Thank you very much for your feedback which corresponds to my experience with 7th grade students over the pastvten years. Sorry about being short, I am out in the senegalese brush and the phone connexion is sporadic.
Le 21 juil. 2016 10:13 AM, "שי כץ" shai@wikimedia.org.il a écrit :
Hello everyone,
Sorry I'm joining the correspondence late (this is the period of training teachers in Israel, busy days). It is interesting to learn from the experience that was gained around the world and different models that were developed. I'd be happy to share a few points based on the education activity in Israel.
Our main expertise concerns educational tasks of creating new articles, and significantly expanding existing ones, in Wikipedia. Here, too, experience has shown that for such tasks, level of writing is more important than age (as long as the students are not too young, that is, their age is over 13 or 14).
Regarding the skills required for such tasks – we defined the following skill Check:
1. Curiosity, the ability to ask questions
2. Good information literacy - high ability to detect and evaluate information sources
3. A good reading comprehension, including the ability to perform critical reading and distinct between important and unimportant data
4. Good writing skills, including the ability to write clearly and correctly, form independent phrases, design the structure of the text, synthesize different sources of information, and adjust the writing style to the desired genre
Another point that should be noted, is that the ability of young students (and generally, of newcomers) to cope with the task of articles writing depends not just on their personal abilities, but also the nature of the writing subject, the assignment and the training. These are the conclusions we reached in this regard:
1. Writing subjects: young students performs better when they write about concrete writing topics, such as persons or heritage sites.
2. Assignments: young students tend to deal with creating a new content unit (a new article or chapter) better than with modifying an existing text.
3. Training:
a. Young students will need assistance in choosing the writing subject, planning the process of work, locating and evaluating sources of information and drafting. Therefore, it is important to have a close and professional figure that will supervise them (we work with teachers especially trained to do it.)
b. If all the students write about a similar topic, it is easier to give them detailed guidance, because everyone can get the same recommendations regarding the structure and type of information sources. (For example, in one of our projects, 50 young students wrote articles on the same topic - leading scientists, and thus we were able to produce a uniform training brochure https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMIL_-_A_Guide_to_Writing_Articles_about_Awards_Winning_Scientists.pdf that can guide them better in the process of content creation.)
One last point: teachers may be interested in using Wikipedia as a pedagogical tool in the context of content creating, but also in the context of information consumption. I am attaching a link for a teacher guide https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikipedia_in_Class_-_Teachers_Guide.pdf that offers teachers the pedagogical use Wikipedia in both these contexts.
Thanks to everyone for sharing information, happy to be a part of this correspondence!
Shai Katz
Education Coordinator, Wikimedia Israel
2016-07-13 22:25 GMT+03:00 Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com:
I like how you think. (:
Pine
On Wed, Jul 13, 2016 at 12:21 PM, Lilit Tarkhanyan < lilit.tarkhanyan@wikimedia.am> wrote:
Yes, Pine, you are right. They are editing mainly Armenian Wiktionary and we have just begun editing Wikisource but it is an experimental trial though I think with time we'll succeed again :) There are secondary school students who simultaneously edit Wikipedia under their teachers/coordinators' guide but they are hyperactive in Wiktionary. One of our goals of involving students in editing different wikiprojects is that we want each student to find a wikiproject which fits him, which he will edit with great pleasure and as a result we have long-term editors. After gaining enough experience they move from one project to another thus they do not get bored.
Best,
Lilit Tarkhanyan Wikimedia Armenia Board Member Wikipedia Education Program Leader 2a Arshakunyats ave., 4th floor tel. +374 55 534 011
On Wed, Jul 13, 2016 at 10:52 PM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
Thanks Lilit. If I recall correctly, Wikimedia Armenia also includes middle school students in its education program? Is that correct, and if so, which projects do they tend to edit?
Thanks,
Pine
On Wed, Jul 13, 2016 at 3:30 AM, Lilit Tarkhanyan < lilit.tarkhanyan@wikimedia.am> wrote:
Hi Pine
I agree with Leigh that an educator should design his course based on his students' abilities as not all the students have strong skills of writing an encyclopedic article and in in this case the age doesn't really matter. That is the reason why we started our Education program based on Armenian Wiktionary https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/02/01/wikicamp-armenia-student-editors/ which has a real success. The majority of the program editors are secondary school students. We also began to include Armenian Wikisource in our program, so we'll see what comes of it.
Best,
Lilit Tarkhanyan Wikimedia Armenia Board Member Wikipedia Education Program Leader 2a Arshakunyats ave., 4th floor tel. +374 55 534 011
On Wed, Jul 13, 2016 at 4:07 AM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
That is very useful information for me to hear. Thanks Leigh.
I think that Wikimedia Armenia is similarly finding that they can be successful on projects other than Wikipedia; in their case I believe that their younger students are having success with Wiktionary.
Pine
On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 4:44 AM, Leigh Thelmadatter < osamadre@hotmail.com> wrote:
If we only think about WEP as writing a Wikipedia article as a class assignment, then yes, the overriding qualification is writing ability... same as for any other volunteer doing that work.
Fortunately, there are other ways to participate... just like any other Wikimedian.
I think what it really comes down to is designing a program/activities that meet the needs and strengths of students. We saw a long time ago that what works for the US and Canada does not necessarily work for other parts of the world. Even at the national level, a single model may not work.
At Tec de Monterrey, little of our activity is writing new articles as part of coursework and there are various reasons for this based on our system and culture. Instead, we focus on students doing their community service requirement (WP is a popular option for this) and Semana i (i Week) ... when students work on projects instead of going to class. We do translations, photography, video, audio and animation. (still working on convincing someone to look into hacking opportunities). These activities have worked very well for us so far, and we have excellent contribution stats.
From: wiki.pine@gmail.com Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 20:49:11 -0700 To: education@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: [Wikimedia Education] Which kinds of students are successful in education programs?
Hi Education Program participants,
I am wondering, for purposes of the "LearnWiki" video series, which kinds of students tend to be successful in Wikipedia Education Program courses. The impression I am getting is that age is less important than writing ability. I have heard that some middle school students with strong writing abilities can do well on Wikipedia, while 1st and 2nd year college students can struggle if their writing skills are weak. Would you agree with that assessment?
Are there any "skill checks" that you would recommend educators do with their students to make sure that they have the skills necessary for a WEP course?
Thanks,
Pine
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