[Foundation-l] Wikijunior

[Mathias Damour]

Hi,

Samuel Klein a écrit :
> 
> And there is good material from other projects that is suitable for kids,
> just not packaged in the wikijunior format; some of the better-edited
> series on simple-en, some of the media collections on commons and flickr,
> some of the early work on wikiversity and wikieducator.
> 
> Perhaps 'Wikijunior' could become an outlet for free works from many
> projects, not just wikibooks, that have reached a certain stage of
> completion.

Andrew Whitworth a écrit :
> 
> This is a good point. A dedicated wikijunior.org site could be used to host all sorts of child-related materials from all projects that produce them.

I think that this "content approach" miss another aspect of the wikis.
The main point I think of, while telling about the wiki potential for education, is for pupils themselves to be able to edit them, which is absent here.

Quite many people have told about that, in words of collaborative work, learning by doing, writing to learn, social construction of knowledge... That's just what happens among wikipedia editors, and it seems to meet several constructivist teaching methods, that existed before the wikis, or even before the internet.
I mean that there is some advantages in not only giving children a free content, that would have been prepared on wikis, but access to wikis that suit them.

I have been able to hear at Cormac Lawler's presentation of Wikiversity and I understood that at least a part of the peoples involved in this project are well awared about this aspect (I just took from him the word "learning by doing" for example, see also http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:Learning , on which you can read : "Editing a wiki is an active, participatory process, involving action (editing, being bold) and reflection (discussion). Learning activities on Wikiversity need to focus on their wiki-based potential and the fact that they are based on collaborative, communal processes").

Actually I don't know if Wikijunior should evolve to such an approach, (books are quite long to write and may not be the easiest way to be introduced to wikis), but that's the approach of the Wikikids groups in Dutch and in french (Vikidia which I openned).

Andrew Whitworth a écrit :
> 
> This idea wasn't explicitly stated, but I think it's been in the back of everybody's mind. I do worry about giving children a direct link back the the working version, because the working version could still contain vandalism which children shouldnt be exposed to.

One should think about it, I would say that tools against vandalism have proven their efficiency on the wikis, including deletion of history deletion, etc.

Mathias Damour