Training

Contributing to Wikimedia projects, such as Wikipedia, Wikiversity and Wikibooks, is an educational opportunity in the fullest sense, developing sophisticated collaboration, scholarly writing and critical thinking skills at the same time as subject knowledge. Improving an article can be a demanding project in either formal and informal education, for a talented student or a whole class. Wikimedia UK is working with some of the country's most respected and innovative institutions to explore how Wikimedia projects can benefit UK education. In partnership with universities and support bodies, we are gradually establishing Wikimedia as part of the landscape of higher education, secondary education, and lifelong learning. The Wikimedia Foundation has an extensive set of educator resources, including reasons to use Wikipedia, case studies and teaching materials. Training/box-footer Resources and Materials Teaching students how to edit: Wikipedia Assignments Contributing to Wikipedia and the sister projects teaches students valuable skills of information literacy, in particular high quality writing skills, critical evaluation, research, and citation. It also gives students a sense of purpose in their work, and creates free content that can be developed by others. Many universities are already assigning students to improve Wikipedia articles for credit:The PDF brochure includes many case studies. Education conference In 2012 and 2013, Wikimedia UK ran Wikimedia-focused Education conferences. With international representation the conferences considered a whole spectrum of educational contexts, including Wikipedia for kids, photojournalism, the transition from school to university and more detail about running Wikipedia university assignments. EduWiki Conference 2014 is in preparation for October. Wikimania 2014 Wikimania 2014 in London includes a stream on the Future of Education, and a Workshop before the event Open Education Learning Platforms We're working on open education for open platforms - like Mediawiki itself. Our VLE project is in technical development, and will provide a Wiki-moodle integration for fully Wiki-editable quiz delivery. We hope to develop a system of Open Badges (see also here). You might also be interested in Wikiversity. Digital Literacy materials Being able to use Wikipedia and its sister projects involves a certain set of literacies. Understanding a Wikipedia article doesn't just involve being able to read; it involves understanding source credibility, being able to evaluate evidence and weigh up conflicting evidence, and understanding how different concepts are connected. Editing Wikipedia is one great way to engage these skills - selecting good sources, balancing notable claims, organising articles and linking to other ones, interacting with other editors and their perspectives are all fundamental. We are developing digital literacy lesson suggestions, including the one sentence microcosm. If you'd like to get involved check out the digital literacy discussions here. Jisc Wikimedia Ambassador Wikimedia UK is working with Jisc to deliver a nine month project from July 2013 to March 2014, to encourage a range of audiences (librarians, teachers, researchers and students) within learning and research to engage with Wikimedia UK and Wikimedia projects for mutual benefit. This includes a programme of workshops in institutions on "Wikimedia: linking research impact and open education". Student societies Imperial College, London attracted national attention as the first UK university to have a Wikipedia student society. The students organised a day event to explore relations between Wikipedia and academia. The Cambridge University Wikipedia Society has also been quite active since 2012. We have also experimented with a fresher fair stall at the University of Warwick and found it an excellent way of gathering interest from enthusiastic undergraduates. Our student societies page explains how we can help students get a society under way. See more education activities Other education activities Campus wikilounges University of Manchester and University of Liverpool are among the institutions where Wikimedia volunteers have provided "Wikilounge" events, helping students make informed use of Wikipedia. Wikimedia Outreach Ambassador University of Bristol has supported a unique paid internship to explore co-working between Wikimedia UK and a university. One outcome was a Wikimedia Girl Geek Dinner hosted at the university, involving students, lecturers and the broader public. Wikiversity Lecturers at University of Exeter (Economics Classroom Experiments) and University of Westminster (Political Simulation and Gaming) are among those using Wikiversity as a learning platform or to share good practice with their colleagues. Student inductions and wiki-literacy Alex Stinson from the United States explains the Campus Ambassador programme at a workshop in the University of Bristol, 19 March 2011 It is important that students and pupils understand the limitations of Wikipedia (and encyclopaedias in general) as well as its usefulness. The Wikimedia community have created many resources to explain the basic concepts of reliability, neutrality and Wikipedia's internal review processes. Wikimedia UK can provide material for student inductions (Contact us). Science learning centres Our work with the UK Association of Science & Discovery Centres includes a keynote at their Marketing Managers Conference and a half-day workshop at Science Learning Centre South West. Advisory bodies Wikimedia UK is forming links with national advisory bodies to make sure that relevant information about the Wikimedia projects is available to teaching staff, support staff and educational developers. For example, the JISC Centre for Educational Technology and Interoperability Standards has a guide to Wikimedia Commons as a platform for Open Educational Resources. University Wikimedians in Residence Wikimedia UK is working up a draft job description for /University Wikimedian in Residence and aims to establish these soon. Training/box-footer Template:Training/box-header Education/Strategy Training/box-footer Template:Training/box-header Wikimedia volunteers can help educational projects by meeting with teaching staff, librarians or support staff to raise awareness, using the many resources for educators already created. With notice, we can provide supporting materials and may be able to support with funding for travel and subsistence in accordance with Wikimedia UK's Expenses Policy. If you're interested in getting involved in education activities, get in touch with us or sign your name on the Education Portal People Page. If you want to be more heavily involved in the strategy, and board/operations side of things, you could join the Education Committee. There are also other ways to Get Involved, and do help work on the tasks list Portal Here are some Education related tasks you can do: Help develop our Education strategy Contribute to discussions around how we develop an Open Badges strategy Contribute to our Digital Literacy discussion, and help us develop resources in this area Support our partners in delivering Wikipedia assignments Contribute technical expertise to the development of our Open Learning Platform work Help us develop sets of material for the Open Learning Platforms Improve this portal - visually, and the content (it's all up for grabs!) Collaborate: Coordinate with m:Wikiversity (on Meta; also on Wikibooks), Coordinate at the Wikipedia:Education noticeboard based upon Wikipedia:Student assignments, More... Training/box-footer Template:Training/box-header Category:‏‎Education‏‎ Category:‏‎Education past years‏‎ Category:‏‎Education planning‏‎ Category:‏‎Education portals‏‎ Category:‏‎Education projects‏‎ Events Category:EduWiki‏‎ Category:‏‎Education past events‏‎ Category:‏‎Open Education Week‏‎ Committee Category:‏‎Education Committee‏‎ Category:‏‎Education Committee meetings‏‎ Category:‏‎Education Committee papers‏‎ Who's involved Category:‏‎Education people user pages‏‎ Resources Category:Digital literacy Category:‏‎Student societies‏‎ Category:‏‎Training‏‎ Category:‏‎Training documentation‏‎ Category:‏‎Training events for newcomers‏‎ Category:‏‎Training events for volunteers‏‎ Category:‏‎Training the Trainers‏‎ ‏‎Category:‏‎Virtual Learning Environment‏‎ Training/box-footer See more education resources edit   Selected story Training/Selected story/7 edit   Selected idea Training/Selected idea/5 Template:Training/box-header A formatted list of events, or/and we start importing Wiki-news education Training/box-footer Open knowledge Digital Literacy and Information Literacy Badges Collaborative learning List of topics · More Glossary terms... Training/box-footer Template:Training/box-header There are a number of ways of keeping in touch with the education projects activities: Sign up for the Wikimedia UK Newsletter Join the Education Committee if you want to be more involved Get in touch with individual members of the committee, or give Toni Sant an email with specific queries or suggestions Outside of our activities you might also be interested in: The Jiscmail Wikimedia Mailing List for educators interested in the potential of Wikipedia or its sister projects, or for Wikimedians interested in supporting education. This is a low-traffic list. The Wikimedia Foundation Education mailing list, offering an online forum for people directly involved in Wikimedia-related education projects around the world. Training/box-footer

Wikimedia UK education projects

Annual Conference — Campus Ambassadors – Student Societies — Schools — Committee — VLE

Want Wikipedia or Wikimedia training?

If you are interested in a training session for your community or workplace, please contact the office.

Keep an eye on the events calendar and Wikimedia UK's Twitter feed; there may already be a training event in your area that you can ask to join.

We are especially keen to work:

• with scholarly societies and charities
• with universities, schools and education-sector bodies
• across the whole of the UK
• with learners of every age
• with community groups including local history groups, conservation groups or "silver surfers"

Specialised audiences

We have customised training events for:

• Cultural institutions such as museums or libraries
• Lecturers, teachers and other educators
• Researchers and public engagement staff
• Software developers

Keep an eye on the events calendar or contact the office with a specific request.

Want to train others?

Our materials for trainers include session plans, materials, advice on training methods and details of past events.

If you see an event in the calendar that you'd like to help with, get in touch with Wikimedia UK's contact person for the event.

We have an ongoing Training the Trainers programme for our volunteers. Any upcoming events will be listed on the events calendar. To register an interest, email daria.cybulskawikimedia.org.uk

Want to improve Wikipedia or Wikimedia?

Anyone is welcome to contribute to Wikipedia or its sister projects straight away, and there are resources to help you start. We provide Markup guides/cheat sheets, Wikipedia Guides, guidance for Commons, and more.

• 
• 
•