Education/Newsletter/June 2015/Single
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By Professor Roxana Sordo (Uruguay)
Snippet: Wikipedia as a Learning Community in Foreign Languages Project received a teaching award in Uruguay.
Professors Beatriz Teijeira and Roxana Sordo have received a teaching award by ANEP (Administración Nacional de Educación Pública) and the Uruguayan Education Council in Uruguay in recognition of their work in their project "Wikipedia: a Learning Community in Foreign Languages" at Instituto de Profesores Artigas in Montevideo, Uruguay. This is the first award a Wikipedia education-related project in Uruguay receives. The ceremony was held at Presidencia de la República Oriental del Uruguay on Thursday 18th June 2015.
Our project idea is using Wikipedia as a learning community in Foreign Languages, promoting bilingualism and cultural awareness. It involves education students who are Secondary School teachers-to-be of Geography, History, Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Spanish, English, Music, Arts and Sociology. The project teaches students how to use Wikipedia as an education tool to read academic articles in English, create and edit new Wikipedia articles in Spanish using collaborative work by means of Strategy-based Instruction. The objective is helping students improve their reading and writing skills and develop their digital skills. Most of the students are young women with little prior digital skills, who have never edited a Wikipedia article. Therefore, it aims at narrowing the gender gap and fostering digital literacy. The project is part of Wikipedia Education Program in Uruguay (In Spanish: Proyecto Wikipedia en la Educación CFE-Plan Ceibal) directed by Professor Fernando da Rosa. It has changed the way professors and students conceive and use Wikipedia in Uruguay.
Students work in groups, search for the Wikipedia articles that do not have a Spanish entry, look for more reliable sources to back up the information and improve the article- Then, they organize the article in their sandbox in Wikipedia using the English article as a model, and sometimes they add more information. Finally, students create the Wikipedia article. They are major in certain areas of knowledge which helps them make significant contributions to the Wikipedia community.
In order to evaluate students, some evaluation forms and rubrics were created. Students used their cognitive and metacognitive strategies in order to self-evaluate and evaluate their group work, as well. We have collected and analyzed some testimonials from students. According to Carolina, a Literature teacher-to-be at Instituto de Profesores Artigas It's been an enriching experience for our academic and specific knowledge since we have developed and used learning strategies that foster our autonomy.
Evaluation Forms created and used in the project:
- Wikipedia Reading Strategies Self-evaluation Form
- Wikipedia Article Writing Evaluation Form
- Evaluation Forms (in Spanish)
More information
Read more about the Wikipedia Education Program in Uruguay here.
By Venus Lui (Wikimedia Hong Kong)
Snippet: Wikimedia Hong Kong is working on the very first Wikipedia Education Program.
Wikimedia Hong Kong is working on its very first Wikipedia Education Program. We are happy to begin the program with the School of Humanities at Hang Seng Management College. Students from the college were invited to edit at least 30 articles about literature and linguistics on Wikipedia. Articles related to literature and linguistics are not as numerous as other topics. Some articles have incomplete information too. We hope that students will share their knowledge to improve the quantity and the quality of the related pages through this program. At the same time, we hope to educate students about how to use Wikipedia with the appropriate attitude. In March, we had an introductory talk for the students. A workshop about editing Wikipedia was organised in April. This program is still in progress. We look forward to reporting back about its progress.
Read more about the Wikipedia Education Program in Hong Kong here.
By Marios Magioladitis (Wikimedia Community User Group Greece) and Anna Koval (WMF)
Snippet: Greek adult school graduates learned to edit Wikipedia and in so doing inspired their peers.
More than 10 adult students and 3 educators from the Second Chance School in Corfu participated in a pilot project that involved writing Wikipedia articles in 2 languages (Greek and English) and uploading photos to Commons about villages in the south of Corfu after a Wikiexpedition.
The project was coordinated by long-time Wikimedian and educator Marios Magioladitis, who cooperated with a teacher of Greek language and a teacher of English language, to teach the students to how to write encyclopedic articles and how to upload photos.
Over the course of 4 months, students created or expanded 9 articles on Greek Wikipedia and 1 on English Wikipedia. They uploaded 100 new photos to Commons about their villages. They also created a 6-minute video in which they recored their experience of contributing to Wikipedia and documenting their villages.
The pilot was showcased during the school's participation in the 5th Panhellenic Digifest, which is an annual event organised by the Ministry of Education where schools present projects that are IT-related. The Second Chance School of Corfu has participated in Digifest for the past 2 years.
Marios collaborated with Anna Koval, the regional education program manager at the Wikimedia Foundation. Anna encouraged the students at the start of the pilot, with a Skype call during the first days of the class. She signed the students' certificates of participation. And she celebrated their accomplishments with a pre-recorded tribute, which was shown during the graduation ceremony at City Hall. Anna said, "In my mind, this project was a great success. Not one student dropped the class. Every student is said to be motivated to continue contributing to Wikipedia. And 4 times as many students want to take the course next term. These students have inspired their peers! And they have contributed to free knowledge. They should be proud of their accomplishments."
The pilot was monitored with the help of the Education Program Extension and was evaluated by surveys and personal interviews with the learners. The results were presented in education conferences to inspire more schools to run similar projects. This project was also presented on many occasions to other students.
Educators hope to repeat the program next year with the participation of more students and more schools in the Ionian Islands. However, given economic uncertainties as a result of the Greek debt crisis, that remains to be seen.
The Second Chance School of Corfu was established in 2007 and has had great success in running inspiring school projects. The students said that this latest collaboration with the Wikipedia Education Program was one of the most interesting in recent years. The students stated that their participation gave them confidence about their lives and motivated them to visit Wikipedia more often.
Watch a Euronews report about the Second Chance School in Corfu here. (Start at 4:11.)
Read more about the Wikipedia Education Program in Greece here.
By Sara Mörtsell (Wikimedia Sweden)
Snippet: Sweden Education Program was able to recruit new students who added massive content to Wikimedia Projects in Spring 2015.
As schools and universities break up for the summer holidays, we have summarized the activities and achievements accomplished by Wikipedia Education Program in Sweden last term. Over the past six months, we've seen great increase in student activity, as 133 students enrolled in the program. It was also our first time to use the Education Extension in five of the courses choosing to set up their own course page. New classes are in the pipeline to embark on their Wikimedia Projects and we're exited to share their experience in the autumn. In the meantime, we're setting up the training module for students in preparation for next term.
Blog post about the mid-year summary from Wikimedia Sweden (in Swedish).
Read more about the Wikipedia Education Program in Sweden here.
By Leigh Thelmadatter (Wiki Learning)
Snippet: Wiki Learning- Tec de Monterrey students create a video tutorial for uploading into Commons
In June 2015, a group of seven students from the Tec de Monterrey (Wiki Learning) created a short tutorial in Spanish for uploading files to Wikimedia Commons. All students study digital art and animation and two of them have experience in sound recording and editing. There are two interrelated purposes of the video: to teach students (and professors) the basics of uploading photographs when there is no Wikimedian and to help review the steps, when these may be forgotten. Storyboarding, animation and visual editing was done by Ana Belinda Guerrero, Ana Cecilia Escamilla and Naomi Iwadare. Sound editing and recording was done by Juan Erostique and Ingrid Hernandez. Narration was by Francisco Velasco. In total, these students contributed almost 300 hours to the project.
The basic idea was provided by the author, as to what was needed from the video. The students then took this outline and created a script (done by Alfredo Ponce) for narration. The script was reviewed by the other members of the group and a storyboard for animation was created. It was decided to divide the video into two parts, one to explain what Commons is and what can and cannot be done (based on the cartoon strip that appears for newbies in Commons) and then the basic steps for uploading. The first part of the video uses motion graphics with elements (called props) mostly drawn by Ana Belinda and Naomi. The second part relied on screen grabs from Wikimedia Commons as an example photo was uploaded and categorized.
In an interview for this article, the students reflected on the experience, the process of creation, what they learned and what they hope this project might promote in the future. All the students agreed that one of the best parts of the project was the opportunity to work as a team (one referred to the group as “family”) and learning from each other. For example, Ana Belina taught the other members of the group how to work with the program After Effects, and Ingrid learned the basics of sound recording and editing. Several students noted that the opportunity to give back to Wikipedia, a source they have used so frequently, was gratifying. Naomi noted that a number of the elements/props in the animation refer to Mexico, out of pride that this innovative video was produced in their country.
One motivator for the group is the lack of quality animation and video in Wikimedia Commons when there is need for motion illustration in so many Wikipedia articles. Knowing that the video can be adapted/reworked in the future, they hope that others use this video as a template to produce the same material in different languages.
The group also found the project useful to develop their skills for future careers. Unlike most classroom assignments and projects, they are creating a real video for a real world purpose, and real world impact. They found it to be a wonderful opportunity to put together many of the skills they have learned in class into practice in a holistic way. Without having to worry about grades or teacher approval, they found more freedom to experiment and make mistakes. When they ran into problems, they were able to develop their own ways to solve them. Several stated that they think that they have done a better job with this project than they have done with their school assignments! Lastly, as they are friends and chose to work in this way, the teamwork aspect was optimal. Each one knew with the others could do and could trust each other to work for the overall benefit of the project.
As a teacher myself, this project embodies all the promise of project-based learning and teamwork building that we try to create in the classroom setting, but all-too-often do not achieve. Working with servicio social students, outside of the traditional grading framework, allows greater flexibility and the opportunity to work on more “meaty” projects. It also shows the importance of giving students as much flexibility in what they do, and the freedom to fail and learn from those failures. However, I should emphasize that ALL of the success of this project came from the students themselves, from their internal motivation to do something meaningful and well-done.
Read more about the Wikipedia Education Program at Tec de Monterrey here.
By Lilit Tarkhanyan (WM AM), David Saroyan (WM AM), and Anna Koval (WMF)
Snippet: Wikimedia Armenia opens their new office in Yerevan, hosts their Annual Conference, and kicks off WikiCamp 2015
Wikimedia Armenia has been busy this summer with several major events and activities: the opening of their new office in Yerevan, their annual conference, and the kick off of WikiCamp 2015.
New Chapter Office in Yerevan
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Wikimedia Armenia's new chapter office in Yerevan officially opened on 19 June 2015 with a grand ceremony. The President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan, the Minister of Culture Hasmik Poghosyan, and the Minister of Education and Science Armen Ashotyan all attended. Benefactor and Intellectual Renaissance founder Artur Janibekyan, with whom WM AM cooperates, attended as well. Also in attendance were representatives from the Wikimedia Foundation and the Wikimedia movement: Jan-Bart de Vreede (Chair of the Board of Trustees), Asaf Bartov (Senior Program Officer, Emerging Wikimedia Communities), Anna Koval (Manager, Wikipedia Education Program), and Liam Wyatt (GLAMwiki Coordinator, Europeana).
The following core issues were discussed in the meeting:
- To include the study of wiki editing tools in the national school curriculum. Similar programs have been successfully implemented in such countries education curriculum as Israel, Serbia and France. The possibility to make a similar program work in Armenia. Options and obstacles. The ways to solve existing problems.
- Discussions concerning possible changes in the Copyright and Related rights law of Armenia, in particular, in terms of protection of economic rights of the author (Article 37).
- Wider cooperation within the GLAMwiki program (cooperation with galleries, libraries, archives, and museums), which aims at digitizing scientific-cultural heritage, its preservation, and expansion and translation into other languages.
All these issues are very important and a possibility was created to raise them at the governmental level, which would enable Wikimedia editors to add more content to the Wikimedia projects, as well as will help involve more editors and volunteers in the wiki movement, and enlarge the scope of Wikimedia Armenia's cooperation with educational, cultural, and scientific institutions nationwide.
This event was widely covered in the Armenian media. 1 2 3 4 It was also covered by Armenian Public Television, Armenia TV, ATV and many other TV channels.
Annual Conference
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WikiConference Yerevan 2015 was the third international conference in Yerevan, Armenia. It was held at the Mesrop Mashtots Institute of Ancient Manuscripts on 19-20th June. Its goals were to aid in the development and the promotion of wiki projects, free knowledge and open culture in Armenia and the neighboring region, as well as to bring together new and experienced wiki editors and to provide an environment for them to share their experiences and knowledge with each other.
Among the conference participants, there were experienced Wikipedians, Wikipedia Education Program students, participants from different WM AM projects (Wiki Loves Science, Wikipedia for Teachers, GLAM etc.), representatives from the Ministry of Culture and cultural institutions (including the Deputy Minister of Culture, Arev Samuelyan, museum representatives, etc.), other interested people.
Jan-Bart de Vreede (Chair of the Board of Trustees) presented an overview of the Wikimedia Foundation and the Wikimedia Movement. Asaf Bartov (Senior Program Officer, Emerging Wikimedia Communities) shared international inspiration from around the Wikimedia World (slides here). Liam Wyatt (GLAMwiki Coordinator, Europeana) talked about GLAMwiki and the future of heritage (slides here). And Anna Koval (Manager, Wikipedia Education Program) discussed the Wikipedia Education Program in Armenia (slides in English here) (slides in Armenian here).
Wikimedia Armenia's education program is one of the world’s strongest. In May 2015, Armenian students contributed 22 million bytes to Wikipedia and 5.6 million bytes to Wiktionary. And, according to stats.wikimedia.org, as of May 2015, Armenian students have contributed almost a third (29%) of the content on Armenian Wikipedia and almost a third (28%) of the content on Armenian Wiktionary. 5 6 7
WikiCamp 2015
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WikiCamp 2015 is under way now at the Voske Getak resort / rest house in Arzakan village in the Agveran region of Armenia. This event is funded by the Wikimedia Foundation through the Project and Event Grants program (see application here on Meta).
The 85 campers are between the ages of 9 and 20. They are from various Armenian villages, and some live very far away. For example, Arevatsag village is situated 170 km from Yerevan; it has poor infrastructure and little connection to the closest city. Campers can come from other neighboring countries, including Lebanon, Georgia, and possibly even Estonia.
The campers are a mix of experienced and new editors. Experienced editors help new ones. Newcomers learn collaborating with their experienced teammates in a competitive but friendly atmosphere. New editors learn more not only from their expert wiki trainers but also from their experienced friends. A number of WikiClubs and school programs sent students to WikiCamp this summer. 6 WikiClubs has representative, including Lernapat, Aparan, Ashtarak, Gyumri, Arevatsag, and Yeghvard. Each WikiClub has about 12 participants at Wikicamp. 2 schools -- Mkhitar Sebastatsi Education Complex and AYB High School -- sent many students, and 9 other schools sent students as well. 11 schools on the whole were represented at WikiCamp 2015.
| “ | I like WikiCamp because I get to meet new friends and learn how to edit Wikipedia. When editing, I learn new things, get new interesting ideas, and do difficult things on my own. Emilia Simonyan, newcomer from Mkhitar Sebastasti Education Complex, 14 years. |
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WikiCamp is coordinated by Arsen Harutyunyan. Arsen is an experienced wiki editor, leader, coordinator of previous WikiCamps (2014 Summer WikiCamp & 2015 Winter WikiCamp). He shares the love of all campers.
The campers are led by their group leaders. There are 7 group leaders, 5 of them were group leaders in previous camps, and 1 group leader was formerly a wiki camper himself. 3 group leaders are coordinators of WikiClubs. Other WikiClub coordinators are among wiki trainers. Group leaders were chosen based on their capability and experience working with children previously and their on wiki skills and ideas.
Already the on-wiki impact of WikiCamp 2015 is impressive! In the first days (22-24 June 2015), students contributed massive amounts of content to Wikimedia projects, according to Wikimetrics!
Armenian Wikipedia:
- 961 edits
- 416 pages created
- 1.6M bytes added
- 18K bytes removed
Armenian Wiktionary:
- 3,393 edits
- 2,760 pages created
- 1.6M bytes added
- 8.2K bytes removed
Mher Bekaryan is one of the wiki trainers at the camp. He is a WM AM co-founder and board member and an admin on Armenian Wikipedia and Armenian Wiktionary. During camps, he updates the "Latest Word" (in Armenian: Օրվա բառ) section of the main page of Armenian Wiktionary. This word "երկաթ" by User:Margarita2000 was featured on 25 June 2015. He is helping campers to record pronunciations of words and soon will upload over 1,000 recorded pronunciations to Wiktionary for use on articles.
The wiki team oversees the students' contributions and assures that they are of the highest quality. The wiki team includes chapter staff, project admins, and experienced editors. One wiki team member is Armenuhi Voskanyan. She is the coordinator of the Lernapat WikiClub, and she was the winner of the 2015 CEE Spring contest for Armenia. At the end of each day, the wiki team reviews all the articles created and improved by the campers and gives them points based on quality. As a result, each day they select the best editors of that day from Wikipedia and Wiktionary, the best articles, and the best team.
| “ | Honestly, I never edit Wikipedia to have high points and to come to Wikicamp. I edit to make articles available in Armenian, for people who share the same interests as me. This is what motivates me when I edit. Arthur Mirzoyan, AYB High School, 16 years. |
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This marks the 4th WikiCamp that WMAM has hosted to date. The 5th camp is scheduled for August 2015. WMAM previously hosted 2 WikiCamps in summer 2014 and 1 WikiCamp in winter 2015. No other country/community has hosted a WikiCamp for children yet.
One news report was produced by tv.am. WMAM produced their own video, too.
Read more about WikiCamp in Armenia here
Read more about the Wikipedia Education Program in Armenia here.
Snippet: Argentina joins the efforts of more than 300 educators around the world in a course aiming at raising the the awareness toward Wikipedia in Education.
Bridges Between education, digital and free cultures is an online course WIkimedia Argentina co-organized with Latin American Network of Educational Portals (RELPE). 300 educators from Spanish-speaking countries participated in the eight-week course aiming at developing strategies to integrate Wikipedia in Education. See the global map of participants here. The group was able to develop different resources for the Wikipedia Education Program in Argentina.
Participants worked on developing references to help the program in-class training calling them: Wikireferences. A Wikireference is a digital library containing research materials, articles, news on Wikipedia in education. Four groups of references came out of this new experience: Wikireferencias, grupo A , Wikireferencias, grupo B, Wikireferencias, grupo C , Wikireferencias, grupo D. Attendees also tried their hands on different Wikimedia projects by doing several activities like collecting quotes about education from Wikiquote. See the collection here. In a new and creative way of collecting feedback about working on the Wikimedia projects, educators worked on adding their views to a group of flash cards.
Educators find it somehow challenging to convey all what they learned to a new generation of editors in their classes. They believe that anyone who gets to understand how Wikipedia works and how important it is, will not stop editing. Most of the Wikipedia ambassadors moderating the online course this year were students in the same project last year. Nearly 300 ambassadors helped with project coordination.
Watch a video summarizing the course activities on Youtube.
Read more about the Wikipedia Education Program in Argentina here.
By Anna Koval (WMF) and Shani Evenstein (Wikipedia Education Collaborative)
Snippet:
Hebrew Wiktionary enables the Education Program Extension and becomes the first Wiktionary project to request it.
In February 2015, the Education Program Extension was enabled on Hebrew Wiktionary. The Education Program Extension was developed by the Wikimedia Foundation to assist educators and Wikimedians in their joint efforts to support classes of students editing articles on Wikipedia. It is currently enabled on 18 Wikimedia projects: 4 sister projects and 16 languages. This deployment is the first Wiktionary to request the extension.
Shani Evenstein, an Israeli educator and member of the Wikipedia Education Collaborative, suggested to one of the key members of the Hebrew Wiktionary community that it would be very easy to runs courses on the project using the Education Program Extension. Hebrew Wiktionarians agreed to install the extension, and on February 12, User:Amire80 requested the installation on Phabricator. The extension has since been enabled on the project. However, it has not been used yet. Shani has promised to teach the community how to work with the extension when they are ready to use it.
Read more about the Wikipedia Education Program in Israel here.
Read more about the Education Program Extension here.
Snippet: Education Collaborative members develop easy-to-use templates for recognition certificates.
Wikipedia Education Collaborative member Vojtech Dostal from the Czech Republic thought of the importance of having unified templates of the recognition certificates issued to the students and educators of the program around the world as part of a proposed recognition system several program leaders are now trying to build. After several weeks of collaborative work, the certificates were ready and several programs started to use them as they are or after localization.
The unified certificates are not the first product in the recognition system. Programs around the world have already issued different styles of certificates. Besides, Wikipedia Education Program leaders in Sweden have created open badges to recognize volunteer efforts in their program. In Nepal, Wikipedia Driving License was a different example of recognition for those who have completed a twelve-week course on Wikipedia and mastered the essential editing skills.
The certificates are very easy to download, fill out and print. These template certificates are meant to make it easier for you to issue certificates for your program participants as well as being part of the program's visual identity, i.e. having similar certificates in different programs around the world. However, you still can use/create other designs if you want. This is just a simple example of a template. Program leaders are also invited to modify, localize and develop the certificates according to every program's own needs and preferences. If you have any thoughts about this project, please add them to the talk page.
See, download and use the new certificates on Wikimedia Commons here.
Read more about Wikipedia Education Program recognition here.
Wikipedia translatathon at University College London
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36 post-graduate students at the UCL center for translation studies attended the translatathon: An editathon that aims at increasing content on WIkipedia by translating articles from a language to another. As all contributors were new to Wikipedia, the workshop started with an introduction about the editing basics followed by practical training. CenTraS, Wikimedia Gender Gap, Wikimedia Uk and Wikipedia ambassadors all worked together on organizing the event.
Wikimedia India signs an MoU with a local educational institution group to research on Wikipedia
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Wikimedia India signed a Memorandum of Understanding with a local educational institution group, SKP. The project aims at supporting Wikipedia in different Indian languages by focusing on engaging Engineering college students in MediaWiki and Indic language computing related technology development work. Lack of freely available computing tools for Indian languages is one of the challenges for the growth of Wikimedia projects in Indian languages. To address this specific issue, Wikimedia India will facilitate the setup of a Language Computing Lab at SKP Group of Institutions. Wikimedia India will also work to provide adequate learning opportunities for students and faculties in the technologies they work under this partnership.
Teaching my students to use Wikipedia
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In this article Dr. Adam Earnheardt, chairman of the department of communication at Youngstown State University, discusses how he has changed his attitude toward students using Wikipedia in Research. Many university professors do not allow students to use Wikipedia at all in their school work. Dr. Earnheardt was one of them until he decided to start guiding them to the right ways of research using Wikipedia without citing it.
Birzeit University wraps up a course on enriching Arabic content on Wikipedia
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Farah Jack Mustaklem, a Wikipedian from Ramallah led a course on editing Wikipedia for the students of Birzeit University in Palestine. The course included an introduction to Wikipedia editing basics and the different Wikimedia projects. The second day contributors met the Wikimedia Foundation staff, Tighe Flangan, Wikipedia Education Program manger for the Middle East and Africa and Lila Tretikov the Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation who told them about the movement and Wikipedia Education Program in particular.
Read the full article here. (In Arabic)
Israel’s Wikipedians lead the way in education, technology
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Lila Tretikov the Executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation paid a visit to Israel this month, where she met The Israeli Prime Minister, local officials, Wikipedians and university students. In this interview with Jerusalem Post, Lila talked about the importance of using Wikipedia in education giving an example of 7th grade students who participated in a course to write articles about their city, Hertzliya.