#Wikimedia - Funding #Wikieducation is problematic

How can you not love WikiEducation.. It has a great reputation bringing the editing of Wikipedia to curricula. When you check out their Twitter account, their blog, their results they do an awesome job.

You can once you realise it is instrumental in maintaining the existing bias that favours English and English Wikipedia. Realistically you cannot even blame them for it because they define their operations as limited to the USA and Canada.

Still there are problems.
* People assume that the example of using university students to write articles is to be followed. For most of the Wikipedias there is too little content. The type of articles is not what is needed, more basic articles are needed.
* The Wikimedia Foundation has a huge bias for the English Wikipedia and consequently the 70% of the word population who do not speak English are underserved and less than 50% of the traffic of the WMF is English Wikipedia.

The solution is not to defund Wiki Education. A solution will only come once the WMF acknowledges that they have a diversity problem, a problem they do not acknowledge.
Thanks,
      GerardM

PS Does Wiki Education support French?

Teaching #Wikipedia using local #news

One of the functions of Wikipedia is providing a background and, to understand what is in the news, you need a lot of background. This is one of the first things to overcome when children start reading the news.

When newspapers are introduced in the class, a first exercise is to just read and have the children select a few articles that are of interest to them. As a follow up they analyse the text for concepts that you have to know about to understand the article. They make lists for the selected articles.

On another day they select new articles, make similar lists but are asked if there is an overlap with other lists. They are asked to write a few lines for all the concepts in such a way that there is enough to understand the article coming from every original news article.

This is when Wikipedia is introduced. The children is shown that it provides basic and neutral information that help them understand, for instance, the news. Their next challenge is read Wikipedia and see how its articles help understand the news. When subjects are missing, they make a list.

The last thing to do is write stubs for missing Wikipedia articles. What then may follow is the standard course ware for writing Wikipedia articles. The objective for this approach is that it helps children to better understand the news; understand that news is a continuum. The news is compact and assumes basic knowledge and such information can be found in Wikipedia.
Thanks,
       GerardM

#Wikimedia - [[citation needed]]

Our articles in any #Wikipedia can be trusted when an effort has gone into providing sources. Sources or citations are very much needed because help us distinguish fact from fiction. Finding sources exposes an origin and it helps us debunk fiction. The result of this continued effort is content that can be trusted as a sincere attempt to achieve a neutral point of view.

There are very practical problems. Sources are not always easy to find and they do not exist in every language. Sources are often behind a "pay wall” making access to the body of knowledge is very much restricted. Sources, particularly sources on the web do not exist forever. The consequence is that sources are problematic and, not everybody is equally able to help us with sources for the content we have.

When we are to improve the current, unsatisfactory situation we have to address multiple problems.

• Once sources are lost we rely on the internet archive for an historic view. It has policies that allow for the removal of content and this is often the content that is controversial and removal is often intended to rewrite history. What to do?
• Access to restricted sources is provided to the privileged few who have access to libraries. The WMF has a program that enables some of our editors access to a few pay-walled sources.
• When this proves insufficient, it is great to know that  Sci-hub among others provides “illegal” access to any and all sources.

Open access to sources is very much what we as a community care for. One of our own died in the struggle for this access so I do not think we should be deferential to an industry that is despicable. We should teach people how to find sources and ignore licensing as much as possible.
Thanks,
      GerardM

#Wikipedia - Hey, #College Boy !!

You know the answer for this question: "What can Wikipedia do for you", A more interesting question is: "What can you do for Wikipedia".

So you are on this wonderful college where people who changed the world have been educated right?  Well, never mind what your college says, it is Wikipedia and Wikidata where you find public data about graduates that are considered notable enough.

You may find them in articles, in categories or in none of the above in combination with you college. Wikidata is another place where you find them as well.

Now the questions you might want answer to are:

• how many graduates are notable enough for one or more Wikipedia articles
• how many graduates do we know
• what are those graduates also known for
• what are the most linked to statements for your graduates

College boy, and girl, you are getting an education. This challenge seems trivial, how will you show what the Wikiverse knows about the people associated with your college..

Thanks,

       GerardM

A #font for people with #dyslexia

Today I was able to make some difference. I met a teacher who is specialised in children with "special needs". The conversation got onto the subject of language technology and I mentioned the existence of the Open-Dyslexic font.

She was so happy to learn about the existence of this font. She asked me to send details today so that she can install the font on her pc tomorrow. This week she is going to meet some thirty persons who will be happy to learn about the existence of this freely licensed font as well. A lot of children are going to benefit.

I cannot wait for the Wikimedia Foundation to make the Open-Dyslexic font available for use on its wikis. It will affect so many more people. It is likely to be mentioned in the international press; it is that relevant.
Thanks,
       GerardM

Learning another language

Learning to read #Arabic or more correctly Classical Arabic or "al fusha" is fun. I enjoy it for the challenge it provides, it helps because the many transliteration schemes suck and often confuse more than help.

When I started on this road to learn Classical Arabic, I was told that there is only one Arabic and I am also told that when you speak Classical Arabic in Arabic speaking countries, you are thought to be weird and often you find yourself not understood. I do not point out as often that the second assertion negates the first and consequently there are many different Arabic languages. I do not yet understand to what extend the Koranic Arabic language is different from what is labelled "standard" Arabic language. 

At this time I am learning to pronounce fully annotated texts. When you are used to Latin script, one of the lessons is that a space is not necessarily the dividing line between words. This is hard because it clashes with how you have learned to perceive a word at a glance. Al Arabiya or العربية shows two spaces but for me it is one word. To complicate it further, the vowels are missing and you need to know the Arabic grammar and vocabulary to know how to pronounce it with certainty.

Add to this the different ways Arabic is written and printed and you will appreciate learning the Arabic script for the intellectual challenges it presents.

Thanks,

     GerardM

A doctor a day keeps the #Apple away

The #Wikimedia Foundation is into education. Apple is in the business of making money, preferably to the exclusion of others. Recently it proposed "new educational" tools that were supposed to make for a rich educational experience.

There is nothing wrong with providing tools that will provide students with a rich educational experience. However, when it breaks the standards that allow for the cooperation on such an experience, combine this with a EULA intended to prevent further distribution it proves rotten to the core.

For me it is clear, Apple moved completely and utterly to the dark side. The benefit of its possible superior technology is completely offset by the negative impact it has on the rest of society. Apple used to compete and do well because of its superior products and its customers were willing to pay a premium for this. By excluding cooperation and interoperability, the Wikimedia Foundation cannot sign up to what have the potential of  becoming a great educational product. It is sad that it has been poisoned by unacceptable conditions.
Thanks,
      GerardM

Mexico calling language teachers.

by Leigh Thelmadatter


Things have been happening at Wikimedia México, we have one GLAM partner, the Museo de Artes Populares in Mexico City and two recent preliminary agreements with the Direction of Museums of the state of Colima and the Museo Ma Teresa Pomar at the University of Colima. This same university has also started a Wikipedia Club, the first in Mexico. Thanks to Rodolfo Velasco, Angie Mojica and Hugo Rodriguez for all their hard work!

This makes us really happy however, we want to do even more.

I recently posted a message on a listserv for English teachers in Mexico run by the U.S. embassy in Mexico City with the idea of recruiting language teachers to Wikimedia Mexico and the wider Wiki world. I have received sixteen responses so far to that mail and have directed them to our website and to add themselves to our listserv, but I will need to do more for this to get off the ground.

I believe foreign language teachers and foreign language students (especially those majoring in foreign languages) are a natural fit for Wikipedia and Wikimedia as not only is the encyclopedia multilingual, the organization is international and multicultural. It can provide language students a place to practice their language(s) in an “authentic” way (meaning in the real world for something other than grades) and give both teachers and students a way to network internationally, learning intercultural communication skills.

I would like to network with Spanish-as-a-foreign language teachers from anywhere in the globe to form partnerships with Mexican foreign language teachers using Wikipedia as a medium of communication. This could be a good way to get interested teachers started and more teachers interested. I teach English-as-a –foreign language but I can get in touch with teachers of other foreign languages here in Mexico.

Open Educational Resources (OER)

Melissa Hackman (OSI) and Jan-Bart de Vreede (Kennisnet).

Melissa gave an overview on OER starting with a definition with a UNESCO definition..

• Learning content - several examples were named including Wikipedia Connections, MIT course ware
  
• Tools
• Implementation Resources - oa licenses  the Cape Town Open Educational Declaration Open Access.. buiding coalitions, research
  

Examples were given of how this were done in many countries oa South Africa, Poland , New Zealand, Brazil, United States ..

Jan-Bart spoke about Wikiwijs, a project part of the Dutch OER strategy, it is for teachers to develop teaching material. The differences were explained with Wikipedia and Mediawiki... And explained about how an architected approach allow for the development of projects like Wikiwijs. There are many "open" aspects to all this and he explained them all.

The question I asked was if it would not be good when the OER tools are internationalised and localised ... It turns out that this is indeed an issue.
Thanks,
      GerardM

Holland Open 2008

This years Holland Open has come and gone. As always conferences are about people. The people that present are obviously in the picture, their message is getting the lime light. The people that present their company are also very much willing to present their products and services.

Simon Brouwer from Open Taal and the Dutch Open Office project promoted the availability of language tools for everyone. Simon discussed the need for Open Source tools to be as good in its support as any other tool. For the Dutch language this has proven to be problematic because of the proprietary nature of contracts for the support of the official Dutch orthography. The "Nederlandse Taalunie" has started to provide certification of a spell checker and this certification has now been issued to spell checkers for Dutch, including the one used by Open Office and Firefox. There is more to this story and, I hope to inform about this in a future post.

Talking with people I have worked with in the past is always nice. I met with the people of Edia, they have a great little tool for people learning the Dutch language. Terminology that is current and of interest is the terminology learned best. In their news reader "Alane", people read small articles about things that are currently in the news. They are combined with excercises that help improve language skills. This is great software. This approach would work with any language. We discussed how we could help each other.

At the conference there was a prominent education track. I was really happy to meet Bob Hofmans from iEARN. When you are in education, and you do not know iEARN, you should! It is an international organisation that helps students become citizens of this world. This conference was great for them because it brought people together and it kicked off new projects and experiments. I will be interested what Second Life will do for them.

With people of companies like SUN and IBM present, it proved an excellent opportunity to pitch some of the issues that I deal with. We talked about standards, the ISO-639-6, localisation and the role of communities, the changed role of companies in the face of Open Source.

Yes I showed what we did for Commons as well. People love the idea of being able to find pictures in multiple languages. The next step is to make the demonstration project a reality in Commons itself.
Thanks,
GerardM

Learning to use a computer

A friend who I love dearly, got a new computer. She got her computer because she needs computing skills for a job. Given that she is completely new to computers, training is included. I have looked at the training material and it is like many others that I have seen before. You first learn basis skills like using the mouse, the key board and to start and stop the computer.

The classic method of teaching people to point and click, drag and drop is to use a game like Solitaire. It is not the first time that I found this to be a complete disaster. You cannot assume that people play cards, even know cards. It takes more effort to teach the game then the skill it is supposed to teach...

I really like that the course provides a typing tutor. Typing is an essential skill for computing. Typing with ten fingers really helps. The course provided is for the "International" keyboard, I am now looking for a typing tutor for the Farsi keyboard.
Thanks,
     GerardM

The I&I conference and IEEE LOM

Yesterday and today the 15th I&I conference. There were some 200 educators that deal with integrating computers in the educational process. For Wikipedia the 14th edition was important as it was when teachers told Kennisnet that Wikipedia was important for the Dutch education. This resulted in cooperation between Kennisnet and the Wikimedia Foundation.

This time there was a large group of wikimedians there to inform about what we do. Kennisnet gave a great presentation on how they are experimenting with wikis in education.

I learned from many people that tagging educational content is starting to become important. The IEEE LOM standard adopted in the Netherlands (EDUSTANDAARD) is being implemented into many of the software applications. One problem is that in order for such a standard to make an impact, much data needs to be tagged. This means that everybody is a winner when educational material is shared among schools. In order to do this, some authorisation and authentication is needed. This is needed so that students will not get exams from the schools that do share.. Kennisnet provides just such a service in their Entree. Having this is likely to be a key enabler for successful sharing of content.

One other key enabler is to just share. People will have to get used to the idea that it is like marriage, both parties think they are giving more than the other .. :)

One thing I would really like is to have Mediawiki to include the potential to have IEEE LOM tags. Through our interwiki links we know which articles share the same subject. Consequently these articles can share much of the tags given in one flavour of IEEE LOM. There are several reasons why we should do this:

• it improves the accesability of our information
• it would involve many people in education in our projects
• it would stimulate all implementations of IEEE LOM
• there would be another reason for having Ultimate Wiktionary; it could localise the IEEE LOM tags.

Thanks,
GerardM