Wikipedia Education Program/News/16 October 2012

Welcome to the Wikipedia Education Program Update -- a newsletter from the Wikimedia Foundation about efforts to bring Wikipedia into higher education classrooms. The newsletter is released on the first and third Tuesday of each month. To be notified of the latest issue, add this page to your watchlist or email LiAnna Davis (ldaviswikimedia.org), the Wikipedia Education Program Communications Manager, to be added to the distribution list.

U.S. professor blogs about her experiences

Alverno College professor Jennifer Geigel Mikulay wrote a post for the Wikimedia Foundation blog about her experiences incorporating Wikipedia into her classroom. She asks her students to write Wikipedia articles about public artworks or create videos posted on Wikimedia Commons to illustrate article content, and the best part is that all of her students are women, so she's helping to address Wikipedia's gender gap. Learn more about her experiences by reading her post.

More than 20 classes join Egypt program this term

The Wikipedia Education Program in Egypt is kicking off its second term, with courses at the University of Alexandria joining Cairo University and Ain Shams University in participating. More than 20 courses are already on board, with both new and returning professors using Wikipedia in their classrooms this term. At Ain Shams University, courses will be working to translate high quality articles from the English, German, Hebrew, and French Wikipedias onto the Arabic Wikipedia this term. See the full list of courses.

Michigan hosts teaching with Wikipedia workshop

Open.Michigan, a University of Michigan open educational resources initiative, hosted Wikipedia Education Program staff member Jami Mathewson last month for a workshop on teaching with Wikipedia. More than 35 faculty, staff, and students at the University of Michigan attended an information session on the program, and a total of 16 people stayed for the in-depth workshop led by the University of Michigan student club. Learn more about the event by reading Open.Michigan's blog post about the workshop.

Working Group proposes new thematic organization

Since July 2012, the Education Working Group has volunteered hours of their time to propose an idea for how to spin out the U.S. and Canada Education Programs from the Wikimedia Foundation in May 2013. They've proposed the creation of a new non-profit, affiliated with the Wikimedia Foundation as a thematic organization, and have asked for comments on their proposal from the Wikipedia and academic community through what's known as a Request for Comment, or RfC, on Wikipedia. You're encouraged to comment if you'd like.