Another thought
Is the WMFoundation putting out a press release saying 'thanks' to the thousands of donors who have helped it to hit its global fund raising targets?
If it isn't, shouldn't we be doing it?
-------------------------------------------------- From: "Charles Matthews" charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com Sent: Saturday, January 09, 2010 11:09 AM To: wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] "Schoolchildren told to avoidWikipedia"-Telegraph> Thomas Dalton wrote:
Check this out: http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6032750
It's about social media and education, which is an interesting topic in itself, but most importantly it contains this line:
"Wikis are web pages that can be easily edited, the most famous of which is Wikipedia, the world's largest encyclopedia."
A journalist knows the difference between "wiki" and "Wikipedia" - joy of joys! (The downside is that it suggests schools improve/create an article about their school as an example, which is something of a COI...)
The next para is pretty interesting:
"When Tom Rae took over as the head of Tynecastle High School in Edinburgh, he noticed the school's Wikipedia entry was outdated and short on hard facts. As he was not sure how to update it, he set his senior students the task of doing it. In just under a week, a group of more than 10 students had researched and rewritten it. They became the first Tynecastle students to be published in Wikipedia. How empowering is that?"
The point (for the guide that Brian and I are apparently writing) is that "empowerment" is a good buzzword, but there is a small, treacherous area to explore from a teachers' point of view: accounts for minors should not give personal details, so a "role account" for say, Tynecastle High School, looks more appropriate. But there are administrative reefs also, namely the deprecation of role accounts and shared passwords in general. Something can be done in practical terms by stating that the project has a fixed term, will be retired, and will have its password changed by a school staff member.
Charles
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