[Open-education] Wikipedia Information Literacy for Schools - tender opportunity

Wed Jun 24 02:22:36 UTC 2015

Dear Bjoern, Markiete, et al:

I am grateful that you are bringing this project to light and are
discussing how it might be brought back in some way.

It would seem that some free discussion group or some other open digital
space could be created for posts and comments that could be shared by
teachers and students? I am sure that you and others have some ideas that
might work?

As a teacher who allows and encourages the critical use of all sources,
including Wikipedia, I would like to contribute to this effort, and I
believe that everyone--students, teachers, academics studying internet use,
and others would gain from it.

I feel that I could certainly ask my students to work on this in the fall,
when classes return.

Let me pursue another element of this if I may...

At a WikiConference in 2014 (US, NY/DC), I did meet a few people who were
successfully engaging students to write stub articles, but there was some
resistance by the larger group and some belief that students were incapable
of creating new meaningful material or that they would almost inevitably
create problems for editors.

One wonderful example of student work I came across recently in my study of
handwriting is by a student in fourth grade:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Alma_Cebrian
His work is shared for the letter g
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G

Although only one example, I do believe that both students and teachers can
be successful as editors and creators of material. Inviting students and
teachers to participate fully--yes, within proper limits and with enough
training and guidance--provides them full digital citizenship and
responsibility, beyond the earlier goal of only being critical of the
source. Fully engaging the material and trying to write articles--even of
they are never posted--are important parts of learning.

And yes, they should also use their critical skills while using Wikipedia.

Please let me know how I can help--whether in a small way, for some limited
effort to repeat the Leicester effort, or to explore ways to engage
students and teachers and to guide them towards full digital citizenship.

Sincerely,
David Kaminski
Nyack, New York
US

On Tue, Jun 23, 2015 at 6:33 AM, Marieke Guy <marieke.guy at okfn.org> wrote:

>  Hi Bjoern,
>
> Thanks for the update. I'd seen that the project had been withdrawn but
> didn't really feel in a fit position to comment as I hadn't looked in to
> the tender in any detail.
>
> What I would like to say is that I have every respect for the work that
> Josie Fraser and the DigLit team have been doing related to Open Education
> in Leicester. I'm pretty sure that they will have applied their
> professional judgement to any decisions regarding the content of the tender
> and the nature of the work they were proposing. It is unfortunate that
> those who make decisions on how money is spent often have relatively little
> understanding of the nature of the work and its long-term goals. I also
> personally have reservations about the 'woman on the bus' test....
>
> £30,000 may seem like a lot of money but it needs to be put in
> perspective. As my colleague pointed out to me: "Putting that amount
> (30,000 GBP) into Spending stories tells me that the amount is only about
> 10% of the highest salary for academy staff:
> http://www.theguardian.com/education/2011/nov/14/academies-pay-200k-salaries
> ".
>
> Improving digital literacy is a very worthy cause and I wish the DigLit
> team every success with continuing to improve the situation in Leicester.
>
> Thanks
>
> Marieke
>
>
>
>
> On 23/06/2015 11:22, Bjoern Hassler wrote:
>
> Dear all,
>
>  some of you may have seen that this project has been withdrawn. The
> project description is also no longer available online, but if you search
> "site:www.digilitleic.com wikipedia" via Google, you can still view the
> cached page. I do agree with the sentiment and outlook of the project, and
> the importance of the focus on Wikipedia: It simply is the go-to site for
> school-age students to find information, and this is something that
> teachers are aware of, and need support for this relatively new form of
> media. Importantly, the project responded to what teachers had identified
> themselves as a priority. As I interpreted the project, it was about
> digital literacy, critical thinking, and cross-cultural engagement
> (inclusion, respecting different points of view, etc).
>
>  Here is an article that explains why the project was withdrawn:
> *Scrapped: "Nonsense" £30,000 plan to teach Leicester kids to spot
> Wikipedia inaccuracy*
>
> http://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/Scrapped-Nonsense-30-000-plan-teach-Leicester/story-26728515-detail/story.html
>
>  Assistant mayor for children and young people Sarah Russell [...] said: *"When
> I heard about this I sent an email saying 'This seems to be a nonsense
> post. Please can you get someone to convince otherwise?' No one was able to
> so I have stopped it. It is vital that children are taught to use the
> internet critically and teachers will do that but this project didn't seem
> necessary to me. It failed the 'Woman on the bus test.'"*
>
>  Of course, education needs to be accountable to the general public (the
> proverbial "women on the bus"), but should we not first and foremost listen
> to teachers, who are the professionals entrusted with a large part of
> children's education? To those who are familiar with the challenges in the
> UK, will know that often this doesn't happen - the cancellation of the
> project being a case in point.
>
>  Note that many of the comments on the article are critical of it -
> clearly the people who posted share a sentiment similar to this email.
> Similar comment to Sarah Russell's tweet here:
>  https://twitter.com/Sarah_Westcotes/status/612180041267585024 (to which
> I've also responded).
>
>  I should say that I don't have any affiliation with Leicester City
> Council etc, so these views are just my own. In my opinion, it's a shame
> the project has gone to waste. I'd be interested to hear from others who
> feel the same, and to see whether we can do anything about it. I would
> certainly love to see some teacher professional development materials (with
> classroom activities) around Wikipedia.
>
>  All the best,
> Bjoern
>
>
>  On 9 June 2015 at 15:32, Josie Fraser <josie at josiefraser.com> wrote:
>
>>   Dear all, we've just opened a tender for a short project (August
>> 2015-November 2015) to create challenging and fun information literacy
>> resources for secondary school aged learners (13-14 years old). Please do
>> pass on to anyone you know who might be interested. The appointed
>> organisation/team will have to be able to come to Leicester (UK) to consult
>> with school staff and learners.Deadline is 30th June.
>>
>>  Many thanks! Josie
>>
>>   http://goo.gl/pccyU9 <http://t.co/wdw90XHXfW>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> open-education mailing list
>> open-education at lists.okfn.org
>> https://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/open-education
>>
>>
>
>  --
>  Dr Bjoern Hassler
> Cambridge-Africa
> University of Cambridge
> www.bjohas.de
>
> Open Educational Resources for Teacher Education
> http://oer.educ.cam.ac.uk/
>
> OER for School-based teacher professional learning in sub-Saharan Africa
> http://www.oer4schools.org
>
>
>
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>
>
>
> --
>
> Marieke Guy
> Project Coordinator | skype: mariekeguy | tel: 44 (0) 1285 885681 |
> @mariekeguy <http://twitter.com/mariekeguy>
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