Wikipedia Education Program/News/5 February 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.

Cairo class creates Spanish literature portal

Dr. Abeer Abd El-Hafez teaches Spanish at Cairo University, and her class has participated in both terms of the Wikipedia Education Program in Egypt so far. Last term, her students excelled at adding content related to Spanish literature to the Arabic Wikipedia. This term, her students have added three Featured Articles and one Good Article, but they didn't stop there. Students also created a portal on the Arabic Wikipedia about Spanish literature, and they've nominated that for Featured status as well. Check out the portal.

Brazil program organizes Campus Party activities

Wikimedia Brasil together with the Wikimedia Foundation organized activities supporting the use of Wikipedia in education in Brazil through Campus Party. Mateus Nobre, a Wikimedia Brasil volunteer, talked about Wikipedia and Free Culture, giving a general panorama on the history of encyclopedias, from the medieval to the information age, where we have Wikipedia as part of the free culture movement. The coordinator of the Wikipedia Education Program in Brazil, Everton Zanella Alvarenga, also talked about Wikipedia and the Future of Education. Learn more about the Campus Party activities.

U.S., Canada Thematic Organization proposed

A group of Wikipedia Ambassadors and program instructors known as the Working Group have developed a plan for supporting the Wikipedia Education Program in the U.S. and Canada starting in Summer 2013. The group is in the process of applying for Thematic Organization approval through the Affiliations Committee. All current instructors and Ambassadors are encouraged to stay up-to-date on the next few months' progress. If you plan to continue using Wikipedia in the classroom in the U.S. and Canada and would like to become a member of the new organization, please sign up on the interest list linked from the proposal! To read more about the current plans, see the current proposal and feel encouraged to provide and feedback or ask questions on the talk page.

Czech Republic students improve content

Petr Brož from Wikimedia Czech Republic wrote a post for the Wikimedia Foundation blog about the status of Studenti píší Wikipedii, the Czech branch of the Wikipedia Education Program. Petr worked as an Ambassador with Jiří Reif's class at Charles University in Prague again last term to create articles and take photographs of Protected Areas in the Czech Republic. A total of 36 students participated this term from this class, and Petr's blog post contains before and after views of each of the articles the students worked on. The course is one of 10 that participated in the Czech program last term. Learn more by reading the blog post.

Welcome (back), Rod Dunican!

Rod Dunican re-joined with Wikimedia Foundation family last month as the director of the Wikipedia Education Program. Frank Schulenburg, the former director, has been promoted to Senior Director of Programs. Rod was previously the project manager for the Public Policy Initiative, the pilot of the Wikipedia Education Program in the United States, so he is extremely familiar with the program and the Wikimedia projects. In his new role, Rod is responsible for building systems that enable quality at scale in different educational environments. Leave a welcome note for Rod on his talk page.