[Foundation-l] Wikipedia at schools

Lorenzarius lorenzarius at gmail.com
Mon Sep 25 14:06:20 UTC 2006


Hi Frank, thanks for telling us about this really interesting idea! In fact I
see why we could not do the same thing all over the world. If you guys
have any materials you presented or used in this project, please share
with us so that we can reuse your efforts and learn from your experience.
If someone is kind enough to translate the materials and the report, that
would be even greater! Thanks again :)

--Lorenzarius

On 9/25/06, Frank Schulenburg <frank.schulenburg at gmail.com> 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/
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-- 
Larry Lo
http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Lorenzarius
Tel: +852 95825791



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