Schools

This page is kept as an archival reference.If you want to raise a point about it, please start a discussion thread on the community forum. This page relates to work done by User:ErrantX in 2012.

This is a draft set of thoughts, ideas an experiences intended to look at ways to extend out Education strategy into Schools (primarily secondary education).

• ErrantX's Outreach

Outreach, not recruitment

In general, teenagers are probably not a good focus for editor recruitment - they tend to lack an interest in a topic, can sometimes have restraint issues and definitely don't have the critical thinking skills. But we can, perhaps, look at teaching them about Wikipedia and its ideals.

When I talk to teenagers about Wikipedia, and ask what they know about it these are usually the first two responses:

1. It's an encyclopaedia
2. You can't use it in essays

Often this highlights that they don't understand what an encyclopaedia is (a summary resource) and that they can use it as a "springboard" for their essay writings (i.e. gain a topic overview & use the reference links to find citeable material).

In fact, this is the beginnings of teaching them about critical thinking (but in a sneaky way!).

By introducing Wikipedia as a movement & resource at a secondary age we can:

• Lay down long term engagement strategy (re-engage with them in higher education to become editors)
• Improve the utility of Wikipedia to students/teachers in a classroom context
• Attempt to reduce school vandalism at a grass roots level

Wikimedia UK education projects

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