Wikipedia Education Program/News/15 January 2013

Welcome to the Wikipedia Education Program Update -- a newsletter from the Wikimedia Foundation about efforts to bring Wikipedia into higher education classrooms. The newsletter is released on the first and third Tuesday of each month. To be notified of the latest issue, add this page to your watchlist or email LiAnna Davis (ldaviswikimedia.org), the Wikipedia Education Program Communications Manager, to be added to the distribution list.

Blog profiles design professor in Brazil edit

The Wikimedia Foundation blog recently published a profile of Iara Camargo, a professor of design in Brazil who participated in the Wikipedia Education Program last term. She joined students in her Editorial Design course in improving articles on the Portuguese Wikipedia about subjects such as designers, design concepts, and publishing houses. Iara wrote an article on book design as part of her work with her students. Learn more about her experiences by reading the post.

Program update from Wikimedia Argentina edit

Wikimedia Argentina has been hard at work on encouraging the use of Wikipedia in education for several years. In 2010, they published a brochure in Spanish titled "Wikipedia en el aula", or Wikipedia in the classroom. Last month, they released a translated version of the brochure in Guarani, an indigenous language spoken by people in northeastern Argentina, southern Brazil, western Bolivia, and Paraguay. The Spanish version is so popular that the Argentine government highlighted it in a space on their education website. See more about the program.

U.S. student achieves Good Article on Mu wave edit

Ingrid Haugen, a recent graduate of Roosevelt University in Chicago, was excited to learn that in her final term of work, she would be taking a class participating in the Association for Psychological Sciences Wikipedia Initiative. Ingrid's professor, Lisa Lu, asked Ingrid and her classmates to work together to improve articles related to brain and behavior on the English Wikipedia. Ingrid chose to work on the article Mu wave, and though her and her classmates' efforts, the article achieved Good Article status in December. Learn more about Ingrid's work.

Final call for spring U.S. and Canada participants edit

The new term is upon us, and many professors and Ambassadors have already begun using the new MediaWiki education extension. If you are a professor who plans to use Wikipedia in the classroom this term, please make sure you have been in touch with a Wikipedia Education Program representative for the next steps. To finalize your assignment, create a Course Page, and pair with an Ambassador for your students, please fill out this Google Doc interest form by Thursday, January 17.

If you are an Ambassador, even if you will not be active this term, you must receive the appropriate user rights and create a profile as either an Online Ambassador or a Campus Ambassador with the new extension. Then you will be able to sign on to any courses you will be supporting and monitor student contributions. To request user rights, please see this page.