2023:Program/Submissions/Research on effectiveness of Wikipedia in Education as a platform of improving the cognitive ability among students - SLE38S
Title: Research on effectiveness of Wikipedia in Education as a platform of improving the cognitive ability among students
Speakers:
Pavanaja Bellippady
Dr U B Pavanaja holds Master’s degree from Mysore University and PhD from Mumbai University. He was a scientist at Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai, for about 15 years. He has done advanced research at Taiwan. He resigned BARC in 1997 and dedicated himself fully for the cause of Computer and Indian languages. He has to his credit many firsts, viz., first Kannada web-site, first Kannada online magazine, first Indian language (Kannada) web-site to receive Golden Web Award, first Indian language (Kannada) editor for Palm OS, first Indian language (Kannada) editor for WinCE device (HP Jornado 720), first Indian language version (Kannada) of universally popular Logo (programming language for children) software, etc. his Kannada Logo has won the Manthan Award for the year 2006. He was a member of the Technical Advisory Committee setup by Govt of Karnataka on Standardization of Kannada on Computers (2000). He is also the member of Kannada Software Committee of Govt of Karnataka (2008-current). He started his career on computers from FORTRAN and then moved on to Pascal, C, BASIC, QuickBasic, Visual Basic, VB.Net, etc. He has attended and represented Indian languages in many Indian and International forums like Indic Font Workshop (Indic Computing Consortium, Bangalore, India), Unicode conference (Unicode Consortium, CA, USA), OpenType Font Seminar (Microsoft, Seattle, USA), etc. He is quite well known in Indic computing arena. He is also popular as a writer of articles in Kannada about IT. He has consulted to Microsoft India and Microsoft Research Labs India. His last assignment was with The Centre for Internet and Society in the Access to Knowledge team to work towards growing the Wikipedia community in India. He is a member of various committees setup by Govt of Karnataka in the area of Kannada and Information Technology. He is a contributor to ICANN as a member of the NeoBrahmi Generation Panel which is working towards standardization and implementation of Indic scripts in Internationalised Domain Names.
Room:
Start time:
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Type: Lecture
Track: Education
Submission state: submitted
Duration: 30 minutes
Do not record: false
Presentation language: en
Abstract & description[edit source]
Abstract[edit source]
In this study research on the effectiveness of Wikipedia as a platform of learning has been conducted. Students learnt to edit, write articles, and other features Tests were conducted in the beginning and at the end of the program to assess the cognitive skills of the students. The results are presented in this presentation.
Description[edit source]
This is a research program to evaluate the effectiveness of Wikipedia in Education Program (WEP). It is a program with graduate degree students. In this program, students learnt to edit, write articles, and learnt features like templates in Wikipedia and a bit of Wikidata and using queries.
Over the years the education domain has systematically transformed itself from creating thinking pupils to producing bunch of people with lot of information but poor in the thought processes. Cognitive ability among the students needs to be kindled and nurtured. Use of Wikipedia as a platform for learning has potential to improve this process, leading to impactful learning. In higher education, there is growing interest in using Wikipedia as a learning resource. To write articles on Wikipedia, a student has to engage in research on the topic, collecting information from authentic and verifiable resources, applying thought on the validity of facts before organising the collected information into an article of global standard. This process improves the thought process of the student thereby improving the cognitive skills. Thinking and logical reasoning is needed before finalising the article sometimes.
A bunch of female students from Dr. G. Shankar Govt Women's College, Ajjarakadu, Udupi, Karnataka, took part in this research project. The students take test on cognitive skills in the beginning of the course, at mid-way and at the end of the course. The idea is to see if the cognitive skills are improved because of editing Wikipedia. The course is in final stage now. Results of the evaluation done will be presented.
Further details[edit source]
Qn. How does your session relate to the event themes: Diversity, Collaboration Future?
The research work is done at a Govt Women's college. An MoU has been signed between Karavali Wikimedians User Group and the college for conducting this research project. This is a good example of collaboration between the Wikipedia community and an educational institute. The institute being a Govt Women's college adds little more significance. About 25 new editors have come in for Kannada and Tulu Wikipedias by this research project. They have added about 1000 articles to Wikimedia projects so far. They will continue to contributors to Wikimedia projects thereby will be future contributors. Gender gap in Wikimedia projects is a known issue. By this project we have addressed that also since all participants are women.
Qn. What is the experience level needed for the audience for your session?
Average knowledge about Wikimedia projects or activities
Qn. What is the most appropriate format for this session?
Onsite in Singapore
Remote online participation, livestreamed- Remote from a satellite event
- Hybrid with some participants in Singapore and others dialing in remotely
- Pre-recorded and available on demand
