Discussions/Education
The Discussion Room is a space for open and facilitated discussions at Wikimania. Participation of the audience in the session is critical, because there are no speakers, and there is no expert panel!
You can find a full overview of the discussion topics on the Discussion Room main page. Please note: there is limited seating available, and we're not saving any seats! Please be on time, but feel free to join during the midway break between two discussions.
Practical facts
- Topic
- Collaborations in education projects : discussing Pros and Cons, Challenges and Opportunities
- Date & Time
- Friday 14.45-15.25, 24 June 2016
-; Notes: Etherpad
- Facilitator
- Effeietsanders (talk) & Wittylama
- Venue
- Primary School
Format
The Discussion Rooms host discussions with a specific style:
- Discussions of 40 minutes each;
- Clearly defined topic for each discussion, related to Wikimedia;
- Aiming to reach pre-defined goals during the discussion;
- Discussions take place in English;
- Discussions are moderated by a facilitator;
- There is no audience as everybody is expected to participate in discussions, and everybody is audience;
- Key lessons and points are documented live on etherpad, and may be processed later;
- Each discussion will come with a single recommendation of maximum 120 characters.
Each discussion targets specifically online Wikimedia projects, it lasts 40 minutes and it starts with a short 2-3 minutes introduction.
To set the tone of our discussions, we have three rules:
- Focus on YOU. We are interested in discussing and triggering individual action, things people can personally do and change to improve our Wikimedia projects and movement. We trust the discussion can be much more interesting if we do not focus on what others should do ("the others", Wikimedia chapters and Wikimedia Foundation).
- Be constructive and polite. Disagreements animate discussions and they can allow us to unfold all issues related to a topic. Let's avoid personal attacks, let's consider that we have different backgrounds and let's aim at making everybody comfortable in sharing their legitimate point of view.
- Be short and on topic. Let's create space for everyone to express his/her opinion.
Introduction
- Description
Taking a 3 years program implementing editing workshops in a school as an example, this discussion seeks to address collaborations in education projects in general.
Quick outline of the show case: Editing workshops in the HaNagid school (with gifted middle school students) are not easy. There are many challenges, and students/ teachers/ headmaster don't always cooperate or misbehave. There are technical difficulties (not enough computers, no internet, the entire school being blocked on Wikipedia). However this is the third year that this editing workshop is done successful. Why? We'll talk about best practices, learning from our mistakes, and share ideas on the subject, and we can display how we use these challenges to create a more successful project.
- Purpose
- A lot of knowhow is gathered when you address a three year running project. Our goal is to learn as much as we can from this success. Expanding to other successful experiences in educational contexts.
- Targeted Participants
- volunteers in Education programs. Project leader in Education programs.
(This discussion topic is based mostly on this proposal: Editing workshops in Schools, Discussing Pros and Cons, Challenges and Opportunities?)