Education/Newsletter/December 2015/Armenian students inspire their teachers to join Wikipedia
By Lilit Tarkhanyan (Wikimedia Armenia)
Snippet: Wikimedia Armenia organized wiki seminar for teachers.
On October 27 - November 1 Wikimedia Armenia gathered together teachers from different cities and villages of Armenia. The aim of the seminar was to spread wikimovement in different regions of Armenia and involve new editors and volunteers in WM AM projects, especially in Wikipedia Education Program. Following our previous successful workshops organized for Western Armenian teachers from Lebanon and Eastern Armenian teachers from different cities of Armenia, WM AM decided to continue involving more teachers to the program. More than 100 teachers applied to participate in wikiseminar but only 29 were chosen.
During the talks some of the teachers confessed that their students has inspired them to apply and join the program. Varsenik Danielyan from Mrgavan village secondary school said:
I have many students who want to learn editing Wikipedia and every time they ask me for help. I can't support them because I myself haven't edited before. I also have a very active student who all the time speaks about Wikipedia and tries to involve his classmates and when we learned that a wiki seminar is going to be organized he encouraged me to participate.
Gayane Gevorgyan - a Computer Science teacher from Stepanavan N1 high school revealed that about 4-5 years ago one of her students approached her and asked to help him create an article in Armenian Wikipedia. After some attempts they succeeded. Her former student has now become one of the active editors on the Armenian Wikipedia who created more than 700 articles and having 2300+ global edits. And when she learned about wiki seminar she applied with great pleasure.
During the seminar the teachers learned about wikimovement and wikiprojects, learned editing tools and the principles of editing in Wikipedia as well as improved and created a number of articles. Armenian Wikipedia experienced editors were their guides in Wikiworld during that period.
Even a month hasn't passed from the seminar and the teachers actively try to organize different events in their schools. On November 4th and 12th Varsenik Danielyan organized a workshop for her students. On November 7th Luiza Sargsyan organized a workshop in Yerevan N190 school. On November 8th Naira Zeynalyan organized a workshop in her school in Surenavan. On November 9th Narine Muradyan organized a workshop in Charentsavan school after M. Mashtots. On November 14th Lusik Dovlatyan organized a workshop in Sisian N1 school. Another workshops are expected to be held in future. In this way Armenian teachers together with their students will continue to share in the sum of all human knowledge.
Read more about the Wikipedia Education Program in Armenia here.