Education/Newsletter/August 2015/Summer term ends with great success and Fall begins at Tec de Monterrey

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By Leigh Thelmadatter (Wiki Learning-Tec de Monterrey)

Snippet: Videos, wikimetrics and new projects at the Tec de Monterrey.

Daniel Ulacia presents at Wikimania

Summer 2015 may be seen in the future as a turning point for Wiki efforts at Tec de Monterrey in Mexico. It came off of a successful Spring semester, which saw the first "Wiki challenge" on three campuses of the institution as well as the start of an ambitious project to create a short video documentary/testimonial about Wiki projects at the institution by high school students under the direction of Daniel Ulacia. So ambitious, in fact, that the students could not finish, so a group of Digital Art and Animation students under the leadership of Naomi Iwadare, took over with Daniel to finish the almost 9-minute video in time for the 2015 Wikimania in Mexico City. The video, presented by Daniel, was a hit and has since been shared all over social media, presented at the Lightning talks at the Foundation in San Francisco and formally to teachers' meetings and to classes starting Wikimedia projects as a form of introduction. The video was also formally presented at the Mexico City campus at a ceremony to award certificates of appreciation from both the Tec de Monterrey and the Wikipedia Education Program on August 27, 2015. Watch the video here (in Spanish with English subtitles). The university level students who worked on this video did not stop there. They also created a tutorial for uploading files to Commons, with the aim of supporting the Wiki challenge of September 2015. This video contains not only screenshots showing the steps of uploading a photograph, but its introduction contains original animations to present the basic rules and norms for uploading in Commons. This video can be seen here (no subtitles).

Spring 2015 saw the most content ever uploaded to Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons by Tec de Monterrey students. Summer, of course, is quieter, as there are very few classes. However, we still had a group of 20 students working with Wikipedia to fulfill community service requirements. Six of these did the video work mentioned above. The rest worked mostly on articles, both translation and writing, with some photography. Our wikimetrics for May-August are:

  • 19 participants of servicio social
  • 3,703,182 bytes added to Spanish Wikipedia
  • 1,045 edits in namespace only
  • 81 articles created or significantly expanded
Students working with the Popular Art Museum

The Fall semester began on August 10, with new classes and new projects. Classes in advanced English, Spanish composition and Mexican culture have already started work on Wikimedia projects. A new group of 20 students are working in Wikiservicio for their community service hours. In addition, the Popular Art Museum of Mexico City has signed on with the Mexico City campus and Wikiservicio to sponsor the video group from above. In this pilot project, these students will be working on video and animation related to the museum, but to be put in a free license, making it useful to Wikimedia as well. The communications director is already impressed with these students' commitment and drive. September 21-25 is Tec de Monterrey's Semana i (I Week) a week when students do not go to classes, but instead spend 40+ hours on a single project, to be started and completed in that time. The Wiki option this semester at the Mexico City campus will be a Wiki Expedition to cover as much of the Mexico City boroughs of Xochimilco and Tlalpan as possible photographically, focusing on historical monuments, other landmarks, parks, waterways and daily life in these areas adjacent to this campus. We are collaborating with the National Institute of Anthropology and History as well as the governments of the boroughs for access and for documentation. While the focus of the week will be photography, we also aim to encourage classes to work on missing short articles after the event. Campus Santa Fe, in the west of the city, is also doing a Wiki expedition, with their focus on the San Ángel neighborhood near their campus.

Read more about Wikipedia Education Program in Tec De Monterrey here.