Grants:IdeaLab/Hour of Wikipedia

Inspire campaign

Hour of Wiki CODE

Volunteer Wikipedians teach an hour of Wikipedia and the Wiki Markup Language at their local high schools.

idea creator• Wikideas1

volunteer• Harshrathod50• Jith12• Miriya52

this project needs...

volunteer

created on09:06, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Project idea

What is the problem you're trying to solve?

Getting young students and young girls interested in creating content for Wikipedia.

What is your solution?

Have a Wikipedia campaign to organize for guest Wikipedians to teach at local high schools for one hour. Get kids signed up/registered and show them how to make a few edits. Inspire them by showing how powerful editing Wikipedia is. It gives you the power of being a journalist and the power of writing the history books. Wikipedia is a national treasure and not every country or language of Wikipedia is as good or it's censored (China). Teach and inspire them to help make Wikipedia great.

Who will you be doing outreach with?

High schools

Goals

Wiki markup language should be the first computer language kids learn.

Get Involved

Participants

• Volunteer I'd like to learn and teach wiki markup Harshrathod50 (talk) 10:36, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
• Volunteer I will try to implement this amazing idea at my elementary school and will try to spread this initiatve throughout my school board here in Ontario (YRDSB). Jith12 (talk) 02:46, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

  @Jith12: I think a lot of contributors would agree that elementary school is too early to begin teaching about contributing to Wikipedia; basic writing skills are being developed during that time, and it seems a little too soon to push elementary/primary school students into encyclopedic writing and collaboration with other editors. The idea of teaching syntax and computer science topics more generally might be useful, however. I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 20:38, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

  @I JethroBT (WMF): Hi! I understand what you are saying. However, my school does have a tech club who do a lot of work regarding coding with languages such as Python and Java. Do you think that it would be acceptable for me to introduce the wiki syntax to them? Thanks,

  Sure, introducing topics around wiki markup in the the context of the tech club sounds like a great idea. It's a more applied kind of syntax compared python and java, but some principles are still very much applicable. I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 21:42, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

• Volunteer Leading sessions here in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Would be interested for high schools and university community. Miriya52 (talk) 21:05, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Endorsements

• Understanding in how to write wiki markup is vital for the future of wikimedia projects. Haslantis (talk) 08:57, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

• I think your proposal is exquisite and feasible. I hope you get grant approval to implement. :) Ανώνυμος Βικιπαιδιστής (talk) 14:38, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Update: There is a similar program running once a week, as we speak in Greece at the 7th Primary School in Kaisariani Athens. 8 year old students with the help of the guest wikipedian ManosHacker and their teacher, who is also a wikipedian as well, are getting to know what wikipedia is all about. And belive me they are loving it! I think wikipedia has a place in every classroom regardless the age of the students as long as the proper guidence is provided, either from a guest wikipedian or a teacher who is a wikipedian himself. Now more than before I endorse this proposal of Wikideas1 strongly, because I know that every student who would learn the wiki markup Language as part of a lesson in his school, would also be learning how to be a thinking person in the process. And I belive that there is no age limitation about that. --Ανώνυμος Βικιπαιδιστής (talk) 13:31, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

• I think this is a great idea and would be interested in leading local sessions here in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Miriya52 (talk) 21:05, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
• Good idea - I fully endorse it if it's for classes with students aged 18 or older. I think it would be counterproductive to teach younger kids to edit Wikipedia. They should rather be taught w:Media literacy and alike. For implementation of this idea I suggest setting up a page, category or other system that allows people specify their location (city or rough area) if it doesn't yet exist. Then once this is done those people could be contacted with all necessary material of getting this done. This material should include contact information of all relevant institutions of education in their area and material for what to do (and how) in that hour. Also we could have a team that does the outreach for willing people so they basically only have to go there and spend an hour or so with the class and have them mediate and manage discussion with the schools. Fixuture (talk) 11:53, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

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Does your idea not require funding, but you're not sure about what to do next? Not sure how to start a proposal on your local project that needs consensus? Contact Chris Schilling on-wiki at I JethroBT (WMF) (talk · contribs) or via e-mail at cschillingwikimedia.org for help!