Education/Newsletter/June 2017/The education collab meets in Yerevan
The Education Collab meets in Yerevan[edit]
Summary:
Collab members discuss how the Yerevan meeting went and what they liked best about visiting Armenia.
Name:
What I will take away from the collab meeting in Yerevan:
Name: Nichole
What I will take away from the Collab meeting in Yerevan: First, I have to give a shout-out of thanks to the Armenia chapter for organizing this great meeting. They did such a good job with venues and logistics, that we could focus our time on what really mattered--learning and collaborating with each other. A non-work related highlight for me was getting to hang out at the Ayb school, which is a seriously innovative and fun campus that even has slides from one floor to another. Seeing how Wikipedia in Education is taken so seriously in Armenia was an uplifting experience--we even got to participate in a press conference. Overall, the meeting was successful and we came away with a few important outcomes that are discussed in other articles in this newsletter.
Name: Jami
What I will take away from the collab meeting in Yerevan: During our intensive meetings in Yerevan, Wikimedia Armenia graciously introduced us to several of their members, educators, board members, and program participants. One of my favorite moments was when one of their program participants shared her experience joining our wonderful wiki world. She was introduced to Armenian Wikipedia last year during one of their programs, and she spent the year adding content about Italy's geography, food, culture, art, and monuments. She described her experience in such a beautiful way—that she'd spent the year traveling across Italy by way of her Wikipedia edits. It was so great to meet new Wikipedians who have joined our movement through programs, making our discussions about supporting programmatic activities even more meaningful!
Name: Tighe
What I will take away from the collab meeting in Yerevan: I've always been proud to support the Wikipedia in Education part of the Wikimedia movement, and our in person meetings remind me how kind and generous our program leaders are. They strive for excellence, but not at the cost of anyone else. Armenia was a great place to host this event since education is at the core of pretty much everything the local chapter does. We had fantastic support from Wikimedia Armenia to make sure everything ran smoothly. I will also take away some great conversations around Movement Strategy that were full of wonderful ideas and aspirations, as well as important questions for the Wikimedia movement.
Name: Filip
What I will take away from the collab meeting in Yerevan: I feel that we were very productive in Yerevan, because we managed to cover a vast range of topics. The core issue at hand was to kick-start a new user group, Wikipedia & Education User Group, which would be the next step in the natural evolution of the Collab. I appreciate that we spent a lot of time setting up the groundwork for the group, so I hope that its recognition will be just a formality. Also, we have spent a lot of time talking about strategy and were we think Education fits in our movement and ecosystems around it: we have had many fruitful discussions that have been synthesized in the form of feedback to the process. The overall atmosphere was friendly, positive and conducive to focused work. I think we did a splendid job and it's without a doubt the single best Collab meeting we've had so far.
Tags: Collab, Armenia, international meetings