[WikiEN-l] Wikipedia Selection for Schools DVD released

[David Gerard]

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/SOSChildrenUK2007

It's sorta related to the 0.5 CD, but with a particular aim in mind.
SOS Children did most of the work, WMF says "here's a logo and
blessings."

Andrew Cates happens to be en:wp admin [[User:BozMo]] as well :-)


- d.



SOS Children UK and the Wikimedia Foundation announce the launch of
the Wikipedia Selection for Schools

29th May 2007: SOS Children UK, in coordination with the Wikimedia
Foundation, have launched the Wikipedia Selection for Schools. The
Selection DVD has the content of a 15 volume encyclopaedia - with
24,000 pictures, 14 million words and articles on 4,625 topics. It
includes the best of Wikipedia, and many thousands of pages of extra
material specifically selected to be of interest to children aged 8-17
who follow the UK National Curriculum and similar curricula elsewhere
in the world.

Florence Devouard, chair of the Wikimedia Foundation, said: "The
Wikimedia Foundation aims to encourage the development and
distribution of reference content to the public free of charge: this
project is an excellent example of free resources being offered to a
particular audience which we warmly encourage, and are proud to
support."

Dr Andrew Cates, CEO of SOS Children (and himself a Wikipedia
administrator) said: "Wikipedia offers a fantastic learning resource.
We are delighted to have been able to play a part in increasing the
number of children who will be able to benefit from it. We are
indebted to the volunteers in our offices and on Wikipedia who helped
check articles and to the Wikipedia community for their help with this
project."

The Selection can easily be run on school intranets or in remote
locations in the developing world where Internet access is a problem.
A pilot version of this release has already been distributed to
schools in South Africa by the Shuttleworth Foundation. It is intended
to extend and update the Selection periodically.

SOS Children is best known as the world's largest orphan charity (UK
Charity No. 1069204) but is also a very large educational charity
running 192 schools with 91,000 pupils in the developing world. See
www.soschildren.org

The Wikimedia Foundation Inc. is a US non-profit charitable
organisation dedicated to encouraging the growth, development and
distribution of free, multilingual content, and to providing the full
content of these wiki-based projects to the public free of charge. The
Wikimedia Foundation operates some of the largest collaboratively
edited reference projects in the world, including Wikipedia, one of
the 10 most visited websites in the world.

Summary points:

    * The selection is organised around National Curriculum subjects
    * The articles have been cleaned up and checked for suitability
for and usefulness to children
    * Website: http://schools-wikipedia.org ;
    * Downloads
http://www.soschildrensvillages.org.uk/charity-news/wikipedia-for-schools.htm
    * Available for free as BitTorrent full download (3.5GB with full
size images) standard download (1GB with only thumbnail images) or on
DVD from the charity's offices in Cambridge.

There has been recent public discussion, started by the Education
Secretary, on the suitability of Wikipedia for UK schools. Many
articles on the live Wikipedia website are of acceptable quality and
accuracy. This Selection aims to correct the remaining criticisms made
of Wikipedia as a school resource:

    * the Selection has been screened;
    * the Selection cannot be vandalized;
    * children cannot "meet" adults there;
    * there are no very explicit articles or content. (The most
detailed article is
http://schools-wikipedia.org/wp/b/Birth_control.htm , which has been
kept technical and neutral).

Note: The Wikipedia Selection for Schools is a separate project from
the recent 0.5 Release Version of Wikipedia, although they share
technology and volunteers. The Selection is about twice the size, and
aims to give a fairly complete selection of articles of direct
interest to school children or of direct relevance to the National
Curriculum. It is entirely free, and has no commercial advertising.

Contact:

    * David Gerard, UK media contact, Wikimedia Foundation:
wp at davidgerard.co.uk, +44 7733 223584

    * Andrew Cates, CEO, SOS Children UK: andrew at soschildren.org, +44
1223 365589 mobile 07963 986751

    * Chrissy Davey, Press Officer, SOS Children UK:
chrissy at soschildren.org, +44 1223 365589