Wikipedia Education Program/News/17 September 2013

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.

Why student learning matters, too

Jami Mathewson, the program manager for the United States and Canada versions of the Wikipedia Education Program, authored an op-ed post for the Wikimedia blog about why student learning matters. In Jami's post, she argues that the benefits of doing Wikipedia assignments are more than just improving Wikipedia articles. Students gain real-world skills they would not achieve through a more traditional assignment. Read Jami's op-ed.

Next term kicks off in Arab World

Also on the Wikimedia blog, Tighe Flanagan, the program manager for the Arab World version of the Wikipedia Education Program, writes about the plans for the next term. Tighe provides a report on the recent Arab World meeting and Jordan celebration conference in Amman, Jordan, as well as talking about the momentum for the program, which is carrying the efforts forward this term in Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. Learn more about the Arab World program by reading Tighe's post.

Students successfully complete online training

One year ago, students in the United States and Canada program started using a new resource: an online training designed to teach them the basics of contributing to Wikipedia. After two terms of listening to student feedback and making minor adjustments to the training content, the training has taken off. Already, more than 300 students have successfully completed the online training this term, and more and more professors are assigning their students the training as part of their coursework. See the training.

WikiSkills program helps teachers in Sweden

One facet of the European Commission’s Lifelong Learning Programme is called WikiSkills, and Wikimedia Sverige has been running a WikiSkills program to instruct teachers on using collaborative tools like wikis in their teaching. Sten Sundin, a teacher at Dalarna University, says he learned about discussion pages and wikimarkup from attending the WikiSkills classes, and he looks forward to incorporating Wikimedia project contributions in his sound and music production classes. Read more about the program.