2019:Education/Using a browser based phone emulator to teach about mobile Wikipedia

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Education/Using a browser based phone emulator to teach about mobile Wikipedia

Title

Using a browser based phone emulator to teach about mobile Wikipedia

Session leader(s)

Full Name*	Email address*	Wikimedia Username (if you have one)	Affiliation	Country	Role, website or any other details you'd like to share
Gabriel Thullen	gabrielthullen.com	GastelEtzwane (talk)	WMCH	Switzerland	French Wiki: Projet:Cycle-O-Pedia

Session type

• Lightning talk - 10 min.

Description

Having access to the knowledge stored in Wikipedia is immensely beneficial to students the same way that free access to school libraries is. Schools will often organize class visits to the school library so that the students are familiar with the library and how to find the book they need. On the other hand, most students do not know how to do an in-depth search for information on Wikipedia when using their mobile phone, and they usually cannot use such mobile devices at school. Phone emulators allow teachers to familiarize their students with Wikipedia on a mobile device without actually using the phones.

I have been working with my students on editing Wikipedia articles since 2006. We use one of the school computer labs to do this work, and some of my students have worked on articles from home using a computer. I do not recall that any one of my students edited using a mobile device, so I suppose that very few of them even accessed Wikipedia on those devices.

I experimented using a browser-based phone emulator for a few weeks at the end of the school year. My students had already been editing Wikipedia earlier this school year, and this was to show the how to use the mobile interface, how to log in, how to switch between mobile and desktop interface, how to edit. I plan to introduce Wikipedia this way next school year, and switch to editing with the desktop interface towards the end of my Wikipedia course.

Supporting work

• Help:Mobile access
• Wikipedia:Editing on mobile devices
• VisualEditor on mobile report (mediawiki.org)

Relationship to the theme

This session will address the conference theme — Wikimedia, Free Knowledge and the Sustainable Development Goals — in the following manner:

• 
  Goal 4: Education
• 
  Goal 10: Inequalities

• N° 4: Quality Education
  Over 90% of my students only use their mobile phone to access the internet, and that must be the case just about everywhere. The students still need some minimal training to be able to access Wikipedia effectively and easily on a mobile device so that they can enhance their education whenever they are not in front of a computer or laptop.
• N° 10: Reduced inequalities
  For the first time in over a decade, more than 60% of my students do not have a computer that they can use in their home. That means that when they are doing homework or research projects, they do not have access to Wikipedia. The wealthier students often own themselves a few devices connected to the web, including a computer, while most lower income students have only their mobile phone.

Session outcomes

At the end of the session, the following will have been achieved:

• Find out about the mobile device emulator included in some browsers.
• Learn about the results of the experimentation done in a few classrooms.

Relation to other Spaces

Any project done using mobile devices could relate to the subject of this talk. Browser-based phone emulators are a way to train users on mobile device editing while using desktop computers.

From personal experience, I know that there in a connection with Medicine, especially the Wiki Project Med and Internet-in-a-Box.

Requirements

The session will work best with these conditions:

• Room:

• Audience:

• Recording: