Talk:Education/About/Office Hours

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Notes for September 20, 2018[edit]

Etherpad link

Discussion for August 31, 2018[edit]

Participants[edit]

  • Vahid (WMF)
  • Mehrdad (Freelance)
  • Sailesh (WMF)
  • Nichole (WMF)
  • Galib (WM Bangladesh)


Agenda/proposed topics:[edit]

  • Galib: Creating a global policy for Wikimedia Education Program
    • There are a variety of activities around the world, diverse contexts. Support best practices that each volunteer can adapt on in their local contexts. Working locally is the global program.
    • Global recognition is a need. Venues for that are: Programs Showcase (in September), the Education Newsletter, and Office Hours to help with sharing.
    • This is a new direction that follows https://blog.wikimedia.org/2018/01/23/education-survey-report/
  • Sailesh: Mapping exercise
    • centralized document that shows the diversity of education programs
    • will be presented on September 4th
    • CIS, as an affiliate can help other initiatives by providing knowledge and documents that
  • Mehrdad: experience from Afghanistan
    • high levels of illiteracy
    • education models have been copied from other countries, with no contextualization
    • many Wikimedia Projects could fit with those neeeds
    • it would help with critical thinking
    • people have phones (not computers)
    • Dari versus Farsi (languages reflect identities/politics)
    • contributions could be made in Dari
    • Thailand: blocked pages (especially the King's page)
    • Turkey: Wikipedia blocked
    • Sustainable Development Goals: 17a
    • offer Wikimedia projects to agencias that work on those goals
    • There's a volunteer that has endeavored to promote the Wikimedia Projects in Afghanistan, but political interference makes it difficult.
    • Security is a larger challenge than even politics in Afghanistan
    • American University of Afghanistan works hard
    • Training people outside of Afghanistan could be a solution
    • Support communities and what they choose to do. Work with partners is ok, but has to connect to local communities.
    • Pashto community: there seems to be poeple contributing (possibly from the diaspora)
    • How is Internet access?
    • 3G is available almost everywhere
    • Analytical/critical engagement with knowledge is fairly low
    • Wikifundi: Offline editing of Wikipedia
    • Creating a program in Afghanistan (focused on a local language) could be an incubation project.
  • Nichole: Education incubation project
    • project will offer training modules on topics such as project management, basic accounting, evaluation, ...
    • Applications will be open soon
    • Nichole: New Readers team at WMF
    • Focus: how to read information critically
    • this is a global need
    • a package will be published next year
  • Galib: videos on youtube about Wikimedia and education
    • creating more videos would be useful
    • there are a lot of videos that have been created by local communities. The Education Team at WMF have to do a better job of curating those resources.
  • Mehrdad: looking at the 3 top priorities, does this mean these are all efforts that come from the community
    • efforts are made by the wiki-ecosystem that includes volunteers, Affiliates, communities, and the educators

Discussion for August 30, 2018[edit]

Etherpad for quick notes!


Participants:[edit]

  • Vahid Masrour (WMF)
  • Florencia Guastavino (WMAR)
  • Erlan Vega (Wikimedistas de Bolivia)
  • Luisina Ferrante (WMAR)
  • Galib (WM Bangladesh)
  • Nichole Saad (WMF)
  • Ilario Valdelli (WMCH)
  • Ananth Subray (Christ University)

Topics + Discussion:[edit]

  • Wikimedia & Education User Group (Galib):
    • https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_%26_Education_User_Group/User_Group_election_2018-2020
    • Election process for the UG is ongoing
    • UG & Education team interaction: separate entities, Ed Team supports the UG. Ed team will phase out previous branding like the black square.
    • Education Team is trying to support the election process (to help as a "neutral party")
    • The UG will be independant from the WMF team, and making its own decisions. The WMF Edu team will of course support the UG.
    • WMAR: Luisina and Florencia as staff of WMAR cannot participate in the UG. But WMAR will support the UG and its activities.


  • Open badges and Certifications (Ilario)


  • Wikibridges (MOOC for teachers, by WMAR)
    • Worked with Paraguay Educa Foundation (last semester)
    • Face-to-face edition training
    • Coming new edition of MOOC to certify teachers (by WMAR) in Argentina. This certificate is not officially recognized by the Ministry of Education of Argentina
    • Teachers need to show certifications to their institutions


  • Galib: creation of OERs (Open Education Resources) in Bangladesh
    • Learning from Tero (from WMFI) who is conducting a similar initiative in Finland
    • collaboration with Bangladesh Open University to use CC license on contents
    • massive contribution to Commons (pdf) or maybe other formats (Wikibooks?)
    • After sharing/uploading the contents, how to foster uptake by educators? (Nichole)
    • Distribution of contents through offline tools in Bangladesh
    • Kiwix is suggested as possible tool for offline distribution
    • Ananth: Kiwix used in India to distribute scientific contents to remote locations



  • Florencia+Luisina: video tutorials on how to edit Wikipedia