Education/Newsletter/May 2015/Wikimedia conference 2015: better understanding for Wikipedia in Education

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By Kacie Harold (WMF) and Samir Elsharbaty (WMF)

Snippet: Wikipedia Education Program sessions at Wikimedia conference discuss program tools that can help develop it around the world.

This May, Berlin, Germany was the meeting place for Wikimedians looking for understanding and collaboration. Representatives from Wikimedia chapters, user groups, thematic organizations and the Wikimedia Foundation met between May 13 and 17 for their annual Wikimedia Conference. The goal of this meetup was to discuss the future of the Wikimedia movement and to exchange ideas around the development of Wikimedia projects. Wikipedia Education Program is one of the main activities that the Wikimedia affiliates around the world support. The conference confirmed this idea by providing space for those who are interested in the education program to discover the program and for others with more experience to develop it further.

The Wikipedia Education Program was a prominent theme in several evaluation pre-conference sessions. Anna Koval’s pre-conference tools talk on the power of the Education Program Extension was a crowd favorite. Keep your eye on Outreach wiki for a subtitled video in the coming months. 24 experienced education program leaders used the Education Toolkit for the first time in a session dedicated to program toolkits, led by Kacie Harold. Several participants contributed to the toolkit by adding their insights and experiences to learning patterns. Many others contributed feedback on how to make the toolkit easier to use.

Wikimedia Conferencia 2015 was an important step on the path towards working together more effectively in the future. Participants shared the excitement to continue to get better over the next few years.

See the education program extension slide deck on Wikimedia Commons here.

See the education toolkit workshop slide deck on Wikimedia Commons here.

Read more about the annual Wikimedia Conference here.