CEE/Newsletter/November 2017/Contents/Greece report

Greece report: From monuments to gender gap and beyond

By Geraki

WikiFemHack

Presentation during WikiFemHack

Wikimedia User Group Greece organised the WikiFemHack editathon/hackathon. The event showcased Gender Gap, focused on finding the roots of this phenomenon and ways to mitigate it. Among others, our main goal was to welcome women, inform them and increase their participation in technology, programming and in Wikipedia. WikiFemHack aimed at designers, scientists, educators, students and graduate and PhD students with no or a lot of experience in similar projects. Our aim was to inform and exchange views and opinions so we could, through conversation, take a step towards mitigating the Gender Gap in Technology. Everyone that attended had the chance to learn about the rules and code behind Wikipedia and the rest of the Wikimedia Foundation projects, enrich the Greek Wikipedia with content and also show off their coding skills.

CorfuPedia

One of the CorfuPedia teams

CorfuPedia, a student project with main purpose to introduce students to Wikipedia, via creating new articles in the history of the island of Corfu was organised in cooperation with Wikimedia Community User Group Greece. The participants were 106 students, 4 teachers of informatics, 4 teachers of greek language and literature, 2 english language teachers, 2 french language teachers, and 1 german language teacher. Marios Magioladitis provided constat support while User:Geraki, User:Ggia organised online Wikipedia tutorials via Skype.

Wiki Loves Monuments 2017 winners

Winning photo: Vaulted ceiling of the Church of Our Lady of the Castle

The organizing committee of Wiki Loves Monuments 2017 in Greece announced the 10 winning photos. The photos were already submitted to the international committee. The awards event is expected in December.

Conferences

• VoxxedDays is a developers' conference. A number of free seats for VoxxedDays Thessaloniki 2017 were provided for WikiFemHack participants, and from the other side, WMUGGR participated with a booth in the main event.
• Fosscomm is an annual open source/ free software conference established in 2008. Once more WMUGGR participated with a booth, handouts, and a presentation from Marios Magioladitis.
• User:Geraki made a presentation at the Panhellenic Conference of Academic Libraries: "Collaboration, contribution and use of Wikidata and Wikipedia for Academic Libraries".

Greece report in education: From 8-year-olds to senior citizens

By Manos Kefalas, Wikipedia Community Schools Association Greece

After 2016, where 8-10% of new Greek Wikipedia articles were written by people benefited by W.C.S.A.G. classes, accumulated experience and tools that have been produced to provide equity in participation for everyone, were used to go beyond limits in participation.

• A class of 26 8-year-olds produced 11 articles that remained online, under an official school program during Spring 2017. This case study was officially presented to primary educators in Athens, by the school councilor who supervised the classes.
• On Summer 2017, W.C.S.A.G. was awarded for its contrubution in Education as an organization, during the annual Volunteerism Festival in Athens.
• Senior citizens from Grava, an area in Athens where chances for good education are average, participate in Wikipedia editing classes since Autumn 2017. Senior citizens are usually given classes on how to use email and social media, in Greece. Contributing in Wikipedia while at the same time they are being mentored in academic-like type of embracing knowledge, is pioneering for Greece.

During 2017, systematic classes took place for adults to contribute in Wikipedia, for educators to learn how to use Wikipedia as an education tool for developing skills, and in secondary education from educators who are members of WCSAG. Wikipedia Community Schools Association Greece became a legal entity in 2017.