I agree with this, wholeheartedly. We should be making an attempt to speak to some of the immigrant/international communities in the DC area - I'd be in favor of expanding the outreach to the suburbs in both Maryland and Virginia. There are significant Mongolian, Afghan, Ethiopian, Salvadoran, Bolivian, and Middle Eastern communities in this area, to name a few - I think we should be targeting at least some of our outreach to them. Perhaps encouraging the development of the various foreign-language Wikis. Adult learning programs would be great - we could also set something up through Fairfax County or Arlington County libraries (or Montgomery County or PG County, of course). 2011/6/6 Alex Stinson <stinsoad(a)dukes.jmu.edu>

Certainly a great idea, and no objections to it or an honorarium. We need to figure out what organizations would be best to work with on deploying it. Alex Stinson On Mon, Jun 6, 2011 at 4:08 PM, Sage Ross <sross(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:

Certainly a good idea to offer something to people who have done a bit of Wikipedia editing, but don't want to wade through all the documentation to figure out next steps. So yes, an intermediate course would be good, though tricky to figure out exactly what to assume is already known by people who haven't been through the beginning course. As for the length (of both the beginning and intermediate course), it's probably tricky to decide the length without actually sitting down and doing (rough) lesson plans. It might well be that ten classes are needed to get to a reasonable editing ability for just a beginner. (Depends, of course, on whether we're talking about 60 minute or 90 minute or - I hope not - 120 minute classes.) I'm a bit more skeptical of prospects for an advanced course, for several reasons: * There are a lot of directions it could go (bots, scripts, AWB and other tools, etc.; in fact, I have five or so chapters on advanced topics that never made it into Wikipedia: The Missing Manual ), and it's not clear that what interests some students would interest others. * Those who have gotten to the point where they are ready for an advanced course probably have gotten fairly good at learning by reading the voluminous Wikipedia documentation, and so don't necessarily need a course. * There are lots of editors at Wikipedia willing to do one-on-one help (IRC), and helping on advanced topics (as opposed to very basic editing) is probably fairly interesting to them. Instead, perhaps an "advanced discussion group" would work better. Or even a series of discussion meetings, covering a different topic each time. In any case, I suggest we focus on beginning (and possibly intermediate) courses; when we have those up and running successfully, then we'll have more time and energy to think about advanced topics. -- John ----- Original Message ----- From: "N Michael Bashour" <nicholasbashour(a)gmail.com> To: wikimedia-dc(a)lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Monday, June 6, 2011 11:12:42 AM Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-DC] What programs would you like to see in 2012? I suggest three 4/5-session courses, beginner, intermeidate, and advanced. Some people who already know the basics would only register for the intermediate or advnaced classes, while those who don't cant take all 3 in succession. Sincerely, N Michael Bashour On Mon, Jun 6, 2011 at 10:08 AM, Sage Ross <sross(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-DC mailing list Wikimedia-DC(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-dc