Wikimedia Blog/Drafts/Education Collab meeting Stockholm 2016

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Title ideas[edit]

  • What We Learnedː Education Collab meeting, Stockholm 2016
  • What We Learnedː Education Collab program leaders meet in Stockholm [1]
  • The Wikipedia Education Collaborative meets in Sweden and defines next steps for the future of the Education Program mentorship
  • Where do we go from here: The Wikipedia Education Collaborative
  • Growing education in the Wikimedia Movement: Collab members set goals for mentoring and support

Notes[edit]

  1. This is not a blog for the series What I Learned.

Summary[edit]

A brief, one-paragraph summary of the post's content, about 20-80 words. On the blog, this will be shown in the chronological list of posts or in the featured post carousel on top, next to a "Read more" link.

  • Wikimedia Education Collab members met in Stockholm to reflect on the improvements they had implemented over the last year and to set the goals for the upcoming 18 months.

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A graphic artist recorded the Collab's vision and goals during the meeting in Stockholm. Image by Melina Masnatta (WMAR), CC-BY-SA 4.0.
Education Collab members during Wikimania 2015 Mexico City. Image by لا_روسا, CC-BY-SA 4.0.

Some time back, when she got behind the scenes and started editing Wikipedia, Sara Mörstell asked herself: ‘How can use this with my students?’ Some years later, and after gaining experience running her own Wikimedia Education Program, Sara found herself co-organizing the Wikipedia Education Collab third meeting, in Sweden. The Wikipedia Education Collaborative (aka the Collab) is a global network of education program leaders created in 2014 to support the development of education programs around the globe. Collab members like Sara volunteer to mentor other educators who are interested in using Wikipedia as a teaching tool, as well as Wikimedians interested in running education programs. Over the weekend of March 5th and 6th, program leaders that form the Collab gathered in Stockholm to define common goals, priorities and projects for the group to focus on over the next year.

What is the engine that moves the Collab forward? Some of the guiding principles of the Collab are building networks, sharing experiences and fostering collaboration across education programs, organizations, volunteers and geographies throughout the movement. It’s about sharing our experience and expertise with our peers to support other programs at a global scale.

Some of the founding goals defined for the collab were: to establish best practices for Wikipedia in education programs, collect new ideas for educational initiatives, share resources between global programs, develop a global recognition system, communicate effectively about experiences, tools and resources. Some of the goals have already been accomplished, like the new recognition system: the collab developed templates and general guidelines as a way to offer certificates to students and teachers participation in different initiatives. Another goal that we accomplished is the creation and translation of many educational resources, like a guide on how to evaluate article quality on Wikipedia, a guide to free licenses, the education program toolkit, and many other resources classified in four categories for specific audiences: for program leaders, for educators, for volunteers and for students. Communication and documentation remains a priority for our group in the coming year.

An infographic visualizing the improvements to the Wikipedia Education Collaborative done in 2015. Image by Samir I. Sharbaty, CC-BY-SA 4.0.

Last year, the scope and model of the Collab was redefined, as a strategic group to support the development of education programs around the world. During 2015, the Collab achieved some key milestones that now give way to imagine the next steps of this group of practice. One example is clearer and simpler membership criteria. As a result, 10 new program leaders joined for a total of 23 collab members, most of whom are women. Another important change was that the decisions about the Collab are managed collaboratively by the group. The listserv (mailing list) was opened to the public so the discussion were available for everyone. We started to use Phabricator as a central platform to define and coordinate tasks. During this time, we accomplished 88 tasks together, and 22% of those tasks were one-on-one mentoring support to other global programs. Other milestones include monthly video calls to promote interaction and exchange among the Collab members, and offline engagement at Wikimania 2015, where of many Collab members participated in the education pre-conference , as well as sitting on thematic panels and delivering individual presentations.

The Stockholm meeting was very significant because it gave us a chance to imagine the future of our group and decide how to take the Education Collaborative to the next level. In a very inspiring place and a warm atmosphere—in spite the cold weather— we welcomed new members, we talked about our concerns, our expectations and chalked out our vision for the future.

During the meeting the collab members had the opportunity to talk about how to scale education programs, share their experiences, and to set their personal and group goals. Some of the personal goals include to work on the mentoring process, create and translate resources (evaluation forms for educational activities, brochures and guides), work on enhancing visibility and communication of the education programs, test and translate the dashboard, to increase the reach of the Wikimedia Education Program and involve new participants, review and curate the existing learning patterns, among many others.

"Collab´s working time", as sketched by a Collab member Filip Maljkovic. Image by Melina Masnatta (WMAR), CC-BY-SA 4.0.

Our plan for the next year involves the design of a flexible mentoring roadmap; the development of resources, the improvement of the communication strategy; and testing and translating the Program and Events Dashboard, a new platform which will facilitate the work of educators and the organization of programs using Wikipedia in the classroom.

We left Stockholm with a sense of identity and belonging. Aware of our strengths and weaknesses, we feel that we have a lot of energy and motivation to boost the collab and to support the development of the education programs around the world.

Melina Masnatta, Education Manager, Wikimedia Argentina
Paola Ricaurte, Education Program Mexico

  • Thanks to Tighe Flanagan, Senior Manager, Wikipedia Education Program, María Cruz, Communications and Outreach Coordinator, Learning and Evaluation team, and Subhashish Panigrahi, Communications Contractor, Program Capacity & Learning, Wikimedia Foundation.

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一位藝術家在斯德哥爾摩會議期間所做的圖像記錄,呈現了教育協同體的願景與目標。Image作者:Melina Masnatta (阿根廷維基分會)CC-BY-SA 4.0.
2015年在墨西哥城的維基媒體國際會議中,教育協同體成員合照。Image作者:لا_روساCC-BY-SA 4.0

曾經,Sara Mörstell自己一個人編輯維基百科的時候她,她捫心自問:「我的學生可以怎麼使用這東西?」幾年以後的今天,她現在已經有了執行維基媒體教育計畫的經驗。Sara在瑞典接下來共同主辦維基百科教育協同體第三次會議的任務。維基百科教育協同體(The Wikipedia Education Collaborative,又簡稱為「協同體」,the Collab)是為支持世界各地的教育計劃,在2014年由來自全球的教育專案領導者所設立。協同體中的成員,都是像Sara一樣志願指導其他教育工作者的夥伴。他們讓有興趣使用維基百科作為教學工具的教師、或是對進行維基媒體教育計劃有興趣的維基人,得以更快進入狀況。在3月5日、6日的這個週末,由各個教育計畫領導者組成的協同體成員們齊聚於斯德哥爾摩,一起為接下來的這一年確立共同的目標、優先工作事項、以及團隊的計畫。

讓協同體前進的主要動力是什麼?協同體的指導原則包含了建立人際網絡,分享經驗並促進整個維基媒體運動中的教育計劃、組織、志工、和地區之間的合作發展。往前推進的最重要的動力,就在於以全球的規模視野,分享彼此的經驗或專長,以給予我們的夥伴們在其他教育計畫上的支持。

「建立維基百科教育計劃最佳實務個案、收集教育實驗的新想法、共享全球各個方案的學習資源、建立一全球性的識別系統、有效地傳播相關經驗/工具/學習資源。」上述目標是當初創設協同體時就訂下的。這其中有些目標已經達成,像是新的識別系統——協同體已經開發許多模板與通用準則,以此來提供各類方案中學生和教師參與證書。我們另一個已經實現的目標,是將多種的教育資源創作和翻譯,像是如何分辨維基百科條目品質的說明手冊自由授權指南[1]、還有依照「計畫負責人、教育工作者、志願者、或學生」的四類不同受眾所製作的其他學習資源。傳播和記錄工作,仍然是我們在未來一年的共同優先事項。

描述維基百科教育協同體在2015年成果的視覺化圖表。照片作者:Samir I. SharbatyCC-BY-SA 4.0

去年,協同體的規模和模式被重新定義,成為一個戰略性地支持世界各地教育計劃發展的團隊。在2015年,協同體達成了一些關鍵里程碑,現在我們必須想像這個團隊下一個階段可以進行哪些行動。關鍵里程碑其中一個例子是我們制定了更清晰而簡便的會員資格。結果共有10位新的計畫負責人加入,讓現在協作體總人數變成了23位,其中大部分為女性。協同體另一個重要的變化是,關於此團體的決策將由團隊成員共同經營。相關的郵件列表(listserv)改設為公開,所有人都可以看到相關討論進展。我們也開始使用Phabricator作一個定義和協調任務中央平台。在這段期間,我們一起完成了88個任務,而這些任務之中,有22%是共同體成員對其他全球方案的一對一指導支持。其他里程碑,還包括了每月視訊通話以促進共同體成員之間的互動與交流、還有在2015年國際維基媒體會議的實體聚會——有很多成員加入了教育會前會,同時也有許多參與教育主題的對談場、或是自行發表了教育相關的報告。

斯德哥爾摩這場會議意義甚巨,因為它給了我們一個機會,來想像我們的共同未來,讓我們能夠一起決定如何讓教育協同體更上一層樓。大家在一個鼓舞人心的地方,氣氛熱烈地討論。儘管天氣有點冷,我們還是完成了許多事情——歡迎了新成員、我們談到了我們所擔心的、期盼的、也刻畫出我們對未來的憧憬。

會議期間,協同體成員有機會一起聊聊如何擴大教育計畫、分享他們的經驗、並設定各自的個人與團體的目標。個人的目標包括指導新進教學者的工作、創建和翻譯學習資源(像是教育活動的評估表、宣傳手冊和指南)、提升教育計劃的可見度並保持溝通流暢、測試與翻譯儀表板(dashboard)以增加維基媒體教育計劃覆蓋範圍、邀請新參與者的加入、瀏覽以及參與既有的學習模式站台上的討論⋯⋯等等。

"協同體工作的樣子",由協同體成員Filip Maljkovic所做的素描。照片作者:Melina Masnatta(阿根廷維基媒體分會)CC-BY-SA 4.0

我們明年有三個主要想要達成的計劃,一是設計靈活有彈性、手把手引導更多教學者的流程設計;二是改善傳播策略,尤其是開發更多教學資源;三是測試和翻譯「專案和活動儀表板(Program and Events Dashboard),這是一個全新的維基百科教育平台,能夠幫助教學者管理在課堂上進行維基百科書寫。

我們離開斯德哥爾摩時,帶著一股認同和歸屬感。了解我們的長處和短處,我們覺得我們有更多能量和動力來提振協同體、支持世界各地的教育計劃發展茁壯。

阿根廷維基媒體分會教育專員Melina Masnatta
墨西哥教育計畫負責人Paola Ricaurte
繁體中文譯者:中華民國維基媒體協會理事上官良治
 


Notes[edit]