https://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/30073
It would be interesting to see whether there's something we can learn
about Wikiversity and Wikibooks functioning and promotion, and about OER
promotion by Wikimedia chapters in general.
Nemo
(Adapting the subject to an adequate one)
Hi all,
this is a very important issue and we all involved in the global
efforts to involve universities to improve Wikipedia - and, if I may
add, raise awareness on the Wikimedia movement, which we could go
deep, but let's retrict ourselves to the apparently solely goal at the
moment.
Wikimania is far from an academic event. Fact. Only a few academics
would be interested in attending to it or, if they would be
interested, would have time for it. Fact.
The first time I've heard about Wikimania was during my masters
studies, in 2005. I was already somewhat involved with Wikipedia, but
even as a masters student, I would never think about going to what
I've read at that time what is this event about. Instead I would go to
a summer school (as I did in a previous year) or an academic
conference that would be regarded by funding agencies. This is the
view of a MS student, you can imagine a researcher who has to give
number of papers/conferences/books and so on to survive inside the
academic world (well, the well know publish or perish
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publish_or_perish>)
Frank has asked me to see with the five professors in Brazil who
joined the Wikipedia Education Program if they would be interested in
a meeting in the mid of the semester to share their, his and
ambassadors experiences with the program. I've asked three of them
until now (one is Juliana who raised the subject we are discussing
here, who already gave the nice idea to transform the event in an
academic meeting) and my feeling is that they will attend when they
have time, which is not that much - waiting other professors answers
and reactions to Juliana's proposal.
I don't know very much about Wikipedia Academy
<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Academy> and I'd love to
hear more details about it and if it's aligned to the purpose of
bringing attention of the academic world to Wikimedia projects, not
only as a research field (indeed, a very interesting one, as Benkler
teach us, for instance), but maybe as a source of inspiration from
interesting peer production process that academia has a lot to learn -
I believe that in a ideal world, if most forms of knowledge was freely
shared, raw reserarch data, for instance [1], the processos of
building new knowledge would be much faster (this is far from
happening, if it will).
I belive that professors joining these global education efforts are
usually those commited to education. Those I've choose are.* I thnk
one way to bring more attention from academia would be to invest more
thoughts (I am not saying it was not invested) on how would
professors, key figures in this program, together. The program is
expanding now. How will professors, with such scarce time, share their
experiences and how would they benefit from it?
I believe those are a few and important challenges to make the program
expand inside academia.
Best,
Tom
*Besides most public universities in Brazil have education as one of
their pillars, research comes first. I've seen a lot of professors who
produce amazing educational resources, but they are treated in the
same way as those professors who simply copy and paste American or
European books on the blockboard, instead of using some of their time
to do what is written in the contract with the institution he or she
works.
[1] http://pantonprinciples.org/
On Sun, Mar 25, 2012 at 11:51 PM, Bart <bart.humphries(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> In other words, for academics to take it seriously (ask for time off,
> volunteer time to write a paper, spend money to travel out there, stay
> at a hotel, eat, etc.), it has to be run like a "real" academic
> conference. I could go present a topic and speak for an hour at my
> local Rotary club (and I have), but it's not really going to mean much
> professionally and I wouldn't be putting it on either my resume or
> curriculum vitae. Presenting a topic in a somewhat competitive forum
> where the speakers are vetted and the presentation topics have
> generally been run through some basic fact checking to make sure
> they're not complete bunkum would be something of a "feather in my
> cap", something that I would definitely put down on at least my
> curriculum vitae.
>
> So, the question should be, is Wikimania a "real" academic conference,
> or a fan convention (or both)? I'd argue that, in its current state,
> Wikimania is basically a fan convention, designed as a big
> meet-and-greet for Wikipedia editors, with some presentations given
> that likely haven't been put up against any sort of test other than
> "It's not Time Cube, right?" That's cool, I enjoy fun conventions,
> but it's going to be difficult to attract "serious" academics to come
> as presenters.
>
> Bart User:Banaticus
--
Everton Zanella Alvarenga (also Tom)
Wikimedia Brasil
Wikimedia Foundation
Are you going to Wikimania this year? I'm excited to see so many
education-related sessions proposed so far! I've started a list of
education-related submissions on this page:
http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Education_Program/Wikimania_20…
But I'm sure the list is missing some -- please add submissions you
see! And please click through and add yourself to the interested
attendees list for the sessions you think sound interesting.
I'm also trying to coordinate some kind of education meet-up while
we're there. There's also a list on that page of people who are hoping
to or planning to attend Wikimania; please add yourself and add any
ideas you have about the best things we could do as a group there.
LiAnna
--
LiAnna Davis
Wikipedia Education Program Communications Manager
Wikimedia Foundation
http://education.wikimedia.org
(415) 839-6885 x6649
ldavis(a)wikimedia.org
Hello all! Is there anyone planning to present a paper at the Wikipedia
Academy <http://wikipedia-academy.de/2012/wiki/Main_Page> conference in
Berlin, in June? I'd like to present the results of my course experience
last year, and I believe it would be great to articulate a joint session
with other interested professors/ambassadors. I'm still not sure yet about
which topic of interest<http://wikipedia-academy.de/2012/wiki/Topics_of_Interest>would
be more appropriate for discussion on the Wikipedia Education
Program, though.
If anyone is interested, please let me know.
Juliana Bastos Marques
UNIRIO - Brazil
(WP username: Domusaurea)
We wrote a short report on the Czech Ambassador Program, just in case anyone is interested... :-)Czech Ambassador Program(key notes (as of 20 February 2012))* The program has been officially running for approx. 8 months now; mainpage available at http://ambasadorstvi.wikimedia.cz (Czech only)* We are a small group of approximately 5 ambassadors and a few sympathisers. We have consulted our goals with each other (on a meeting in Prague) and with other similar initiatives (mainly people from the US ambassador program)* We currently operate mainly in Prague (Institute for Environmental Studies, Faculty of Science, Pedagogical Faculty), to a lesser extent in Olomouc (Philosophical Faculty). New project is currently being prepared in Brno (Philosophical Faculty). Some more projects are in the state of development (two secondary schools in Prague).* The ambassadors are free to decide their project‘s rules. We have developed two different strategies: ** The first brings high-qu
ality articles, but is very time-consuming, as it involves regular meetings with students and helping them, as well as a lot of editing work. Example: Institute for Environmental Studies** The second brings average-quality articles (at best), but needs little maintenance (for example, just a help page for the students + explaining how to ask for help on Wikipedia + some editing work). Example: Immunology at Faculty of Science* We found out that the best way to start new projects is to advertise the ambassador program as much as possible. It has proven of almost no use to „tell the teachers“ into establishing their projects. The motivation of the teacher is highest when he/she personally contacts us.* We have published a long interview with Petr Broz (user:Chmee2) in a national newspaper „Právo“ about Wikipedia, putting stress on his ambassador project at the Institute for Environmental Studies. * New teachers are contacting us, willing to start their own ambassador
project.---
Statistics for the winter term 2012:* Institute for Environmental Studies, Charles University – finished, 30 high-quality articles **see English report at: http://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedie:WikiProjekt_Chr%C3%A1n%C4%9Bn%C3%A1_…
* Immunology at Faculty of Science, Charles University – in progress, currently 6 articles **see list of articles at: http://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedie:Ambasadorstv%C3%AD/Pokroky_z_imunolo… * Art History at Philosophical Faculty, University of Palacky – in progress, currently about 40 articles that need some editing work (data incomplete)**see list of articles at http://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedie:Ambasadorstv%C3%AD/Filozofick%C3%A1_…
************************
Vojtěch Dostál
Mail vojtech.dostal(a)centrum.cz
twitter.com/medi_cago
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Leigh Thelmadatter <osamadre(a)hotmail.com>
Date: Fri, Feb 24, 2012 at 4:44 AM
Subject: Wikipedia Signpost article
To: Teachers Wikipedia <teaching-with-wikipedia(a)listserv.olemiss.edu>
Pharos has put something I wrote as a draft article for the Wikipedia
Signpost to push for an education column in the publication.
Please take a look at the draft here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Education_report and feel free
to participate!
Hope you can join us in 20 minutes for the Wikipedia Education Program
Metrics and Activities Meeting. It's a monthly open meeting where we
hear about education programs around the world, and volunteers share
any updates of what's happening in their countries. Please feel free
to join and share what you're up to!
Here's a link on how to join:
http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Education_Program_Metrics_and_…
Please add your username to the distribution list if you'd like to be
notified of future meetings on your talk page.
LiAnna
--
LiAnna Davis
Wikipedia Education Program Communications Manager
Wikimedia Foundation
http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Education_Program
(415) 839-6885 x6649
ldavis(a)wikimedia.org
Have you started a Wikipedia Education Program in your country? Are you one of those pioneers who used Wikipedia as a teaching tool in the classroom? Are you an individual volunteer or a chapters representative who helps instructors with incorporating Wikipedia into their curriculum?
Please take a look at this page and help with building the "Teaching-with-Wikipedia Cookbook" as part of Wikimania 2012:
http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Teaching-with-Wikipedia_Cookbook_%28Wiki…
Thanks,
Frank
If you're interested in hearing more about the Wikipedia Education
Program, please join us in 15 hours for the January Metrics and
Activities Meeting, at 16:00 UTC on 31 January. Information on how to
join and a time zone converter are here:
http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Education_Program_Metrics_and_…
If you'd like to be notified about future meetings on your talk page,
please sign the interest list on that page.
LiAnna