User talk:KHarold (WMF)/Sandbox/Education Toolkit/

Some considerations

Just some thoughts as we develop this more. I wanted to capture them here.

Make sure it's mobile friendly. Whatever skins or templates we decide to use to display this should look good on a smart phone screen. This would make the toolkit useful in WP0 contexts, for instance.

Hide non-essential content, but make it available for users who want to dive deeper into certain parts of the toolkit. This may be possible with how the content is displayed and organized, more so than the content itself. I think we need to strike a balance between being thorough and information overload (or non-relevant information for certain models/situations). I love the flowchart idea, and am not sure on the technical wizardry that would need to be in place, but definitely something to consider! Tighe Flanagan (WMF) (talk) 21:34, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

Anna is going to work with us to see what we can do with WikiWizardry to keep things simple for our users. Jake has some ideas about how we can curate sets of information. Thanks for starting the Talk page!KHarold (WMF) (talk) 02:04, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Where to go for help should be included in each section. KHarold (WMF) (talk) 21:25, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

• Tighe suggested we add a "need help'" button to each section/page of the toolkit that takes users to the talk page of tool kit. We can have a banner on the talk page with a message directing urgent questions to educationstaff@wmf. THis is one way to keep questions about planning a program centralized and easy to follow in our watch lists.KHarold (WMF) (talk) 17:33, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Sharing resources

• Can we ask program officers to start tagging grant reports with categories for the programs they report on. For example, if an APG report contains an education project, the PO will add that category (or even a hidden category) so that the education team can check for new reports watchlists. This might be useful for other people who want to know about spesific topics, like contests, GLAM or WIR.
• Where/how do we want to ask program leaders to share materials they have created or used? On the bookshelf? By language? By type of content? Using categories?
• I am going to start a learning pattern on how, why and where to share resources - it would be good to identify a location where we want to centralize this kind of information. [[User:AKoval (WMF) didn't you say that this was discussed on one of the talk pages of the Outreach portal?KHarold (WMF) (talk) 17:33, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Program Growth Trajectories / strategies Do we want to map out how a program grows in an organic, but also scaleable way? Is that useful for volunteers? KHarold (WMF) (talk) 19:48, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Language I really liked the term that Jake used, 'Volunteer Coordinator'. What do other people think about using that instead of program leaders? It makes things feel clearer. KHarold (WMF) (talk) 00:16, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Using content from program leaders training

As Tighe pointed out, the Program leaders training has a lot of information we want to share. I have a few questions about this:

• What content should we be using?

Tighe and I agreed that some of the content is useful, but needs to be updated to reflect our viewpoints. I proposed taking some of the useful text and using it in the blurbs or intros for each section of the toolkit, then using learning patterns to capture the how-to's and actionable items.

• Can I plagarize it? Or close paraphrase it, at least? Anyone know what the rules/norms are on using content from one meta page in a second place?

See above. Tighe agreed that it would be OK to use the text as is, but with changes. He suggested we archive the training after we have cross checked to be sure the tool kit captures all of the relevent information.

• Would the content be more memorable/useful if it changed from individual pages to a longer document, or should we leave as is and link to sections when pertinent?

We are going to aim for keeping things in short sections and avoid walls of texts. The focus now is about content and less about format and skins.

KHarold (WMF) (talk) 02:32, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Ideas for future toolkit content

• Tighe and I discussed whether it is possible to edit existing instructional videos/hangouts about using Wikimetrics or Edu extension to be shorter, and add subtitles so that they can be localized. We like the idea of having accessible, short video elements added to learning patterns or elsewhere in the toolkit, as long as it is not too challenging or time consuming to do. KHarold (WMF) (talk) 18:01, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Feedback needed

Cut with glee, add resources like it is going out of style. If you see something that you think should change but don't have time to change it, please leave a note directly on the content page in parenthesis. Notes like (make this a learning pattern instead of an essay, please) are super helpful. I'm not feeling sensitive, so please don't be shy. I made a lot of spelling, grammer and Wikimarkup mistakes. Please fix wierd markup if you know how to. Words and grammer will keep changing before we go live in Feb and I will make more mistakes, so don't sweat that stuff too much for now.

Text blurbs

In a perfect world, the blurbs (blocks of text in the sandbox) will have enough information that the reader would be like, oh man, I need to click some of these links. In the real word, I just want to make sure the reader knows what they are going to find in this section and why they probably should know about it.

• Are they clear?
• Are they too long / too short?
• Is key information missing?

Resource Links Review

• If you see a resource missing from any section drop the link where you think it should go. Add a short description of what it is and who might want it.
• The priority is to get links to resources in this outline. Writing style, editing and duplicates can be resolved later. Don't let wordsmithing or certainty stop you from sharing something.
• Go nuts.

Learning Pattern Review Asks

I want to make sure these don't look crazy next to each other and that they capture learning and are useful (not too complicated).

• Are the LP's appropriate in length?
• Are they visually overwhelming?
• Are the blocks of text too long, or are they in reasonably sized sections (chunks)?
• Do the 'chunk headers' seem useful? Do you hate the word chunk header?
• Do you love or hate the way one of the LP's look? Feel free to change it, add to it, or let me know in a note in outline like this ( this LP is ugly, and I dont know why but I want it to stop. +1).
• Point out types of format that I have tried out with an example of each, when you look at them pay attention to which calls out main points and gets learning across quickly. KACIE WILL SEND EXAMPLES BY MONDAY
• Do the parents and children I made look like they are related? Are they pretty? Am I pretty? Does it make you want to read it? KACIE WILL SEND EXAMPLES BY MONDAY
• Redlink Learning Pattern - this is something that people might know about and might want to know, but is not super important right now.
• Stub Learning Pattern - this is something I'm pretty sure people know, and that they probably need to know. Kacie will make a stub with some structure around what should go in it. We will use the discussion page to ask some questions, make some suggestions and tag users who we think might have ideas to add.

Timeline

Kacie:

• Friday - Sunday - keep adding content, links to resources.
• Monday - idintify redlinks and stubs that are missing
• Thursday - make redlinks and stubs
• Friday - make redlinks and stubs

Edu team:

• Review content - Ongoing, but soft deadline is next Friday, January 30th. It doesnt have to be perfect by then, just pretty good.
• by Wednesday Jan 28th - add / subtract priority redlink and stub learning patterns.

Info needed for Learning Pattern stubs

In-kind support

• Which organizations or volunteers have experience asking for in-kind support? Who should I invite to contribute to this learning pattern?

Run

Hey Kacie, for step Run, I took the liberty of eliminating the parent (2.1), and moved all children to parent. Let me know what you think. In my side, it now looks like this:
2. Run
2.1 Participant Support
2.1.1 XXX
2.1.2 XXX
2.2 Teaching and Assignments
2.2.1 XXX
2.3 Problem Solving

Content to prepare after launch

I want to update these and make a great resource that includes international examples and recent experiences, but I dont think we have time for this now. It is part of our plan for the new brochure, so it's getting moved here for now. In the toolkit, I'll do what I can to make these points using links that already exist.

Volunteer Management

Text below moved into LP

• en:w:Special:OnlineVolunteers -- Not all Wikimedia projects have a page that lists online volunteers like this one does, as it is created automatically via the Education Program Extension. However, you could create a similar page on your Wikimedia project in your language. And you might wish to talk with your community about enabling the Extension on your project. (See also: Grants:Learning patterns/Using the education extension.)
• Outreach:Education/Ambassadors -- Not all Education Programs have dedicated Ambassadors (see: outreach:Education/Ambassadors#Models currently in use). However, you could work with your community to recruit volunteers to be Ambassadors of your Education Program (see: outreach:Education/Ambassadors#Recruiting Ambassadors).
• Wikimedia Embassy -- Not all Wikimedia projects have an Embassy, but for those that do, the volunteers there may be willing to be liaisons for your Education Program. This could be especially helpful with translation projects.
• Village pumps (what these are, how they work, why they're helpful: all wikis have them; some communities call it a village pump, some don't; some have specific places to post questions that are not in the local language, if that applies to your situation, so make sure to check if that's the case...)

--I've added a few ideas here. Would be great to get Jake to weigh in on this! :) Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 21:48, 9 February 2015 (UTC)