Activities/Schools project

Aims

1. To provide a set of resources and workshops to schools in order to educate pupils and staff how to use Wikimedia projects correctly in an education environment.
2. To provide a set of resources and workshops to schools in order to educate pupils and staff how to contribute to Wikimedia projects correctly

To Do

1. Purchase laptop
2. Develop material
3. Adopt & implement CRB policy

Plans

Using Wikimedia

Ideas

Wikipedia

• Using Wikipedia for research
• Using sources to verify information (references, citations)
• Correct citations
• Navigating Wikipedia

Commons

• Finding free-license photos for projects
• Researching locations

Wikiquote

• Finding quotes from famous people - for school projects

Wikinews

• Researching major historical events (could be tied in with Wikipedia)

Wiktionary

• Learning new definitions
• Looking up synonyms / antonyms
• Find words in another language

Workshop

First section is a workshop on using Wikipedia, how to navigate, search, use sources, and cite. Then, spend the next section researching a major topic of the group's choice - perhaps 3 or 4 groups per "class" - developing a presentation to be presented to the other groups. Each group is expected to include cited work, free license pictures, and places to look for further information on the topics. Perhaps a few "did you know" points - things the other groups might not know.

Possible Topics

• 9/11
• 7/7
• Presidential Election
• War (WWI, WW2, WoT)
• Major Earthquake / Disaster
• Civil rights
• Local area (interesting as many uncited areas etc)
• Sports

Contributing to Wikimedia

Ideas

Wikipedia

• How to edit / create an article
• Basic policies (NPOV, COI)
• Basic WikiMarkup
• Citing sources
• What to do if the school gets blocked
• How should schools control/respond to vandalism

Wikinews

• Style of a News Article
• Researching topics
• Original Reporting

Commons

• Taking photos for Commons
• Licensing
• Uploading

Workshop

Spend the first part working through the policies of different projects, how they operate, and how to use the Wiki syntax. Then, the project is to develop the article on their school - a great way to teach about having cited sources and NPOV / COI issues. By taking photos, researching from websites (Newspapers, OfSTED, etc), and developing the article, they can update their school article.

Finances

• Circa £1,000 has been approved from the WMF for the purchase of a computer (grant application)
• Circa £1,000 is available from the WMF for travel (grant application)
• Schools may be willing to cover travel/expenses

Volunteers

• Project Lead: Paul Williams
• Ironholds; not involved in schools at the moment, but happy to volunteer and I've been vetted to work with children.
• Happy to help prepare PowerPoints etc; not to go to schools. Computerjoe 21:41, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
• Happy to help however I can. --Tango 02:12, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
• I'm a teacher and am happy to help out where I can although going into schools myself would be difficult as it's difficult for me to get time off work during term time. Theresa knott 17:51, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
• Happy to help however needed, although trips out would be limited to Friday afternoons within Staffordshire and Shropshire. Colds7ream 17:21, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
• 86.169.203.181