[Foundation-l] Wikipedia at schools

[Anthere]

Frank Schulenburg wrote:
> 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_schulischen_Praxis
> [4] http://deutscher-innovationspreis.de/


Thanks for telling us about this initiative Frank. That's a pretty cool 
idea.

ant