Learning patterns/Wikimedia young projects in therapy settings with psychiatric patients.

A learning pattern foreducation

Wikimedia young projects in therapy settings with psychiatric patients.

problemThis is intended for small projects that need to grow and need to attract new users.

solutionThe creation of an editing group inside a psiquiatric hospital to teach them so they can learn and experience editing of small Wiki projects articles.

creator• Jaluj

discuss

endorse

created on21:30, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

What problem does this solve? edit

Some young projects have few editors and they do not grow very fast. Young projects like Wikivoyage, Wiktionary, Wikibook or Wikiquote need to grow and attract new users. For example, at Wikiquote, the free quote compendium, we have only 6776 articles in Spanish and only 15 active editors among which only 3 publish regularly. We need to attract new users. The digital gap is a significant threat to the establishment of an egalitarian society. Some psychiatric patients have a good IQ but they might have potential learning disorders, lack of digital literacy or they do not know how to use the resources that modern technology give us today. They also find it difficult to feel connected with other people. This lack of information literacy leads them to remain outside the knowledge society.

What is the solution? edit

The creation of an editing group inside a psiquiatric hospital to teach them so they can learn and experience editing of small Wiki projects articles. During the course the patients can develop digital literacy, writing, research skills and learn to interact with other community members of the wikiproject. This approach will provide them multiple benefits, promote communication, cultural diversity and an approach to a new universe of knowledge, at the same time that it will improve small projects’s articles and will increase the number of articles.

Things to consider edit

Notify all wikiveterans about the project to avoid problems or conflicts. Listen carefully to the advice of veterans. They know what they do.
Create small and manageable tasks. Clear goals and small and specific tasks yield clear and specific results. You have to lower expectations in order not to get frustrated.
Keep a record of all the process and write about the results. We learn with trial and error. Other people might be interested and you can share the experience with the larger community of Wikimedia and the professional community of mental health.
Try to select the same number of men and women to avoid widen the gender gap and make sure that you're being inclusive.
Only with the acceptance from the staff, the necesary support can be obtained. Consulting the staff during the design phase is an important way of overcoming the obstacles.
Conduct individual interviews to select candidates before you initiate the course. Not all patients work well for this type of projects.

When to use edit

When you edit in a young and small project, like Wikivoyage, Wiktionary, Wikibook or Wikiquote, with few editors and you want to improve number of editors and articles. It does not work for Wikipedia because is a project with a huge level of conflict and it can greatly elevate the stress of the patients.
When you can work at a hospital or a psiquiatric clinic and you get access to patients.

Endorsements edit

For the strong community commitment Imoisset (talk) 22:37, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I whole-heartedly endorse every word of this learning pattern, as it fully reflects my own experience with Wikitherapy. Well done Andrea! --Saintfevrier (talk) 23:16, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It seems to me a very interesting project that covers two general needs. On the one hand it generates new users who are probably more participatory than those who arrive in a "casual" way. It offers Wikiquote the possibility of becoming a therapeutic tool. Ayagaures 0 (talk) 00:21, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]