2019:Education/Wikimedia in education in the UK - Principles and Practice

Education/Wikimedia in education in the UK - Principles and Practice

Title

Wikimedia in education in the UK - Principles and Practice

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
Lucy Crompton-Reid	lucy.crompton-reid@wikimedia.org.uk	LucyCrompton-Reid (WMUK)	Wikimedia UK	UK	Chief Executive
Example	Example	Example	Example	Example	Example
Example	Example	Example	Example	Example	Example

Session type

Each Space at Wikimania 2019 will have specific format requests. The program design prioritises submissions which are future-oriented and directly engage the audience. The format of this submission is a:

• Lightning talk - 3 - 5 min.
• Roundtable discussion forum - - 30 min / 45 min / 60 min
• Lecture - 25 min (20 min + 5 min for questions)
• Discussion-based training
• Other

Length of session

The length of the session will be determined by the nature of the format. I'm very flexible about how this could be presented - from a short lightning talk or longer presentation, through to a more discursive, roundtable type event.

Description

One of Wikimedia UK’s strategic aims for 2016 - 2019 has been the development of Wikimedia as a teaching and learning tool, as we believe that engaging with Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia projects can enable learners to understand, navigate and critically evaluate knowledge and information.

Wikimedia UK’s partnership with the University of Edinburgh, where a Wikimedian in Residence has been based within the Learning, Teaching and Web Services directorate since January 2016, has proved to be a highly valuable testing ground for how to successfully use the Wikimedia projects as a tool for teaching digital literacy skills. We have also just launched a new residency in partnership with the Disruptive Media Lab at Coventry University.  

Through our partnership with Mentor Mon in Wales, Wikimedia UK has delivered pilot projects with local schools, after achieving a major breakthrough with the inclusion of Wikimedia within the Welsh Baccalaureate.

Over the next few years, Wikimedia UK’s work in education will focus even more strongly on digital, data and information literacy. We aim to facilitate innovative projects in collaboration with formal education sector partners such as schools and universities, as well as informal groups and communities. We will also continue to advocate to government and relevant bodies for the inclusion of Wikimedia in curriculum and syllabus development.

In this session I will outline the thinking and research that underpins Wikimedia UK’s education programme and present some of the work that’s been delivered as part of this programme over the past few years. Depending on the format of the session, there will be an opportunity for participants to explore how Wikimedia UK’s work could inform educational partnerships within their own context, as well as to share their own learning and insights.

Supporting work

Optional:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:University_of_Edinburgh
• https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/File:Digital_Literacy_-_The_Wikimedia_Way_-_June_2018.pdf
• https://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2019/05/education-in-wales-and-wikipedia/

Relationship to the theme

This session will address the conference theme — Wikimedia, Free Knowledge and the Sustainable Development Goals — in the following manner: This session relates to sustainable development goal 4, quality education, with a specific relationship to the target of 'increasing the number of youth and adults who have relevant skills, including technical and vocational skills, for employment, decent jobs and entrepreneurship'; as well as sustainable development goal 3 (good health and wellbeing), with the target of ensuring universal access to information and education.

Session outcomes

At the end of the session, the following will have been achieved: Participants in this session will gain:

• An understanding of how working with Wikimedia can support digital literacies (based on Wikimedia UK's research)
• Some real-life examples of digital and information literacy projects within a range of education settings, from school pupils to university students
• An overview of our findings in terms of student's self-reported increase in digital literacy following their involvement with a Wikimedia project

Relation to other Spaces

This session has a relationship to the Partnerships space.

Requirements

The session will work best with these conditions:

• Room:

Flexible, depending on the session format that would be most helpful (i.e. short talk, longer presentation (which would require a projector and screen), or a more discursive session

• Audience:

Again this would depend on the session type. A presentation style session has no limit on audience numbers but for a discussion, a smaller group would work best, perhaps up to 15.

• Recording

Recording should be fine.