Wikimedia UK/Events/Wikimedia in Education/Learning to become an online editor: the editathon as a learning environment

By Allison Littlejohn

Learning to become an online editor: the editathon as a learning environment

This keynote explores Wikipedia as a site for learning. In particular it traces how people learn to become Wikipedia editors through engagement in an editathon, a training event for people who want to become a volunteer editor. Determining the knowledge needed to contribute to Wikipedia is significant in terms of understanding Wikipedia as a site for learning. Conceptual and procedural knowledge are representative of the foundational knowledge needed to contribute to Wikipedia actively as an editor. However, this knowledge on its own is not sufficient. Editors also develop socio-cultural and relational knowledge forms of knowledge to enable them to operate and problem-solve effectively. The relationship between the physical and the digital is important, since socio-cultural and relational knowledge are developed through active experimentation as the editathon engage with physical objects to create the online wiki pages.