me! :-)
One thing that I noticed in the past months that it is to me obvious that
Wikipedia belongs in education, but the why that is, is still not clearly
defined, so far I have seen. I think it would be good for us to clearly
describe and define why Wikipedia should be used in education, described
with good clear arguments, that match with the language people from
universities are common to.
One of the next steps we plan to do is to create a folder/brochure we can
spread to teachers/professors that describes why it is good to use
Wikipedia in the classroom.
For keeping an overview and documenting the activities we have done we have
a portal where we collect this (to show universities we do it already for
some time) at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Benelux_Education_Program
PS: Besides this e-mail address you can also use romaine(a)wikimedia.nl and
romaine(a)wikimedia.be for official purposes, it all ends up in this mailbox
here.
Greetings,
Romaine
Dear Collab,
It's been brought to my attention that we are supposed to meet at *1600 UTC* on
Monday, which is more convenient for our friends in Asia. I apologize for
the mixup.
Please use the same agenda and hangout link! And let me know if you have
any questions!
Cheers,
Tighe
--
Tighe Flanagan
Senior Manager, Wikipedia Education Program
Wikimedia Foundation
tflanagan(a)wikimedia.org
education.wikimedia.org
On Thu, May 12, 2016 at 11:20 AM, Tighe Flanagan <tflanagan(a)wikimedia.org>
wrote:
> Dear Collab,
>
> We're having our next monthly call this *Monday at 1800 UTC*. I look
> forward to seeing many of you and hearing your updates. The hangout link is
> https://plus.google.com/hangouts/_/wikimedia.org/collab-monthly -- please
> ping me directly if you would like to be added to the calendar invite.
>
> The new education manager (Vahid) will be joining the call, so it will be
> a great opportunity for people to start introducing themselves. Vahid will
> have a strong focus on mentoring, so we will dedicate part of the agenda to
> that topic as well. Full agenda is here:
>
>
> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uuGzoPAke92cjZrR994yshwR7WMOqbsUjVSRpas…
>
> Feel free to leave comments before the meeting or help us take notes
> during the meeteing!
>
> Also, I want to update you that our Collab goals from the Stockholm
> meeting are now fully on-wiki. You can find the page here:
>
>
> https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education/Wikipedia_Education_Collabora…
>
> Feel free to start using the discussion page if you have any updates or
> comments!
>
>
> https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Education/Wikipedia_Education_Coll…
>
> See you soon!
> Tighe
>
> --
> Tighe Flanagan
> Senior Manager, Wikipedia Education Program
> Wikimedia Foundation
> tflanagan(a)wikimedia.org
> education.wikimedia.org
>
Cross posting for the Collab list -- Vahid will be joining our monthly call
this Monday so you can meet him over Google Hangout
Reminder: the May collab meeting will be *Monday, May 16, at 1800 UTC*. A
link to the hangout and an agenda will be shared in advance.
--
Tighe Flanagan
Senior Manager, Wikipedia Education Program
Wikimedia Foundation
tflanagan(a)wikimedia.org
education.wikimedia.org
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Tighe Flanagan <tflanagan(a)wikimedia.org>
Date: Wed, May 11, 2016 at 10:43 AM
Subject: Welcoming Vahid Masrour to the WMF education team
To: Wikimedia Education <education(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Dear education colleagues,
I'm delighted to introduce the newest member of the WMF education team, Vahid
Masrour <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:VMasrour_(WMF)>. Vahid joins
as our Community Capacity Manager, and will be working with groups
like the Wikipedia
Education Collaborative
<https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education/Wikipedia_Education_Collabora…>
and
other global education program leaders and affiliates to make sure they
have the support they need to be successful.
Vahid will be working remotely from Quito, Ecuador for his first few months
before moving with his family to San Diego. A little more about Vahid in
his own words:
World citizen, with a strong experience in South America, I have resided in
> 6 countries so far, and plan to keep on moving. I am keenly interested in
> transformation of educational processes using technology as a lever. I have
> been part of the Ecuador User Group since its inception (2013), as the
> education program specialist, and am a firm believer that “Knowledge is as
> wings to man's life, and a ladder for his ascent. Its acquisition is
> incumbent upon everyone.”
>
Originally trained as a psychologist, I’ve been learning about community
> development through development projects and volunteer service. The overlap
> of my interests in education, technology and community development now
> finds a peculiarly interesting expression through my work at the WMF, where
> I can now serve by enabling a global community’s efforts towards the
> “growth, development and distribution of free, multilingual, educational
> content, and to providing the full content of these wiki-based projects to
> the public free of charge”.
Please join me in welcoming Vahid to the education team (on-list or on-wiki
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:VMasrour_(WMF)>)!
Tighe
--
Tighe Flanagan
Senior Manager, Wikipedia Education Program
Wikimedia Foundation
tflanagan(a)wikimedia.org
education.wikimedia.org
Sharing this with the Collab list. My colleagues in Community Resources
would love to see some education experts involved in their grants
committees if anyone is interested!
Cheers,
Tighe
--
Tighe Flanagan
Senior Manager, Wikipedia Education Program
Wikimedia Foundation
tflanagan(a)wikimedia.org
education.wikimedia.org
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Alex Wang <awang(a)wikimedia.org>
Date: Fri, Apr 29, 2016 at 1:34 PM
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Want to join a grants committee?
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Hello!
The Community Resources team is now recruiting committee members to support
the launch of two new grants programs [1].
The Project Grants Committee will review and advise on projects that
promote new experiments and sustain ideas that work.
- Program launches July 1, 2016 with an open call for new grant
proposals.
- Up to USD 100,000 for projects up to 12 months. Submissions accepted
quarterly.
- Interested in joining? Learn more here:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Quarterly/Committee/Orientat…
- Submit your candidacy by July 15, 2016 to participate in the first
round.
The Conference Support Committee will review and advise on large
conferences and events.
- Program launches July 1, 2016.
- Submissions accepted monthly.
- Interested in joining? Learn more here:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Conference/Committee/Orientation
- Submit your candidacy by June 1, 2016 to participate in the launch.
Why should you serve on a grants committee?
-
Make a big difference by supporting applicants and grantees that are
doing projects to improve content and increase participation across the
Wikimedia movement.
-
Build yours skills and experience by participating in our innovative
participatory grantmaking programs.
-
Interact with volunteers from all over the world.
Do you know somebody who you think would be perfect for this role?
-
We love referrals and want to build diverse committees! Please
encourage them to join.
Cheers,
Alex
[1] You can read more about the launch of WMF’s redesigned grant programs
here:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Reimagining_WMF_grants/Imple…
--
Alexandra Wang
Program Officer
Community Resources
Wikimedia Foundation <http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home>
+1 415-839-6885
Skype: alexvwang
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