Education April 2012

education@lists.wikimedia.org

19 participants
10 discussions

Cooperation Memorandum, WMMK & SEEU
by Dimce Grozdanoski 27 Apr '12

27 Apr '12

I want just to announce that yesterday, Wikimedia Macedonia, after the presentation [1] of Wikimedia projects, sign the Cooperation Memorandum [2] with Faculty of Contemporary sciences and technologies [3] from Tetovo. [1] Info about the presentation of Wikimedia projects(in Macedonian) [[http://mk.wikimedia.org/wiki/2012.04.26._%D0%92%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%BC%D0%… mk.wikimedia.org] [2] Integral text of the Cooperation Memorandum (in Macedonian) [http://mk.wikimedia.org/wiki/2012.04.26_%D0%9C%D0%B5%D0%BC%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%B… mk.wikimedia.org] [3] Official web page of South East European University in Tetovo, [http://www.seeu.edu.mk/ seeu.edu.mk] Best regards, -- Dimce Grozdanoski President of WMMK Wikimedia Macedonia Twitter: @grozdanoski

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The future of WEP in US and Canada
by Everton Zanella Alvarenga 24 Apr '12

24 Apr '12

Interesting thread! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Ambassadors#The_future_of_our_p… This is the main challenge in my opinion for the second semester for WEP in Brazil, multiply the number of ambassadors - there is some progress here in the pilot. To convince professors on the importance and need of this program after showing successful cases seems easier than to have enough campus ambassadors for the demand. A key step of the project when we are thinking about expanding in any place. Tom -- Everton Zanella Alvarenga (also Tom) Wikimedia Brasil Wikimedia Foundation

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In 2 hours: Wikipedia Education Program Metrics & Activities Meeting
by LiAnna Davis 23 Apr '12

23 Apr '12

Hi all, In a little over two hours, we'll be having the monthly Wikipedia Education Program Metrics and Activities meeting. If you're running an education program in your country, I encourage you to join the meeting and share what you're up to. Instructions for joining are here: http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Education_Program_Metrics_and_… LiAnna -- LiAnna Davis Wikipedia Education Program Communications Manager Wikimedia Foundation http://education.wikimedia.org (415) 839-6885 x6649 ldavis(a)wikimedia.org

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Fwd: New Service for Wikimedia?
by Erik Moeller 19 Apr '12

19 Apr '12

Bill gave me permission to forward this email here. Anyone on this list who'd like to have a 1:1 conversation with him about whether his technology (it's a dedicated Perl/MySQL online learning platform which he built himself) might make sense in a Wikimedia context? He's open to the idea of open sourcing it. It's probably most relevant to Wikiversity and related efforts. Erik ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Bill Van Horne <billvh375 at gmail dot com> Date: Fri, Apr 13, 2012 at 9:23 AM Subject: New Service for Wikimedia? Mr Möller: I have worked for the past seven years programming a multilingual Adaptive Learning system, which is now ready for use. I am wanting to find an organization that has a character that meshes with my own, with whom I can work to provide this as a service for the betterment of humanity. Your organization tops my list of those with which I would like to explore a working relationship. I am willing to provide this service completely free to everyone. Alternatively, Wikimedia could offer this as a sliding-fee-scale subscription service to educational institutions based upon their ability to pay. In short, the profit motive is secondary to the educational aspect, but if the two can coexist, then I am open to achieving both goals. I would think that Wikimedia would like to find a business model that won't rely forever for its survival on donations from a public that can be unpredictable at times, combined with philanthropists that can also choose not to give. Alternatively, if Wikimedia is content with its current funding model, then I would be happy to explore how this service could be integrated into Wikimedia's services, such that the maximum benefit is attained with no associated profitability. I am asking for 15 minutes of your time to show you how this system integrates concepts and facts, presented in standard browser compatible media, to create absolutely individualized teaching for students anywhere that the Internet is available (and even where it is NOT available). I believe that much of Wikipedia's current content could be accessed as is, with this system acting as a content delivery system that simply acts to hierarchize the concepts into relevant associations of educational material for a learner, which are presented while a live volunteer human observes an entire group of learners at the same time, and interacts when appropriate, to support each one's individual learning process. By SKYPE or phone I can walk you through the different user interfaces so you can evaluate what I am proposing, and see if you feel it merits further investigation as an adjunct to what you guys are already doing. I developed and used this system while living in Peru, South America for many years, and there are math teachings in Spanish I can use to demo the system for you. If you want a preview of the system before agreeing to meet with me, you can go to http://www.llearnersa.com Sincerely, Bill Van Horne -- Erik Möller VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

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Re: [Wikimedia Education] Psychology
by James Heilman 18 Apr '12

18 Apr '12

Sure only 300-400 participate but the class itself was indeed 1500 first year students support by 4 ambassadors. I think it was a fair try and glad to hear that we have all learned from it. I guess the main think I wish to emphasis is that we have in place mechanisms to verify the edits of contributors through this program and we cannot simply expect the community (which is in fact very small in many academic areas) to take on this role. As mentioned by others may be funding from the University to pay for grad students to specifically review all the work? -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian

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Wiki organization
by Erik Moeller 17 Apr '12

17 Apr '12

There's a discussion here: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia.org (and talk) .. about centralizing some of the backstage wikis (including OutreachWiki), either under Meta, or possibly under www.wikimedia.org (the latter is more controversial). Essentially we'd use namespaces for more content separation. This would affect folks working on OutreachWiki today, so I wanted to bring it to your attention. What are the advantages/disadvantages of having a dedicated wiki? Now would be a good time to speak up on the talk page :-) -- Erik Möller VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

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Psychology
by James Heilman 17 Apr '12

17 Apr '12

Now I am a huge supporter of encouraging students to edit Wikipedia. However last fall I can across a psychology class of 1500 first year students contributing content to psychology articles. There was four ambassadors / teaching assistants. Two of these never made a single edit to Wikipedia and the other two had only made a handful. The prof of this class never made a main space edit. Three long standing editors from Wikiproject medicine took it upon themselves to review every edit made by this class as it was clear that no one involved with in an official manner was planning on providing any oversight. I brought my concerns to the profs attention and I guess hurt his feelings as he as left Wikipedia and stopped responding to my concerns. He also cancelled his next semesters plan to contribute. Our analysis can be found here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Colin/Introduction_to_Psychology,_Part_I#… There appears to be a mis perception from some in academia that anyone can just show up to Wikipedia and have at it. That we are little more than anarchy. We need to be very clear that this is far from the case. That while anyone can contribute, we have policies and procedures that vary from subject area to area and are supported by small groups of dedicated volunteers. And that if people / classes do not contribute in a possible manner than they will have their edits reverted and may lose their editing privileges. Unless we go about these collaborations slowly and carefully we are only going to alienate those we are reaching out to and piss off our current volunteers. We need to make sure that if students are going to contribute content that it is of high quality and that mechanisms are in place to review their work. While Wikipedia can be used as a teaching tool it is first and foremost an encyclopedia. And we can not just expect the current community of volunteers to take on the task of providing guidance to large classes of students who are here as part of their classwork. This population is different than people who are here as simple volunteers, not only in the fact that there are more of them but also due to the reason for them being here. A few things that IMO would make a difference: 1) The profs themselves must edit Wikipedia (preferably having brought something to GA or FA within their subject area). And if we are going to go with large classes than so must their teaching assistants. The only way to learn how Wikipedia works is by editing content. 2) There must be a number of hours of in class instruction on Wikipedia's policies and procedures. One does not begin writing for the New England Journal of Medicine without first learning their manual of style and referencing requirements. 3) If classes are working on content they should concentrate on improving the quality of one or a few articles. Assignments such as "go out and make an edit to the subject area of this class" should not be repeated. -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian

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Wiki Instuction manual in Albanian
by Dimce Grozdanoski 17 Apr '12

17 Apr '12

I just uploaded on outreach wiki the Albanian translation [1] of the book "Прирачник за wiki".[2] "Прирачник за wiki" is an instruction manual about wiki in Macedonian, written by Wikipedians Kiril Simeonovski, Zoran Meckarski, Slobodan Jacoski and Dimce Grozdanoski (me). The aim of this work is to help Macedonian civic organizations to start their own wiki site, wiki administration, editing its content, and building the site policy. We (WMMK in collaboration with Metamorfozis) continue to work on French translation, I hope at the end of this summer we will finish with translation. [1] http://outreach.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:PRIRACNIK_ALB_preview.… [2] http://outreach.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Wiki_Instraction_Manua… Best regards, -- Dimce Grozdanoski President of Wikimedia Macedonia Twitter: @grozdanoski

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Re: [Wikimedia Education] WikiKids - Vikidia: encyclopedia for children
by Mathias Damour 03 Apr '12

03 Apr '12

Hi, I sent a message on this list about WikiKids - Vikidia last october. Then I developped it a bit and sent to the WM Foundation mailing list, and later had a discussion about it on /simple /there : http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Simple_talk/Archive_96#WikiKids_… in last december. A few month later, I wanted to let you know about it, in case some of you are interested in this model. There is quite a few schools working on Vikidia for now, we have our own "WP:School and university projects" witch is : http://fr.vikidia.org/wiki/Vikidia:Projets_p%C3%A9dagogiques . Actually, a still better point for this project is that children say (or write) that they appreciate the content to be understandable for them, wheras Wikipedia's often isn't. And still, http://es.vikidia.org/ needs you ! -- Mathias Damour [[User:Astirmays]] onfr:wp <http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilisateur:Astirmays>,en:wp <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Astirmays> andVikidia <http://fr.vikidia.org/wiki/Utilisateur:Astirmays> 49 rue Carnot 74000 Annecy France 00 (33)4 57 09 10 56 00 (33)6 27 13 65 51 mathias.damour(a)laposte.net

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Prerequisites, we need them
by Bart 01 Apr '12

01 Apr '12

Just to let you all know, I started a discussion on prerequisites at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Ambassadors#Prerequisites.2C_we… Basically, I said that pretty much every non-Freshman course has prerequisites of one sort or another and that by not requiring prerequisites we're sort of throwing them off into the deep end before checking to see whether they can swim. If this is meant for non-Freshmen, then these students should first meet basic prerequisites. If this is meant to be a Freshman-level course, well, they're sort of editing rather esoteric and complex concepts in general for Freshman, aren't they? Bart User:Banaticus

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Education April 2012