Registration for Wikimedia+Education Conference is open

Summary: The very first Wikimedia+Education international Conference will be held in the Basque Country from April 5th to 7th. Programme and scholarship submissions are finished now, and registration is open. Hurry up!

Wikipedia belongs in education, we claim. And it’s true. Wikimedia Movement, chapters, user groups and affiliates are developing Education Programs elsewhere, teachers are using wikis (and not only Wikimedia) as a teaching resource, students are using Wikipedia to complete their assignments... and are even doing assignments on Wikipedia. Education community and Wikimedia movement are two sides of the same broad idea: knowledge must be accessible to every humankind.

The Basque Wikimedians User Group (EWKE, in Basque language) is developing a three-year program with the Basque Government to make better contents for schoolchildren in our language with the help of the education community: University students are working on the enrichment of Wikipedia with their knowledge, University professors and lecturers are giving them assignments to work on and High School teachers and school institutions are working to detect what information gaps we have, what we can improve. It is not the first time this kind of programs are made in the Wikimedia Movement, but it’s a good example of collaboration between knowledge institutions, Governments and Wikimedians. We have a mature educational program in a small linguistic community with support from the local government, this allows making efforts to document and create models, templates and documents that can be reused by the rest of the global community.

The event will run in Donostia, Basque Country. The main venue will be Tabakalera, one of the largest culture institutions in the city. In an effort to include also local perspectives and stakeholders, we will try to give simultaneous Basque-English translation in as much events as we can.

Programme

We will have three different tracks in this Conference. Submissions can be designated between any of them, but we should decide to insert it in one of them. The formats will vary between workshops, panels, presentations, lightning talks and a specific space reserved to present academic papers. The three tracks are listed below:

Skills for life: Students, teachers, educator are editing Wikimedia projects. How does this help teachers and students achieve learning outcomes? How does it fit into international, national, and local curriculum frameworks? How do we know that students are learning? This track is to understand more about the learning that happens for students and educators who participate in the Wikimedia Movement.

Free knowledge for the world

Students are reading Wikipedia: Is the community creating content to reach them? Is Wikimedia providing content for all ages? Are they provided in the languages that are used in education? Is Wikimedia an OER or is it creating OERs?

How do we make it happen?

What kind of programs are being done in different places?: How do you plan, execute and evaluate an education program, project, or short activity? How do you work alongside governments or other institutional partners? We will highlight successes, challenges, and how to replicate good models. This track is for Wikimedians who want to dig deep into the how of education work.

Attend

If you want to attend, please, Register as soon as possible!

Tags: wikimedia+education conference, conference, education