I agree that efforts to support education efforts outside of certain areas (US, Middle
East) have been poor over the past few years, and a more decentralized model is necessary.
This is probably one reason why chapters have taken over educational promotion in many
places, despite a Foundation education program.
Last March, an Education Cooperative was initiated by Rod Dunican with the idea of
bringing together education leaders, including those who have not had direct Foundation
support. It is my hope that this develops as a mechanism to allow the hearing of more
voices in how Wikipedia in education develops and provide more localized support than in
the past.
If you havent done so (lately) please check the Education portal at
education.wikimedia.org as it is being redeveloped and if you are not a subscriber, you
can subscribe to the monthly newsletter either by talk page or by email. There will also
be chances for people to voice their needs at Wikimania as well.
From: charles.andres.wmch(a)gmail.com
Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2014 11:20:03 +0200
To: education(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: [Wikimedia Education] Fwd: [Wmfcc-l] [PRESS] Public schools to integrate
Wikipedia into curriculum
I haven’t been able to send this message to both mailing list, because of the security
settings of WMF server
Charles
I think this is a top priority and we should really focus on having a central document
with ALL this type of initiative, including University or school level only.
What I see in Switzerland is that the argument « look they have done that » is not an
efficient incentive, because people answered you « yes but we are different ».
Whereas if we are able to show all the type of « wikipedia integration into curriculum »
it will be more easy to convince people.
In the meantime, having case studies to illustrate is not enough if we do not have the
documentation ready to support the actual integration of wikipedia, we cannot move
forward.
In this sense the WMF has done a great job with several brochures, but obviously they are
in English and we do not have an efficient way to translate and localized them.
Due to the volunteer nature of our movement, we are always struggling between waiting the
community to translate or pushing the staff to do it.
The fully centralize model wouldn’t be good because we would lack the « localization »
part, but a fully decentralize model is not good too, it means repeating the same effort
in different place, so a waste of money and/or time.
I do not have a magical answer, but I deeply believe the availability of the documentation
in as much as language possible is a main challenge, and we need to adress it.
Charles
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Le 10 juin 2014 à 20:46, Victor Grigas <vgrigas(a)wikimedia.org> a écrit :Does anyone
know of any other nation-level or regional-level efforts like this anywhere? I think
it's worth documenting to inspire other education systems to do the same.
On Tue, Jun 10, 2014 at 1:30 PM, Bishakha Datta <bdatta(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
Really exciting development with huge potential. You guys are always breaking new ground,
Itzik.
And bravo, Jan-Bart!
Best
Bishakha
On Jun 10, 2014 11:52 PM, "Lila Tretikov" <lila(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
This is wonderful -- I wonder if this is something we can knowledge-share with across
chapters.
Is there a way that this program will be measured/analyzed?
Thanks for sharing,
Lila
On Tue, Jun 10, 2014 at 10:51 AM, Stevie Benton <stevie.benton(a)wikimedia.org.uk>
wrote:
I saw this earlier and didn't get around to sharing with this list. What I did want
to say is that this is a fantastic piece of work and well done to everyone. In my mind, at
least, this is something of a gold standard ambition for our movement. It shows the
content on the projects is of an educational quality, that it is taken seriously and that
the value of the projects as serious educational tools is being recognised.
Many congrats to everyone, especially to WMIL and to Jan-Bart!
Stevie
On 10 June 2014 18:45, Itzik Edri <itzik(a)infra.co.il> wrote:
Following Jan-Bart's visit in Israel. Published today on the print & online
version and here is the English version:
http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=18059
We'll later publish a blog post about it (we are waiting to the social-media team
response).
Public schools to integrate Wikipedia into curriculum
Education Minister Shay Piron meets with Wikimedia Foundation Chairman Jan-Bart de Vreede,
announces that the state's public schools will instruct teachers on how to teach
students to write content for Wikipedia in Hebrew and other languages.
Yael Branovsky and Israel Hayom Staff
Online encyclopedia project Wikipedia is a known research shortcut for students seeking
online information and sources for their written assignments. But now, a new initiative
promoted by the Education Ministry is seeking to have Israeli students produce Wikiepdia
entries themselves.
The program was suggested last week during a meeting between Education Minister Shay Piron
and Wikimedia Foundation Chairman Jan-Bart de Vreede, with the Education Ministry
expressing interest in integrating Wikipedia into its "meaningful learning"
initiative.
A statement posted on the Education Ministry's website read, "Meaningful language
learning is characterized by its being active, constructive, authentic and cooperative.
Learners are motivated when they have the opportunity to engage in activities that they
feel are useful in their lives."
To integrate Wikipedia, history, geography or science teachers would undergo a
professional training program that would instruct them on how to help students complete
Wikipedia entries.
In addition, the ministry is weighing whether to allow students who speak foreign
languages or whose mother tongue is not Hebrew to write entries on Wikipedia sites in
other languages, the goal of which is also to help improve Israel's image abroad.
The Education Ministry stressed that the initiative is a win-win situation for all sides.
On the one hand, students will help broaden the breadth of Hebrew Wikipedia's entries,
and on the other hand students will be able to develop the ability to research, write and
edit informative articles, helping to both filter out wrong information and verify what
has already been written.
Worldwide, the program marks the largest joint initiative between public education and the
Wikipedia movement.
"It is important that the education system in Israel leads in innovation, and this
joint effort with Wikipedia is a wonderful opportunity to think outside the box, which
lets students in Israel do impactful things that others can enjoy," Piron said.
De Vreede praised Israel for championing the integration of Wikipedia into the education
system and academia.
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