New subject: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: [Wikimedia Announcements] Israel’s Ministry of Education & Wikimedia Israel Agree On New, Unique Initiative

11 Jun 2014

I'm forwarding this good news from WikimediaAnnounce-l that mysteriously
wasn't received by Wikimedia-l. I'm sending this to Wikimedia-l and
Education-l.

Pine

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Itzik - Wikimedia Israel &lt;itzik(a)wikimedia.org.il&gt;
Date: Tue, Jun 10, 2014 at 8:58 PM
Subject: [Wikimedia Announcements] Israel’s Ministry of Education &
Wikimedia Israel Agree On New, Unique Initiative
To: wikimediaannounce-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org

(Posted also on the Wikimedia Blog:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/06/10/israels-ministry-of-education-wikimed…
)

An agreement was met in a meeting between Rabbi Shai Piron, Israel’s
Education Minister, Jan-Bart de Vreede, Chair of the Wikimedia Foundation
Board of Trustees, Itzik Edri, Chair of the Wikimedia Israel Board and
Michal Lester, Executive Director of Wikimedia Israel, regarding a shared
cooperation with Wikimedia Israel in the framework of the ministry’s school
curricula in the coming years. Through the planned cooperation, history,
geography and science teachers will receive special professional training
to instruct students on how to contribute to new or incomplete Wikipedia
articles for which information is lacking or inadequate.

The Education Ministry will also examine the possibility of integrating
Wikipedia writing assignments in the teaching of research and community
involvement. They will also consider having students who speak additional
languages (primarily English and Russian) write Wikipedia articles about
Israel in those particular languages.

Education Minister Rabbi Shai Piron said, “It is important to us that the
education system in Israel leads in innovation and cooperating with
Wikipedia is a wonderful opportunity to think outside the box and enable
students in Israel to do things that make a difference from which others
can also benefit.”

Jan-Bart de Vreede, Chair of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees
said, “Israel is today among the leading countries in the integration of
Wikipedia in the education system and academia. I hope our joint work model
will also serve as an example to other education systems around the world.”

In the framework of cooperation that is already in place between Wikimedia
Israel and the Ministry of education, several pilot projects are being
conducted. The projects involve teacher training in good Wikipedia usage,
article composition, Wikipedia article writing by gifted high school
students and the teaching of proper Wikipedia usage to elementary
schoolchildren. It is worth mentioning that through cooperation with
academics in a variety of universities and colleges throughout Israel,
hundreds of articles are written each year by students in courses. Thus
students write Wikipedia articles as part of their degrees, sometimes even
in lieu of exams or final papers. The Faculty of Medicine at Tel Aviv
University recently conducted a special 2-credit course on the subject of
Wikipedia and medicine.

Survey results published last week as part of Wikipedia Academy 2014 Israel
revealed that 84% of the Israeli public relies heavily on Wikipedia and 74%
say that it provides all the information they need. Over one third of the
population expressed interest in learning to write for Wikipedia.

*Regards,Itzik Edri*
Chairperson, Wikimedia Israel
+972-(0)-54-5878078 | http://www.wikimedia.org.il
Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the
sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment!

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