Training/For trainers

This is a draft, in progress. It is not yet a product of consensus.

This page will provide starting points for Wikimedia volunteers looking to deliver training.

Pitfalls to avoid

• If you already a good presenter, and used to meticulously preparing what you are going to say, you may look at a three hour training slot and wonder how you are going to fill up all that time. However, A single goal such as "get everyone in the room to upload a file" can take a big chunk of time, and the more people in the room, the more chance there is for someone to lose track and get left behind. In training, the challenge is to pare down the content to focus on what is useful to the audience, and what they can not just carry out but practice repeatedly until they feel confident.

• When some learners have lost track, it is understandable why they might not shout it out to the whole room. Hence the trainer at the front of the room can get a false impression that everything is going quickly and smoothly. By frequently asking for questions or comments, you can make it easier for learners to raise problems. This is also why it is very useful for assistants who can wander round the room and give individual help.

There are freely available handouts, images and video clips to help you convey difficult concepts. See the syllabi for examples.

• Looking at the same screen, an experienced user and newcomer do not see the same things. An experienced wiki user will open up an article history and see a series of edits from top to bottom, with particularly active users and acts of vandalism clearly identifiable. For someone seeing it the first time, it is a baffling screenful of letters and numbers. For example, it is not obvious that "diff" and "hist" are short for "difference" and "history". Thus, trainers can easily get the impression that they've already shown something when the audience have not yet seen it. Similarly, experienced users might think of a task as involving two or three steps when novices see eight or nine different actions or decisions. Perhaps the biggest challenge in training is to put your experience aside and see things from the learner’s perspective.

• It may be true in a more mundane sense that newcomers see something different from what you see. Have you enabled the gadget that shows quality assessments under the title of each article? Have you tweaked your CSS? If you’ve been a Wikipedia contributor for years, it's easy to forget these customisations, and to point out something that the audience can't see on their own screens. Some trainers maintain a separate account with default settings especially for training.

• Don't fret about all the possible questions you might be asked. If someone asks an obscure question, showing them how to find out for themselves will be a more valuable learning experience for them than being told an off-pat answer.

Syllabi and resources

• Basic Wikipedia training
• Basic Commons training
• more to come

Campus Ambassador training

Campus Ambassadors support Wikipedia educational projects, working in co-operation with a subject tutor/lecturer so that learners acquire subject knowledge and wiki skills in parallel.

A good trainer

(examples and evaluation forms to come)

1. Is respectful and professional with event hosts, trainees and colleagues
2. Is accessible

   a) Conveys an appropriate amount of information for the length of session

   b) Explains potentially confusing acronyms or terminology as they are introduced

   c) Concentrates on what a beginner needs to know, rather than unnecessary detail

3. Is responsive

   a) Checks that the pace is appropriate for the audience

   b) Solicits and answers questions

   c) Tailors training to the audience's interests

4. Is engaging

   a) Conveys that contributing to Wikipedia and its sister projects can be worthwhile and rewarding. There is no requirement to convince everyone in the room.

5. Seeks to improve

   a) Actively solicits and considers feedback from attendees and colleagues. This includes the use of an evaluation form