Education/Newsletter/December 2013/Articles of Interest in other publications
- Des élèves écrivent des articles pour Wikipédia
The main Geneva (Switzerland) newspaper, Tribune de Genève, ran an article on the work being done by school students on editing Wikipedia. The Swiss paper decided to publish an article when they saw the National Geographic education website. The article talks about how Thullen started out in the '90s by creating web sites with students, then once Wikipedia became an important resource among students in the mid-2000s, he shifted the focus of that part of his course to editing Wikipedia. Over one hundred articles were created by his students over the years, and only three have been deleted for lack of notability. The article then goes into pedagogical considerations, and ends by mentioning the work done on the latin Wikipedia (http://la.wikipedia.org for those who do not yet know about it). Read rest of article here (in French)
- Education program kicks off on English Wikinews
Wikipedia isn’t the only Wikimedia project students contribute to as part of their coursework. Over the last few terms, more and more journalism classes have started doing classroom projects on English Wikinews. In a post on the Wikimedia blog, The Wikinewsie Group’s Laura Hale offered an explanation of what students can accomplish on Wikinews and why the students benefit from this learning opportunity. Read Laura’s post.
- Saudi Arabia program kicks off
The Wikipedia Education Program officially kicked off in Saudi Arabia in November, when program manager Tighe Flanagan and Jordan program leader Dr. Nidal Yousef visited Riyadh for the introductory workshop. The program is starting at King Saud University's Wikipedia Training Center for Translation, which has had Wikipedia assignments in place since 2011. More than 100 students and faculty members from King Saud University and Princess Nora University received training on Wikipedia basics. The program is also looking to expand in Qatar and Oman in 2014. Learn more about current expansion within the Arab World by reading Tighe's blog post about the trip.