I can see five broad ways we can try and engage in education. The diversity
of possibilities is great but it means that it's difficult to take a
structured approach: each of these things needs a proper working group or
task force, and effort on many fronts, in order to have a chance of success.
Hence I welcome the list’s input on how we should focus. If we can get a
small group of people with ideas and contacts in each area, that would be
fantastic. So, five areas:
* Secondary education: get schools using the projects in their educational
activities, as Ollie Bray talked about in his keynote at the AGM. This could
include projects with content outputs, such as QR-tagging a museum or
documenting local geography. There are very broad possibilities here.
* Adult education, as proposed by Roger (I agree with WSC that we should
promote “contributing” rather than “creating articles”)
* Higher education practice: get a Campus Ambassador programme working in UK
universities. Knock on effects: student Wikipedia societies; Wikipedia
assignments getting accepted as teaching practice; big improvements to
swathes of WP articles on difficult academic subjects.
* Higher education: get Wikimedia projects recognized by universities as a
platform for disseminating and archiving content, whether for teaching or
research. Convince funders and projects that we can take care of their
content, and give it exposure, at least as well as they can.
* Higher education: get university courses using Wikiversity as a platform,
thereby improving WV and opening up educational practice.
I work in HE, and I’ve made that a priority. Apologies, but with adult
education I’ve not got past some exploratory emails. The body for this
sector was Lifelong Learning UK, but that was wound up earlier this year.
NIACE (
www.niace.org.uk) seems the most relevant body. Finding an enthusiast
in a relevant local or national body would be a way to break through to many
tutors around the country.
There is a working group for the Campus Ambassador project and Alex has been
great at pushing this forward, including putting out the call for CA
applicants. We are taking the sustainability of this project seriously.
There are more people who can and will be involved, but I’m not sure how to
how to co-ordinate this with the other activities.
In the area of getting universities using us as a content platform, Fae and
I are talking to funding bodies and things are moving in a positive
direction. We’re aiming not just to arrange events with these organisations,
but to affect strategy in a lasting way. In the last few weeks I’ve spoken
at the Open Educational Resource conference and, as another way to reach out
to that community, created this document for CETIS, which provides advice to
the whole sector:
http://wiki.cetis.ac.uk/Wikimedia_Commons_for_UKOER_resources
There’s a lot more to be done in terms of reaching out to individual
projects and teaching support units.
Dealing with universities and national educational bodies, we face a similar
environment to working with museums and libraries, in that there’s financial
and organisational turmoil, and a large proportion of teaching support
colleagues in my university and nationally are in some sort of redundancy or
job reallocation process. This doesn’t prevent WMUK doing what we want to
do, but slows the process and means people have time for us than we would
have a couple of years ago.
Higher Education and WV: Leutha is keen on this and I think there are things
I can do to help. In terms of affecting teaching practice, there are
publications and projects we can target.
Schools: I understand Steve V. has a good relationship with a Bristol
primary school as a result of Jimmy’s visit back in January, and we have
other school educators in our community.
What would help now, with all these areas, is if people on this list respond
to me in private email about what goals they can help us work towards, and I
assemble a plan with next steps and who can do them. I envisage a whole area
of the WMUK site about our work with education, but before I do that I need
to audit what we can reasonably aim to do, rather than make promises we
can’t deliver on.
If you've read this long email, you've proved sufficient dedication to the
cause. ;)
On Fri, Jun 3, 2011 at 10:17 PM, Thomas Morton <morton.thomas(a)googlemail.com
wrote:
> Roger,
>
> Would be interested to see if Martin made any progress with that. I have to
> submit lesson plans next week so hopefully might have something of my own to
> contribute by then.
>
> Pitching this stuff is hard; kids at different ages see things differently,
> and kids in different areas age at different speeds.
>
> On the other matter; you're clearly way more experienced at this teaching
> lark than me :) but personally I find that this is the sort of thing that is
> best taught by "doing". One thing I did with on old teaching group (last
> year) was set up a cloned wiki with some content copied from Wikipedia and
> got them to edit it over the course of a few sessions
> (including collaborating using talk pages etc.) One of the biggest problems
> with new editors is helping them understand the eco-system.
>
> Tom
>
> On 1 June 2011 22:36, Roger Bamkin <victuallers(a)gmail.com
wrote:
>
>> Two minor threads: Martin Poulter and I discussed how we could put
>> together a teaching plan so that someone like yourself could organise an
>> enevening course in "creating your own wiki page" ... not sure whether
>> Martin made any progress. I know he was investigating ... I suspect there
>> are a lot of people who would like to put their local history work into
>> Wikipedia ... if we just explained it and demo ed it at the same time.
>>
>> Other thread. I teach secondary ICT. I'm planning to teach intro to Wiki
>> editting next week. I have still to find some resources. Any help
>> appreciated.
>>
>> regards
>> Roger B
>>
>> On 1 June 2011 17:34, Alex Stinson <stinsoad(a)dukes.jmu.edu
wrote:
>>
>>> There is an education list at
>>>
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/education which appears to
>>> be one of the better ways to contact people because not everyone regularly
>>> checks outreach wiki (including myself). I invite people to join who want to
>>> work with Education and Wikimedia projects, it include a fair number of
>>> Campus Ambassadors who are doing innovative stuff at universities as well as
>>> a number of other people in various chapters involved in education stuffs,
>>>
>>> Alex
>>>
>>>
>>> On Wed, Jun 1, 2011 at 5:29 PM, Thomas Morton <
>>> morton.thomas(a)googlemail.com
wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hey Alex,
>>>>
>>>> Yes a lot of that has been my starting point. FWIW there is a lack of
>>>> content for the younger age groups (say 14-16) which is where my current
>>>> focus is; the "beginner" guides are more suited (at least in my
experience
>>>> of teaching) to older students. I'd also like to see some more
material on
>>>> the goals/ideals of Wikipedia (as that seems a better start point before
>>>> leaping into account creation :)).
>>>>
>>>> Also I noticed that a lot of the focus is on editing or contributing
>>>> Wikipedia. I've approached this from a slightly different perspective
-
>>>> which is that most of the kids I will be talking to aren't interested
in
>>>> writing (and probably aren't yet capable of doing so) a Wikipedia
article.
>>>> On the other hand I aim to teach them about using WP as a resource (and
the
>>>> potential pitfalls) as well as trying to get them to treat it with
respect
>>>> (i.e. quit the vandalism).
>>>>
>>>> Is there a place on Outreach where discussion of education/teaching
>>>> materials is happening?
>>>>
>>>> Tom
>>>>
>>>> On 1 June 2011 17:15, Alex Stinson <stinsoad(a)dukes.jmu.edu
wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> "High school professors." Yikes! Meant teachers, not
professors. I
>>>>> thought I fixed that in a second read. Been working with universities
for
>>>>> too long.
>>>>>
>>>>> Tom, that sounds like something that could really use some
development
>>>>> in the way of documented techniques or presenting the information.
You may
>>>>> want to check out the stuff on the Wikimedia Foundation bookshelf
project
>>>>> for materials you can destribute instead of making all of them
yourself (
>>>>>
http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Bookshelf). We also have been
>>>>> developing a fair amount of stuff at the education portal on
outreach,
>>>>> though still a work in progress (
>>>>>
http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education). Alot has already been
>>>>> developed in fairly professional ways, it just needs to be applied in
the
>>>>> class room,
>>>>>
>>>>> Alex
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Wed, Jun 1, 2011 at 5:01 PM, Thomas Morton <
>>>>> morton.thomas(a)googlemail.com
wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Chris,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Yes, that was my impression too - I have some ideas/proposals to
try
>>>>>> and bring into play but didn't want to step on top of an
active project that
>>>>>> I'd missed :P
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I'm based in Lincolnshire.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Alex,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I've been keeping a close eye on the Ambassadors project - it
looks
>>>>>> like some great work (yet another reason to wish I was a student
again :)).
>>>>>> Expanding that into schools is a major project, but one that I
think would
>>>>>> net us some massive gains long term. I'd be really interested
in hearing
>>>>>> about your work with the high school professors.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In general:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I've been interested in education for a while; I'm a
scout leader here
>>>>>> & my parents have their own business doing educational visits
to schools on
>>>>>> the topic of astronomy (so I have fairly extensive experience of
that sort
>>>>>> of "business model"). The reason I have a specific
interest now is that I've
>>>>>> been approached to look at doing an evening class on computers
and the
>>>>>> internet at a local secondary school. One of the topics I want to
cover is
>>>>>> Wikipedia and WP editing.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I could put together some teaching material & release it for
others to
>>>>>> use on an ad-hoc basis, but I think there is loads more we could
expand into
>>>>>> if WMUK were behind it - stuff like working with the teaching
bodies to get
>>>>>> WP recognised as a resource, and perhaps even worked into the
curriculum (at
>>>>>> the very least work with them to provide useful material for
>>>>>> teachers/students about Wikipedia). In fact, something like the
training
>>>>>> events Cancer Research people (but for teachers) would be really
interesting
>>>>>> to explore.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Another off-hand idea; it would be great to try and team up with
some
>>>>>> of the GLAM institutions to run educational days (i.e. have
groups of kids
>>>>>> turn up to learn about stuff using local and Wikipedia content,
and to get
>>>>>> an introduction to Wikipedia).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> And more; we could use WMUK resources to train up and support
>>>>>> Wikipedia volunteers who want to go into the classroom - because
teaching
>>>>>> kids can be damned hard!
>>>>>>
>>>>>> There's a lot to focus on, but I think it is one of our most
important
>>>>>> outreach areas in the UK.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Tom
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 1 June 2011 16:40, Chris Keating
<chriskeatingwiki(a)gmail.com>wrote;wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I think it's been hibernating for a while. I haven't
heard it
>>>>>>> mentioned at all since the new Board took office.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Of course, if someone wants to pick up the ball and run with
it, that
>>>>>>> would be very welcome. Whereabouts are you, Tom?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Regards,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Chris
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Wed, Jun 1, 2011 at 10:51 AM, Thomas Morton <
>>>>>>> morton.thomas(a)googlemail.com
wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Hey all,
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> What is the status of our work with schools/education?
>>>>>>>>
http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Initiatives/Schools_project
seems to
>>>>>>>> be a little stagnant, there are references to other
School interactions on
>>>>>>>> the Wiki (including a link to a hidden office page about
the educational
>>>>>>>> budget).
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Is any of this still active?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I only ask because I've been approached locally to do
some in-school
>>>>>>>> work relating to Wikipedia and it occurred to me that
this is a major area
>>>>>>>> we could be focusing on.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I've got a decent amount of experience working with
children,
>>>>>>>> schools and educators and it would be great to contribute
that on a wider
>>>>>>>> scale.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> If none of those projects are particularly active, would
anyone be
>>>>>>>> interested in working on this (including volunteering to
go into schools and
>>>>>>>> youth groups)?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Tom / ErrantX
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>>> Wikimedia UK mailing list
>>>>>>>> wikimediauk-l(a)wikimedia.org
>>>>>>>>
http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
>>>>>>>> WMUK:
http://uk.wikimedia.org
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>> Wikimedia UK mailing list
>>>>>>> wikimediauk-l(a)wikimedia.org
>>>>>>>
http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
>>>>>>> WMUK:
http://uk.wikimedia.org
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> Wikimedia UK mailing list
>>>>>> wikimediauk-l(a)wikimedia.org
>>>>>>
http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
>>>>>> WMUK:
http://uk.wikimedia.org
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Wikimedia UK mailing list
>>>>> wikimediauk-l(a)wikimedia.org
>>>>>
http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
>>>>> WMUK:
http://uk.wikimedia.org
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Wikimedia UK mailing list
>>>> wikimediauk-l(a)wikimedia.org
>>>>
http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
>>>> WMUK:
http://uk.wikimedia.org
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Wikimedia UK mailing list
>>> wikimediauk-l(a)wikimedia.org
>>>
http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
>>> WMUK:
http://uk.wikimedia.org
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Roger Bamkin
>> (aka Victuallers)
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Wikimedia UK mailing list
>> wikimediauk-l(a)wikimedia.org
>>
http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
>> WMUK:
http://uk.wikimedia.org
>>
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimedia UK mailing list
> wikimediauk-l(a)wikimedia.org
>
http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
> WMUK:
http://uk.wikimedia.org
>
>
--
Dr Martin L Poulter ICT Manager, The Economics Network
Based at the ILRT, University of Bristol:
http://www.ilrt.bris.ac.uk/
The full experience:
http://infobomb.org/
Wikipedia contributor:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:MartinPoulter
Board member of Wikimedia UK:
http://uk.wikimedia.org/
"Creating a world in which every single human being can freely share
in the sum of all knowledge"