Hello all,
last friday Wikimedia Germany realised a pilot scheme for a new project called "Wikipedia at schools". It is based on the fact that Wikipedia evidently is the most popular source of information for german pupils today. During september 2006 we asked 98 pupils at the age of seventeen of the "Andreanum" [1] at Hildesheim (about 25 km southeast of Hanover) which source of information they would prefer to prepare their homework. A total of 63 per cent stated that they favor Wikipedia and Google (which will lead them to Wikipedia in nearly all cases) over printed works. The pupils answers to other questions clearly showed us that they fully trusted in all of the information they find online. Almost never they challenge those information nor do they analyze its quality. But beside the fact that Wikipedias quality increases each day we have to admit that there are certain areas where quality improvement is badly needed. We should feel responsible to the pupils for the clarification of this fact and for tips how to recognize the quality of a Wikipedia article (does the editor cite reliable sources? is the article written from a neutral point of view? etc.)
So we organized a day of information about Wikipedia for all pupils of the eleventh grade of the Andreanum as well as for their teachers and parents. The day started at 10 o'clock in the morning with a general introduction about the goals, history and functionality of Wikipedia. Afterwards we had two workshops for pupils and one workshop for teachers, taking two hours each. In particular the workshop for teachers cleary showed us a great need for detailed information about the functionality of Wikipedia. None of the teachers knew much about how the articles emerge and which instruments of quality improvement already exist. After a short break we had another block of workshops for pupils and for parents. At five o'clock in the evening all 110 pupils and about 20 teachers and parents had attended at least one workshop. The day ended with a lecture held by a teacher of a school at Fulda (about 80 km northeast of Frankfurt) who wrote a short article for the english Wikipedia with the pupils of her English class in 2005[2] and who gave us a detailed report about her experiences.
Our next goal will be to evaluate our work and to compile a short guidebook about Wikipedia for pupils and teachers[3]. Together with the Andreanum at Hildesheim, Wikimedia Germany will enter a contest called "Deutscher Innovationspreis für nachhaltige Bildung" (German Innovation Award for Lasting Education)[4].
Photos we took at Hildesheim can be found on Commons: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Schulprojekt
Wikimedia Germany is deeply indebted to the two administrators User:Finanzer and User:Markus_Mueller who worked with the pupils last friday and to the Andreanum Hildesheim for its cooperation.
Greetings, Frank Schulenburg
Board member of Wikimedia Germany Phone +49 (0)551 2726447 Frank.Schulenburg [at] wikimedia.de
[1] Founded before 1225, the "Andreanum" is one of the oldest schools in Germany http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gymnasium_Andreanum_%28Hildesheim%29 [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_Norris [3] http://de.wikiversity.org/wiki/Projekt:Online-Nachschlagewerke_in_der_schuli... [4] http://deutscher-innovationspreis.de/