Welcome to the Wikipedia Education Update — a newsletter from the Wikimedia Foundation that is distributed the first and third Tuesday of each month. Someone from our staff has talked with you about our Wikipedia Education Program to bring Wikipedia into higher education classrooms around the world, and we wanted to keep you in the loop on all of our exciting activities. If you would prefer not to receive these messages, simply reply to the email and ask for your address to be removed. Learn more about subscribing and read the archives here:
https://contacts.wikimedia.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=5…
Wikipedia Ambassadors trained in Cairo
The Cairo Pilot is gearing up for the start of the term in Egypt. Local Arabic Wikipedians led a training of 10 new Campus Ambassadors in Cairo in mid-January, and another 10 Campus Ambassadors will be trained later this month. Another 16 Online Ambassadors have signed up to help students on-wiki. Seven classes are participating, and all of the professors participated in a faculty orientation in January led by two local Arabic Wikipedians and U.S. program professor Rochelle Davis. Only 3-15 of the best students from each class will be participating this term, limiting the number of students to a manageable number. See more information (in Arabic) on the course page:
https://contacts.wikimedia.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=6…
U.S. program features 40 classes this term
The U.S. Education Program will feature about 40 classes, a slight decrease over last term thanks to the stricter participation requirements in place for this term (see the last issue of the Update newsletter for more on those). Students in many courses are already registering user accounts and selecting articles they will be working on. Many Campus Ambassadors have already visited classes to make their first presentations. Learn more about the courses participating this term by checking out the list of courses:
https://contacts.wikimedia.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=5…
Blog post features classroom project in Mexico
Regional Ambassador for Mexico Leigh Thelmadatter wrote a blog post in both English and Spanish on the Wikimedia Foundation blog highlighting her efforts to bring Wikipedia assignments into classrooms in Mexico. Leigh's students have been actively translating English Wikipedia articles to the Spanish Wikipedia, and the interested students have joined a new student club on campus. Her students even collaborated on an edit-a-thon with the Children's Museum of Indianapolis. Read Leigh's post:
https://contacts.wikimedia.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=5…
Ambassador leads online workshop about Wikipedia
Louisiana State University Campus Ambassador Rebecca Burdette is leading an online workshop through Educause about using Wikipedia as a teaching tool in higher education classrooms. Rebecca, the associate director of LSU's Communication across the Curriculum department, will cover how to integrate Wikipedia into the curriculum. Learn more about the online workshop:
https://contacts.wikimedia.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=5…
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This email is sent from:
Wikimedia Foundation
149 New Montgomery Street, 3rd Floor
San Francisco, CA 94105
United States
Good afternoon (or evening), ambassadors!
As most of you know, the semester is underway at most universities in the
US and Canada, and many of our professors have begun assigning their
Wikipedia components to students. Thank you to all who have been responsive
to the call to join the IRC chatrooms whenever available, as some students
have started asking questions in there.
This semester, some professors have reached out to Online Ambassadors via
the OA page on the USEP or CEP portals, and some OAs have selected classes
that interest them by adding their names via the Course Pages.
For those of you who are still available to support one or more classes
this semester, we still have some courses who need Online Ambassadors to
meet this semester's standards for participation.
I've edited the OA talk
page<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:United_States_Education_Program…>with
a list of the courses that need Online Ambassadors. The links should
take you to the course pages, where you can read about the class and
determine if you're able to support it over the next few months. Students
will likely start selecting articles and begin editing in the next few
weeks, so we need to finalize ambassador support as soon as possible.
If you select a course to support, please add your username to the Course
Pages and revise the OA talk page with the new number of OAs that class may
need.
Some professors are adding their course pages randomly, so I will continue
updating the OA talk page whenever possible, so we can try to support as
many classes as possible this semester.
Thanks for all you do for the Wikipedia Education Program!
Happy course selecting,
--
Jami Mathewson
U.S. Education Program Associate
Wikimedia Foundation
jmathewson(a)wikimedia.org
Thanks, Mike.
Many of the professors are still looking for an Online Ambassador, as you
can see on the Course
Page<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:United_States_Education_Program/Cour…>list
(and here is the link to the Canada
program's Course
Pages<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Canada_Education_Program/Courses/Pre…>.
If you'd like to choose a course (*or more than one!*), we can finalize the
pods for the semester much more quickly. I have directed professors to
reach out to OAs, but they may not have yet completed the Professor
Orientation Modules and may still be struggling to figure out how to post
to your talk pages. :)
Please also email me separately (off-list, please) if you're a Campus
Ambassador who is still interested in participating this semester and has
not yet spoken to a professor. We want to increase all ambassador support
for the semester, so there may still be a professor on your campus who
could use some more support!
Thanks, all!
Also, thanks to all who responded so quickly and joined the IRC chatroom!
On Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 11:05 AM, Mike Christie <coldchrist(a)gmail.com>wrote:
> I hadn't seen an announcement that we should start signing up -- did I
> miss it? I've been pretty busy so that's quite likely. Could you resend a
> link to the current page where interested ambassadors should go to sign up
> for a course?
>
> Thanks
>
> Mike
>
> On Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 1:44 PM, Jami Mathewson <jmathewson(a)wikimedia.org>wrote:
>
>> Hi Ambassadors,
>>
>> Some classes are getting started now, and students have been coming on
>> to IRC to test it out recently -- so we need to make sure we have
>> people in the chat room when students come in to ask for help!
>>
>> Whenever you have some time, please hang out in the chat room to help
>> any students who come by. It's the #wikipedia-en-classroom channel on
>> freenode.
>>
>> You can join here:
>> http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=wikipedia-en-classroom
>>
>> Or if you'd like information on using a client for your operating system,
>> see:
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Relay_Chat#Clients
>>
>> Please also check out the Guidelines for the channels:
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ambassadors/IRC/Guide
>>
>> Thank you!
>>
>> --
>> Jami Mathewson
>> U.S. Education Program Associate
>> Wikimedia Foundation
>> jmathewson(a)wikimedia.org
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Ambassador-announce-l mailing list
>> Ambassador-announce-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/ambassador-announce-l
>>
>>
>
--
Jami Mathewson
U.S. Education Program Associate
Wikimedia Foundation
jmathewson(a)wikimedia.org
Hi Ambassadors,
Some classes are getting started now, and students have been coming on
to IRC to test it out recently -- so we need to make sure we have
people in the chat room when students come in to ask for help!
Whenever you have some time, please hang out in the chat room to help
any students who come by. It's the #wikipedia-en-classroom channel on
freenode.
You can join here:
http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=wikipedia-en-classroom
Or if you'd like information on using a client for your operating system,
see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Relay_Chat#Clients
Please also check out the Guidelines for the channels:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ambassadors/IRC/Guide
Thank you!
--
Jami Mathewson
U.S. Education Program Associate
Wikimedia Foundation
jmathewson(a)wikimedia.org
***
IMPORTANT NOTE: The Wikipedia community has decided to black out the English Wikipedia globally for 24 hours on January 18 in protest of SOPA and PIPA. During this time, the English Wikipedia will be unavailable. Learn more:
https://contacts.wikimedia.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=5…
***
Welcome to the Global Education Update — a newsletter from the Wikimedia Foundation that is distributed the first and third Tuesday of each month. Someone from our staff has talked with you about our Global Education Program to bring Wikipedia into higher education classrooms around the world, and we wanted to keep you in the loop on all of our exciting activities. If you would prefer not to receive these messages, simply reply to the email and ask for your address to be removed. Learn more about subscribing and read the archives here:
https://contacts.wikimedia.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=5…
Professor blogs about teaching experiences in Brazil
Juliana Bastos Marques a professor at UNIRIO, the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro State in Brazil, wrote a post for the Wikimedia Foundation blog highlighting her experiences using Wikipedia as a teaching tool in her course last term. Her students worked to improve the Portuguese Wikipedia's coverage of Roman history, with help from a Campus Ambassador and two Online Ambassadors, all volunteers from the Portuguese Wikipedia community. Learn more about what Juliana learned by reading her blog post.
https://contacts.wikimedia.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=5…
Cairo Pilot project plan now available
The Wikipedia Education Program is launching a small pilot in Cairo, Egypt, this term, and the details of the program plan are now available on the Outreach Wiki. The Cairo Pilot will take place at two universities, Cairo University and Ain Shams University, and a maximum of 90 students across 6-7 courses will be contributing content to the Arabic Wikipedia. Some students will be writing original content, and others will be translating existing articles from the French and Spanish Wikipedias to the Arabic Wikipedia. For more information, read the Cairo Pilot program plan.
https://contacts.wikimedia.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=5…
U.S. digital media class covered on WMF blog
College of Staten Island professor Michael Mandiberg participated in the U.S. Education Program in the fall term, wherein he asked his students to improve the content of Wikipedia in the design discipline, including giving students extra credit for getting a contemporary designer to release an image of themselves or their work under a free license on Wikimedia Commons. Michael's course also had a unique opportunity to work with the Museum of Modern Art in New York City to write articles on an exhibit that opened during their term. Learn more about Michael's experiences by reading the blog post.
https://contacts.wikimedia.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=5…
Participation Requirements for spring announced
Professors joining the Wikipedia Education Program in the spring 2012 term are finding a new set of participation requirements in place, designed to ensure that all participating professors and students receive adequate support on Wikipedia. While the work of the fall term produced a lot of incredible content, many students lacked the support they needed from volunteer Ambassadors, so the Participation Requirements in part commit the Foundation to ensuring there will be one Wikipedia Ambassador for each 15 students in the course. For more information, see the requirements page on the Outreach Wiki.
https://contacts.wikimedia.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=5…
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This email is sent from:
Wikimedia Foundation
149 New Montgomery Street, 3rd Floor
San Francisco, CA 94105
United States
Hi Ambassadors,
As you may have heard already, the English Wikipedia community has
decided to black out the English Wikipedia for 24 hours in protest of
SOPA and PIPA, two companion pieces of legislation in Congress that
would, if passed, do great harm the free and open Internet, including
Wikipedia. The global blackout will begin at midnight ET this evening
(so in about 11 hours). Visitors to Wikipedia will be asked to contact
their representatives and senators to oppose SOPA and PIPA. The
Wikimedia Foundation is supporting the community's decision.
Please reach out to your professors and students, and inform them that
Wikipedia will be unavailable during this time. You're welcome to send
any professors who have concerns to me (ldavis(a)wikimedia.org) or Jami
(jmathewson(a)wikimedia.org); we are happy to answer any questions.
Here are some links with more information:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/English_Wikipedia_anti-SOPA_blackouthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative/Take_action#Question…
Thanks,
LiAnna
--
LiAnna Davis
Wikipedia Education Program Communications Manager
Wikimedia Foundation
http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Education_Program
(415) 839-6885 x6649
ldavis(a)wikimedia.org
Hi Ambassadors,
Thanks to all of you who have participated in a number of discussions
on the U.S. Education Program talk page[1] or Mike Christie's
incredibly useful Signpost article [2] over the last few months. Every
term with the Wikipedia Education Program brings new challenges and
opportunities to learn what works and what doesn't. We know there's
been a lot of frustration over the last term as we grew faster than we
were able to support at this point, and we're sorry about that -- so
we wanted to let all of you be the first to know that we've just
instituted a new set of Participation Requirements across all country
versions of the Wikipedia Education Program in operation this term
(which is the U.S., Canada, and Egypt), so that we are explicitly
focusing on quality over quantity.
The requirements are here[3], but to summarize the high points, we're
enforcing a 1:15 Ambassador:Student ratio, requiring each course to be
supported by at least one Wikipedian, and making an orientation for
professors mandatory. This affects Ambassadors most in the fact that
we're making a concerted effort to limit the number of students you
are expected to support. Our hope is that we will be able to provide
better levels of support to participating professors and students next
term, and that professors will have a greater understanding of
Wikipedia thanks to the orientation (thanks as well to all of you who
offered input on suggested topics for that orientation).
Unfortunately, the downside to these requirements is that for the U.S.
and Canada program, we've had to turn down interested professors this
term (hence the reduction of quantity in favor of quality). We hope
this will not continue to be the case in the future, but this will
mean attracting more Ambassadors to the role, so we can continue
supporting professors at the 1:15 ratio with at least one Wikipedian
present. We're sad to turn away interested professors, but we want to
ensure that we can support classes well, so the quality level of
student contributions remains the same as it was during the Public
Policy Initiative pilot.
Look for a more practical email next week with information on
supporting courses and a few minor changes, once we've finalized the
course roster.
Thank you for all your amazing work -- the Wikipedia Education
Program's successes are thanks to you!
The Wikipedia Education Program staff:
Frank, Annie, LiAnna, Jami, and Ayush
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:United_States_Education_Program
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2011-12-12/Opinio…
[3] http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Education_Program/Participatio…
Welcome to the Global Education Update — a newsletter from the Wikimedia Foundation that is distributed the first and third Tuesday of each month. Someone from our staff has talked with you about our Global Education Program to bring Wikipedia into higher education classrooms around the world, and we wanted to keep you in the loop on all of our exciting activities. If you would prefer not to receive these messages, simply reply to the email and ask for your address to be removed. Learn more about subscribing and read the archives here:
https://contacts.wikimedia.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=5…
Plans underway for Cairo pilot in spring 2012
Wikipedia Education Program staff Frank Schulenburg and Annie Lin traveled to Cairo, Egypt, in December, to begin planning of a Cairo pilot of the education program, which will kick off this month. Joined by local Wikipedians, Frank and Annie met with professors and students in Cairo to determine the best plan of action for the spring pilot. Professors at Ain Shams University and Cairo University will be participating in the program, and students will be asked to both write Wikipedia articles for the Arabic Wikipedia as well as translate articles from other language versions into the Arabic Wikipedia. Learn more about Frank and Annie's travels and plans for the Cairo pilot by reading a Wikimedia Foundation blog post on their trip.
https://contacts.wikimedia.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=5…
Few slots remain for U.S. and Canada program
Are you a professor from the United States or Canada interested in using Wikipedia as a teaching tool in your class this term? If you haven't already been in touch with a Wikipedia Education Program representative, please do so immediately! We have a limited amount of support resources available for professors in the spring, and only a few slots remain open. If you're interested in participating in the Wikipedia Education Program in the spring, please email Jami Mathewson today at jmathewson(a)wikimedia.org.
Student's video featured on WMF blog post
Alverno College student Katy Lederer created a video of the Milwaukee Art Museum's brise soleil, a wing-like structure that closes at night and opens in the morning. You can read more about Katy's video, her inspiration for choosing that topic, and why she liked working on a video for Wikipedia as part of class, in a new blog post on the Wikimedia Foundation blog. Read the post.
https://contacts.wikimedia.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=5…
Wikimedia trains "Referenten" in Germany
Frank Schulenburg and Annie Lin also traveled to Cologne, Germany, where they conducted a 1.5-day workshop with 10 longterm German Wikipedians who have signed up to be a part of an education program with Wikimedia Deutschland. The "Referenten" (similar to Ambassadors) will train professors and teaching assistants on how to incorporate Wikipedia editing into their classrooms. The Referenten will not be in the classrooms themselves, but they will be available to assist the professors, TAs, and students as-needed. For more information, check out the training slides (in German).
https://contacts.wikimedia.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=5…
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This email is sent from:
Wikimedia Foundation
149 New Montgomery Street, 3rd Floor
San Francisco, CA 94105
United States
Welcome to the Global Education Update — a newsletter from the Wikimedia Foundation that is distributed the first and third Tuesday of each month. Someone from our staff has talked with you about our Global Education Program to bring Wikipedia into higher education classrooms around the world, and we wanted to keep you in the loop on all of our exciting activities. If you would prefer not to receive these messages, simply reply to the email and ask for your address to be removed. Learn more about subscribing and read the archives here:
https://contacts.wikimedia.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=5…
Regional Ambassador blogs about students' experiences
Max Klein, the Regional Ambassador for the New England region of the United States, posted some thoughts on his personal blog about how the Wikipedia Education Program can help overcome systemic gender bias in Wikipedia. Max interviewed two female students from his region who participated in the Professor Zachary McDowell's course Writing as Communication at the University of Massachusetts. Read Max's blog post.
https://contacts.wikimedia.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=5…
Monthly Metrics meeting covers state of Education Program
The monthly Wikipedia Education Program Metrics and Activities Meeting's December meeting happened this morning. Representatives from the programs in the U.S., Canada, India, Egypt, and Germany all spoke about their plans for the forthcoming term. The meeting, which is led by a rotating community member, is open to anyone. Check out the Outreach wiki page to see recaps from past meetings and sign the interest list to attend the January meeting.
https://contacts.wikimedia.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=5…
U.S. student featured in WMF blog post
University of Pittsburgh student Karl Wahlen was featured in the Wikimedia Foundation's blog earlier this week. Karl participated in the Wikipedia Education Program in the U.S. this term as a student in Piotr Konieczny's Sociology of Marriage course. Read about how Karl went from not even knowing you could edit Wikipedia to being a top contributor among students in the U.S. program this term.
https://contacts.wikimedia.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=5…
Canadian school newspaper article picked up on newswire
An article from the University of Alberta's student newspaper, the Gateway, about the Wikipedia Education Program in Canada was picked up by the Canadian University Press newswire. The article features quotes from participating professors and from Jonathan Obar, the Education Program Advisor for Canada. Read the article.
https://contacts.wikimedia.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=5…
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https://contacts.wikimedia.org/index.php?q=civicrm/mailing/unsubscribe&rese…
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This email is sent from:
Wikimedia Foundation
149 New Montgomery Street, 3rd Floor
San Francisco, CA 94105
United States
Welcome to the Global Education Update — a newsletter from the Wikimedia Foundation that is distributed the first and third Tuesday of each month. Someone from our staff has talked with you about our Global Education Program to bring Wikipedia into higher education classrooms around the world, and we wanted to keep you in the loop on all of our exciting activities. If you would prefer not to receive these messages, simply reply to the email and ask for your address to be removed. Learn more about subscribing and read the archives here:
https://contacts.wikimedia.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=5…
Education Program covered on public radio
KALW, a public radio station in San Francisco, California, covered the Wikipedia Education Program on its "Crosscurrents" show last week. The journalist, Nicole Jones, interviewed University of California at Berkeley Professor Brian Carver, some of his students, and Wikipedia Education Program Communications Manager LiAnna Davis. The segment discusses the benefits of using Wikipedia as a teaching tool in higher education classrooms. Listen to the segment.
https://contacts.wikimedia.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=5…
U.S. student's work featured as Media of the Day
Alverno College Professor Jennifer Geigel Mikulay's Advanced Media Studies students are participating in the Wikipedia Education Program this term, but their contributions to Wikipedia are a bit unique: the students are creating videos to accompany articles. In fact, student Katy Lederer's video was featured last week as the Media File of the Day on Wikimedia Commons. Katy's media depicted a time-lapse video of the brise-soleil of the Milwaukee Art Museum opening and closing from several different angles. Watch Katy's video.
https://contacts.wikimedia.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=5…
Psychology of Language class at top of Canada leaderboard
The Leaderboard for the Canada Education Program is in action, documenting the work of more than 600 students enrolled in five participating courses this term. The Leaderboard was recently updated to show the activity among the different courses. All told, students have already contributed more than 1.1 million characters to the English Wikipedia -- that's the equivalent of 725 printed pages. See which class is on top.
https://contacts.wikimedia.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=5…
ASA encourages sociologists to edit Wikipedia
Following the lead of the Association for Psychological Sciences, the American Sociological Association has launched an initiative to encourage its members to edit Wikipedia. The Sociology in Wikipedia Initiative's aims are twofold: to have professors improve articles on sociological topics, and to join the Wikipedia Education Program to ask their students to do the same. Learn more about the ASA initiative.
https://contacts.wikimedia.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=5…
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This email is sent from:
Wikimedia Foundation
149 New Montgomery Street, 3rd Floor
San Francisco, CA 94105
United States