Dear fellow Wikipedians:
This is to let you know about my most recent article, co-authored with former student Kate Rattray. We’re especially proud of this piece, in which we make a pedagogical and public-service case for writing and editing Wikipedia articles for law school credit. The article has just been published in the Journal of Legal Education, which, appropriately, is an open-access journal. The current volume can be found here: http://jle.aals.org/home/. You can also read an abstract and download the article from my SSRN (Social Sciences Research Network) website, here: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2729241.
Yours truly,
John Kleefeld
Associate Professor, College of Law
University of Saskatchewan
15 Campus Drive
Saskatoon SK S7N 5A6
tel: (+1) 306.966.1039
email: john.kleefeld(a)usask.ca
skype: johnkleefeld
twitter: @johnkleefeld
web: http://law.usask.ca/find-people/faculty/kleefeld-john.php
Good evening, Professor Christie. My name is Lixxx235, and I'm a Wikipedia
editor and an Online Ambassador with the Wikipedia Education Program. (
userpage <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Lixxx235>)
It's come to my attention (through a student's request for help via
Wikipedia's live chat) that you have given your students assignments
relating to editing Wikipedia. While the Wikipedia Education Program fully
supports such assignments, and endorses a number of courses at various
universities around the world, according to one of your students, an
assignment you've given seems to have students confused and is causing
submissions in violation of some Wikipedia policies and wasting volunteer
and student time. For example, this
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Fuel_controlled_fires_…>
is an entry one of your students tried to get help on from our live help
chat. This submission does not meet Wikipedia guidelines such as notability
policies, policies requiring verifiability of material, and policies
requiring a neutral point of view (NPOV) to be kept. In addition, it was
not in Wikipedia's standard format.
We'd love to get in touch with you. Please reply back to
lixxx235wikipedia(a)gmail.com and education(a)lists.wikimedia.org to see how we
can help you develop good assignments for editing Wikipedia and how we can
resolve some issues with your current assignment.
All the best,
Lixxx235
English Wikipedia
Dear WikiFriends,
I'm hoping you & yours are all well, safe and healthy in these
unprecedented times we have all found ourselves in.
I'm writing you today with my 'educator & researcher' hat on, with a
special request to help Piotr Konieczny & I spread the word about a new
global research we are conducting.
While using Wikimedia-related assignments (Wikipedia, Commons, WikiBooks,
WikiSource, Wikidata, Wiktionary etc) in the classroom has been used all
over the world for over a decade, very little research was conducted about
what instructors who have tried it actually think about the experience.
We are hoping that answering the questions in the survey will help us
better understand:
- Whether this teaching approach is effective (or not)
- What are some of the challenges experienced by instructors
- How the process could be improved
The questions are meant for any instructors running a wiki assignment,
whether it is in k-12 or higher education, formal or informal educational
setting. We are hoping the results will allow us to globally share
experiences and learn from one another, so we can make it smoother, easier
and more effective for educators joining these efforts.
It is important to note that this would be the first time (that we know
of!) that an academic research of this type has been conducted around the
world, so we really need your help in spreading the word about it in your
local communities. We're hoping that any of you, supporting such
initiatives around the world over the years, would forward it to your local
Education contacts and ask them to participate. The more instructors
participating, the better.
We realize that it would have been great to have the questionnaire in a
variety of languages, but in order for us to process the data properly and
not via third-party translations and keep the anonymity and privacy of
participants, it was decided to release the survey just in English.
Here is a link to the survey - https://tinyurl.com/yd6dfata
<https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftinyurl.com%2Fyd6dfata%3Ffbcli…>
.
Thank you all in advance, and of course, if there are any questions, Piotr
& I are here.
Stay healthy & safe!
Shani.
-----------------------------------------------
*Shani Evenstein Sigalov*
* Lecturer, Tel Aviv University.
* EdTech Innovation Strategist, NY/American Medical Program, Sackler School
of Medicine, Tel Aviv University.
* PhD Candidate, School of Education, Tel Aviv University.
* Azrieli Foundation Research Fellow.
* OER & Emerging Technologies Coordinator, UNESCO Chair
<https://education.tau.ac.il/node/3495> on Technology, Internationalization
and Education, School of Education, Tel Aviv University
<https://education.tau.ac.il/node/3495>.
* Member of the Board of Trustees
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/profile/shani-evenstein-sigalov/>, Wikimedia
Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>.
* Chairperson, The Hebrew Literature Digitization Society
<http://www.israelgives.org/amuta/580428621>.
* Chief Editor, Project Ben-Yehuda <http://benyehuda.org>.
+972-525640648
(Apologies if you already received this; I tried to send it earlier this
week but I think it didn't go through.)
Fellow education program leaders,
The Wikipedia & Education User Group has a request for you: Please share
the usernames of your participants with us!
Here’s why: We would like to quantify the impact the global education
program is having on the Wikimedia projects’ new active editor numbers. We
think the percentage of new active editors to all language Wikimedia
projects coming from all the educational efforts happening around the world
is likely impressive, but we have no way of knowing without having access
to usernames!
That’s where you come in. Whether your program is new with only a handful
of editors or a long-established program with hundreds of participants, we
want you to be counted. We are measuring our collective program’s impact,
and getting data from as many programs as possible, no matter their size,
is important!
Here’s what we need:
* You are best positioned to determine your own definition of which editors
come through your education program. Education programs look different
around the world; we trust if you say this person started editing through
your education program that they are part of our global education community.
* The timeframe we are looking for is January 1, 2019, through June 30,
2020 (or today, if you’re sending us names before then). Please share all
usernames of new editors who joined through your education program between
the start of 2019 through the first half of 2020.
* We only need usernames; we do not need the leading User: or which
Wikimedia project(s) they edited.
* Please send these by June 30, 2020.
To share your usernames:
* If you are using the Program & Events Dashboard (
https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/), simply send an email to
lianna(a)wikiedu.org (offlist) with a link to your campaign. If not every
program within that campaign is an education program, include in the body
of the email which program(s) should be considered part of your education
program.
* If you do not use the Program & Events Dashboard, please collect
usernames into a spreadsheet and upload that spreadsheet here:
https://www.dropbox.com/request/PMJHRjgXuxJsM7yEmdGf (note: you do not need
to have a Dropbox account to submit a file here)
If you have any questions, please email LiAnna (lianna(a)wikiedu.org).
On behalf of the Wikipedia & Education User Group,
LiAnna
Have any burning questions about how to use PetScan or the Program & Events
Dashboard for your Education Program? You're not alone: The Wikipedia &
Education User Group's recent tech needs survey revealed these were the two
most popular tools used by education program leaders, and many have
questions about how to use them more effectively!
Thus, the board of the Wikipedia & Education User Group invites you to
attend our user group's next Open Meeting, focused this month on tech
tools. We're honored to host as featured speakers *Magnus Manske*, creator
of PetScan, and *Sage Ross*, creator of the Program & Events Dashboard.
Magnus and Sage will both do brief tutorials about how to use their tools,
with plenty of time for Q&A from program leaders about each tool.
As usual, the user group board will also provide an update on our
activities and how you can be involved in the group.
Join us:
Tuesday, June 30, 15:00 - 16:30 UTC
Link to join: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83456569354
Add to your Google Calendar:
https://www.google.com/calendar/render?action=TEMPLATE&text=Wikipedia+%26+E…
Hey everyone,
Did you know that:
Parvathishri from India is using Wikimedia projects to spread awareness on
digital literacy? or about Helena Dvořáková from Czech Republic as she is
working to support senior editors through Wiki Clubs in Prague? or about Oleh
Kushch from Ukraine who is highlighted in this month's Education Newsletter
for their experience in running Wikimedia education activities in High
schools?
There are other volunteers who are using Wikimedia projects in Education.
You can find some of them here: here:
https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Education_Highlights/Wikimedia…
If you want to highlight someone from the education community for their
work, please follow this:
https://discuss-space.wmflabs.org/t/highlighting-individuals-involved-with-…
---
Also, the June edition of the Education Newsletter has been published, with
articles from Kosovo, Serbia and some updates from the education team! You
can find it here:
https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education/Newsletter/June_2020.
Best!
--
*Sailesh Patnaik*
Program Coordinator, Education
Hi everyone,
This is an invitation to join the monthly education office hours! The o
ffice hours are a dedicated time and an online space to have conversations
and discussions related to Wikimedia and education activities, listen and
learn from each other's projects and activities. Join us for the month of
June on 25th June 2020 at 12:00 PM UTC.
You can find details to join the meeting here:
https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education/About/Office_Hours/June_25_20…
Looking forward to seeing you all then, Please let me know if you have any
questions.
Do you want to reach out to the education team for a 1:1 consultation?
Request for a slot for Education Office Space (
ttps://outreach.wikimedia. org/wiki/Education/About/Office_Space
<https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education/About/Office_Space> ) by
filling this google form ( http://bit.ly/EduOfficeSpace )
Dhanyabaad!
--
*Sailesh Patnaik*
Program Coordinator, Education
Hey everyone,
Hope you are all doing well. Sending love and good thoughts.
It is time for the June edition of the Education newsletter, and we are
excited to read about the amazing work you have done or planning to do this
month.
The last date for submitting your article for the education newsletter is
20th of June. Please submit your article at the Education newsroom:
https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education/News/Newsroom
Let me know if you need more time to publish your article/s.
If you have missed the May edition of the newsletter, find it here:
https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education/Newsletter/May_2020.
Do you know of a community member of the Wikimedia education community that
we should meet? Nominate them for a feature by following this
<https://discuss-space.wmflabs.org/t/highlighting-individuals-involved-with-…>
Dhanyabaad!
--
*Sailesh Patnaik*
Program Coordinator, Education