Education/Wikipedia Education Collaborative/Yerevan 2017

Announcement

The Wikipedia Education Collaborative is having their annual face-to-face meeting in Yerevan, Armenia from June 2-4. The focus of this year’s meeting will be a retrospective on the shared goals and updates to them going forward.

Please note: active members of the Collab will be given scholarships to cover travel costs by the Education Team at the Wikimedia Foundation. Active members are those who participated in our spaces (mailing list, on-wiki, monthly calls, meetups at in-person Movement events) and completed tasks aligned with our shared goals (documented on Phabricator or elsewhere) between March 31, 2016 and March 31, 2017.

Summary

The Wikipedia Education Collaborate met at the Ayb School in Yerevan, Armenia, from June 2-4, 2017.

Agenda

Thursday, 01 June 2017

Group dinner for those who have already arrived in Yerevan.

Friday, 02 June 2017

Full day meting at the Ayb School.

Morning sessions:

Welcome
Communications workshop (best practices and guidelines for the weekend)
Reconnecting and updates (individual lightning talks)

Lunch

Afternoon sessions:

Revisiting the Collab Goals
Looking forward with the Collab

Dinner with Wikimedia Armenia Chapter and visit to Jazz Festival.

Saturday, 03 June 2017

Full day meeting at the Ayb School.

Morning sessions:

User Group creation conversations
Small group work sessions (Governance, Mission, Checklist for UG creation)
Meet Wikimedia Armenia community members (WikiClub leaders, WikiCamp, etc.)

Members of the Collab got to meet people active in Wikimedia Armenia's WikiClubs and WikiCamps

Lunch with Wikimedia Armenia community members

Afternoon sessions:

Prep for Movement Strategy discussion (ranking the themes)
Focused discussions (Mapping individual work vs. Collab work)
WMF Education team's logic model, annual plan, and communications strategy (aligning our work)

Group dinner

Optional evening working sessions

Reviewing the progress we made on our shared goals in small groups.

Sunday, 04 June 2017

Full day meeting at the Ayb School.

Morning sessions:

Movement strategy discussion and small group work
User Group work sessions (small group work on drafting the Meta page, email communications/announcement, and UG mission)

Lunch

Afternoon sessions:

Debrief on UG work/progress
Remaining UG tasks and timelines
Evaluation of meeting (results below)

Final group dinner

Option evening working sessions

Evaluation

Pluses (things we liked)

Flexibility in Schedule
Leaving (the meeting) with things that are done
Group work
Majority (of participants) women
Armenians (local community members), and engaging with them during the meeting
Food
Weather
Conversations (both formal and informal throughout the weekend)
Venue (Ayb School)
Slides at venue (real slides, not slide decks/presentations)
Safety
Hotel (had a gym)
Movement Strategy work
Good team spirit (from the WMF facilitators)
Timing of the meeting
Shared documents and working together
Jazz (evening visit to Jazz Festival)

Deltas (things to do differently next time)

Timing ("What if we were able to do this two months ago…?")
Thinking and planning more in advance (to do a meeting earlier, or planning for future meetings)
Location (as much as we loved Armenia and Yerevan, rotation location next time)
Many layovers (Yerevan can be difficult to reach for most participants)
Neutral/dedicated facilitator(s) (having someone outside the WMF education team so the staff can participate fully, and facilitators can focus solely on facilitation)
More training and solutions (like Dashboard and WikiData; had to move to parking lot with changes in schedule and prioritization)
More time together
Less paper, more digital work
Food at the Jazz Festival
English language (fast paced conversation, sticking with the good communications practices we started with on day one throughout the weekend)

Participants

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