User:Rdunican/OnlineAmbEducationProgram

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Learning Objectives (based of the following questions)

1. What is the program?
2. What are the requirements?
3. Why would should I join the program?

Wikipedia Education Program Overview

Module One will provide you with an overview of the Wikipedia Education Program as well as more information about Wikipedia support roles (Regional, Campus and Online Ambassadors), where you and your students can get help, program expectations and the requirements for participating.

Wikipedia in Education (VIDEO)
At the end of 2009 we began to see a growing number of educators around the globe experimenting with Wikipedia in the classroom. To learn more about how we could help these intrepid educators, we met with over 40 professors at several U.S. universities. We brought together an advisory group of university educators to further explore how they teach with Wikipedia and how we could support them in their efforts. Together these conversations resulted in a 17-month grant-based pilot program called the Public Policy Initiative (PPI).

The Public Policy Initiative worked with professors who were teaching 50 different classes at 20 universities and supported over 800+ students both in-classroom and virtually. The results were truly impressive. Not only did these students learn the university course material, they also added more than 8.8 million characters (~5,333 pages; 
11 reams of paper) of quality content to Wikipedia
. Students received first-hand experience of writing for a global audience with much of their work being viewed hundreds of times by readers of Wikipedia. With the success of PPI, the program changed its name and expanded to include all academic disciplines and more countries, including Egypt and Canada! So you are part of a truly global and rapidly expanding movement.

At its core, the Wikipedia Education Program works with and supports professors and educators as they incorporate Wikipedia assignments into their classes. We recognize that your class content is most likely not about Wikipedia and that you will be using a Wikipedia assignment as a means to achieve your learning objectives. With that in mind, participating professors receive a variety of support resources, including instructional brochures, videos, lesson plans and sample syllabi as well as in-person and virtual Wikipedia Ambassadors. These Ambassadors have been an integral partner in the classroom—helping both students and professors apply Wikipedia to learning.

The Wikipedia Ambassadors have been taught to:

1. Support you as you develop an appropriate Wikipedia assignment for your class
2. Teach and mentor students on the technical skills of editing Wikipedia
3. Work with students to understand the collaborative community of Wikipedia

First start, let's start with a video about Wikipedia

Wikipedia by the numbers

Let's start with a short video that provides an overview of Wikipedia—a brief history, how it works and where it's going. Click on 10 years of Wikipedia: An Overview.

• NOTE: You will need to click on your browser's back button to return to this page.

Quick facts

• Wikipedia started in January 2001
• In just 11 years, Wikipedia amassed more than 20 million articles collectively. That's more than any encyclopedia in the world! The English Wikipedia alone has more than 3.8 million articles.
• There are over 280 different language versions of Wikipedia -- each one with its own content developed entirely by volunteers. In some languages, Wikipedia serves as the only encyclopedic source for information.
• With more than 450 million unique visitors each month viewing 17.5 billion pages, Wikipedia ranks as the 5th most popular website behind Microsoft, Google, Facebook and Yahoo.
• Approximately 83,000 volunteers worldwide work 24 hours a day, seven days a week to contribute and manage all of Wikipedia's growing information. Together they make over 11 million edits per month. Simply put, the number of edits on Wikipedia per day, hour, minute, and second is fairly staggering—(361,842/day or 15,076/hour or 251.3/minute or 4.19/second).

Using Wikipedia can be challenging since it is continually growing and evolving. Each article on Wikipedia is constantly being updated with new information and is in a varying state of accuracy and completeness. However, even with these challenges your students have an amazing opportunity to contribute to the ever-expanding collection of knowledge on Wikipedia while also giving them the opportunity to reach a global audience almost instantly.

If you have a burning desire to learn more details about Wikipedia click on About Wikipedia

Let's look at a couple of volunteer support roles that are in place to help you.

Campus Ambassadors

Wikipedia Campus Ambassadors are truly unique. Yours may be a student, teaching assistant, Wikipedian, graduate or even a local business person. Yet they all have one thing in common: each has volunteered his or her time, energy and passion to help you and your students succeed with your Wikipedia assignments.

We have designed the Campus Ambassador role to support you by:

• Consulting on your Wikipedia assignment and ensure that it is appropriate for an online encyclopedia. (We'll talk more about assignment types in Module Three)
• Conducting in-class Wikipedia presentations & labs
• Helping students with Wikipedia questions
• Working with you and your student to help identify possible articles to work on
• Making Wikipedia fun and engaging

Campus Ambassadors are not expected to:

• Write your Wikipedia assignments.
• Actively contribute/edit content to student articles
• Grade Assignments

Online Ambassadors

In addition to Campus Ambassadors, the program also includes volunteer Online Ambassadors. At the moment, Online Ambassadors are 100% Wikipedia contributors. Most have years of experience and thousands of edits. Wikipedians who serve as Online Ambassadors are passionate about both creating the best online encyclopedia in the world and helping new contributors successfully contribute to the Wikipedia project.

We have designed the Online Ambassador role to support you and your students by:

• Providing real-time online help
• Sorting through the technical skill of Wiki mark-up language
• Navigating Wikipedia jargon, policies and guidelines
• Working with students to submit their articles to the "Did you know?" process
• Helping to resolve potential community disputes as they arise
• Linking students with Wikipedia community members

Regional Ambassador

A Regional Ambassador serves to help pair you up with Ambassadors. They usually work behind the scenes to check in with you and your Ambassador throughout the academic term. Additionally, they are the first point of contact for an Ambassador should any questions, concerns, or problems arise.

Requirements and Logistics

This section covers the requirements and logistical details necessary to participate in the program.

"Working in Pods" or what team am I on?"
The central working unit of this program is the "pod." The pod is a team of people supporting your class and consists of:

1. You (the professor)
2. Your Campus Ambassador
3. Your Online Ambassador

Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)
The MOU outlines what is expected of each member of the "pod" and serves as a guide for working together in supporting the class. We ask the each member of the Pod sign the MOU as soon as possible.

• Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)

You may also be interested in becoming a Wikipedia Teaching Fellow. For more information on becoming a Teaching Fellow and its additional requirements click here.

Modules

1. Module One: Global Education Program Overview
   
2. Module Two: About Wikipedia
   
3. Module Three: Editing Wikipedia
4. Module Four: Using Wikipedia in the Classroom