Education/Newsletter/August 2014/Education at Wikimania

Education at Wikimania

By the Wikipedia Education Collaborative

Education was a major topic at Wikimania 2014 with a number of lively events, some filled to overflowing! The sharing of experiences and advice began with pre-conference workshops, panels, and trainings on August 6 and 7. This event mainly targeted educators and others who are not yet using Wikipedia in educational settings, but who are curious about it. Workshops included those to introduce basic editing skills and brainstorming ideas. There was training for Ambassadors, too.

Several education sessions were held on August 8. Topics were Wikipedia and medicine, including a review of the Wikipedia course for medical students at Tel-Aviv University, efforts with the One Laptop per Child program, the challenges of introducing wiki-style work in traditional education situations, the introduction of the Wikipedia Education Collaborative, a Q&A for the Wiki Education Foundation, and a review of some of the major challenges that the Wikipedia Education Program faced in the past.

A final education block was presented on the last day of the conference, August 10, with the results of a study using offline Wiki Readers with students in India, South Africa and Mexico, as well as a session on the use of metrics to evaluate and develop education initiatives. The metrics session involved a panel of program leaders from the Arab World, Israel, Mexico, United Kingdom, and United States & Canada discussing how they use numerical data to evaluate their programmatic efforts.

All recorded sessions were archived on Livestream.