Wikimedia Blog/Drafts/Swedish educational program

Draft post

Wikipedia workshop for students learning Swedish

Herein will follow an update from the Swedish educational program. Perhaps to call it an update would be to overestimate its size and current importance. A first glimpse of what is to hopefully become something rather exciting is perhaps a more appropriate label.

To actually have as a part of the Swedish Wikimedia organisation an educational program is a rather new and thrilling idea. The year of 2012 is the year where the Swedish educational program has seen the light of day and where the first goals were set as to what should be regarded a good result for a first step in creating and shaping an educational program.

Our Wikipedia in education t-shirts which we use at workshops, conferences and various other events. Orange is the theme colour of the educational program.

I, Sophie Österberg, became engaged in Wikimedia Sverige as an intern undergoing a six-week internship which led to the great opportunity of being offered a job as an educational manager. With pride and great joy I commenced this position in the beginning of October. Let me though tell you that these few weeks has felt rather more like a year, be it the intensive work, the conferences, the bright ideas thrown at my table, the inspiration from beautiful minds all over Sweden and foremost, the joint motivation to create something worthwhile, lasting and qualitative, not for Wikipedia or Wikimedia solely, nor for only students or their teachers. But for us all, as a great global society. Well. That might perhaps be a goal to far fetched to reach, but at least there is a vision in place.

So what the heck are we actually doing might you wonder. Well. Quite a few things. We have looked at the current programs in place around the world to learn from their experiences and to gain knowledge in what we could reuse here in a Swedish context. We have mostly spoken to and looked at the German and the American examples of educational programs, but we have been flirting a bit with the Indian and Egyptian as well.

A blackboard with thoughts on Wikipedia, used at a techers' conference.

To date we have met teachers at conferences, had individual meetings, lunches, coffees (coffee is huge in Sweden, read more about this here), held workshops, shared ideas to teachers about how to use Wikipedia, met public institutions, held lectures, been part of public debates, created and translated material, thought about how a program should best be organised, red about current educational trends in Sweden, been open to learn about the new Swedish curricula and find out how best to match Wikipedia in education with it, but most importantly, do you know what we have done?

We have given ourself a face. We have become people who actually exists. It may sound ridiculous to you, but let me tell you that the most common comment we have been met by is 'Wow, do you guys actually exist?”. Yes we do. We have simply been rather silent about it. But this is the end to that silence, let me tell you that!

Workshop with pupils about Wikipedia, democracy, free knowledge, gender issues where they presented various ideas and perspectives.

Hello world and at the moment, Hello Sweden! This may sound trivial, but it is not. People have found that there is someone, there are people, with whom they can build trust and communication. We exist, we are real and we are to be trusted. Let us not forget that this is the strongest currency there is between humans, no material or other physical resources may ever be as important as the intangible trust which we build between and in relation to one another.

So more than anything, we are currently building trust. We are aspiring to show teachers, pupils, students, public institutions and others that we are knowledgeable, we are trustworthy and we have a brilliant resource that they may freely utilise. But people do not solely wish to utilise a tool, they wish to know who the person is behind this tool or this project, such as Wikipedia. That has at least come to be my strongest impression past these first wobbling weeks of an educational program.

Our first Wikipedia in education broschure, also orange of course.

So current status: Yes, we do exist. And at the moment, the future seems only bright, bold and beautiful.

Please do share ideas, comments or your experiences of educational programs that might be useful for us at utbildning@wikimedia.se

We greatly look forward to hearing from you and very much appreciate your input.

/ Sophie Österberg at Wikimedia Sverige.