Introductory workshop report, Wikimedia Sverige

Summary: We targeted “wiki pioneers”, people who had already been using wikis in education a lot, deliberatelychoosing experience over numbers. Some of the participants are already involved in projects similar toWikiSkill, or have been organizing trainings for teachers wanting to use wikis in education.
I intend to stay in touch with not only this group, but also to some of the most well known people in thearea who were not able to make it to this workshop.

We had set aside three hours for this session, which turned out to be too little. Having to choosebetween cutting of some very interesting discussions around needs and interests, or skipping thescenarios exercise, I choose the latter.

1. Organization of the workshops
   1. Number of participants
      • 6 + 1 (six in a group, and one person in a man-to-man session)
   2. List of participants
      • Elisabeth Söder, Medioteket (a communal resource center for teachers inStockholm, offering, among other things, ICT in school-courses). In charge of reading activities
      • Jörgen Qvartsenklint, teacher at Glokala folkhögskolan (a Folk high school),maintainer of a wiki for Folkbildningsnätet (A Swedish association of folk highschools).
      • Mathias Anbäcken, teacher at Västerås folkhögskola (a Folk high school), editorat Re:flex (a magazine from Folkbildningsnätet). Also giving lectures andworkshops, has been doing trainings on wikis as a educational tool.
      • Cecilia Fröberg, teacher at Västerås folkhögskola• Cecilia Johansson, secondary school teacher, Sollentuna
      • Håkan Elderstig, Stockholms Tekniska gymnasium (Stockholm Polytechnic)
   3. Settings
      • 2012-04-14, 09.00 – 12.00, and 18.00 – 19.00, in Stockholm
   4. Structure of workshop: Activities during workshop
      1. Welcome, presentation of the project
      2. Examples of wikis in education, from the participants own experiences
      3. Showing some complementary examples, for inspiration
      4. Exercise to define needs and interest
      5. Exercise on wiki based learing scenarios
      6. Finishing
   5. Contact-info to trainer/s
      • Leonard Wallentin
        leo_wallentin@hotmail.com
        +46(0)735 933 543
        @leo_wallentin
   6. General comment on the organization
      • It was quite hard finding participants working towards adults (the target group for Sweden in this projects). Many of the earliest projects in the field were made by highschool och elementary school teachers.
      • The WikiSkills project has a very broad scoope, covering everything from using localwikis for creative writing, to the use of Wikipedia for media literacy trainings. In somecase the wiki tools are subordinated (a local wiki for creative writing could easily bereplaced by a blog), and in some cases it is very central. Narrowing it down a bit foreach individual workshop might be of some help.
2. Identification of user needs and interests
   1. Teacher current practices: experience of teachers
      • http://medioteket.edu.stockholm.se/atk
        Book reviews for teachers, wiki by Elisabeth Söder
      • http://pedagogisktcafe.wikispaces.com/
        Meeting place for teachers (both afk meetings and as a social wiki) by Elisabeth Söder
      • http://sajtverkstan.net/FBNwiki
        Free software guide for teachers by Jörgen Qvartsenklint
      • http://socimedia.wikispaces.net
        A wiki used when training teachers to use wikis. Emptied before each course. By Mathias Anbäcken
      • Simple English Wikipedia / Swedish Wikipedia / English Wikipedia
        Various uses by all participants
      • http://wikiskola.se
        Collection of curriculums for Swedish elementary schools and high school, by Håkan Elderstig
      • http://www.stgdesign.se/
        Wiki as a project management tool for a groupd of students
      • See the collection of scenarios at wikiskills.cesga.es for more examples.
   2. Teachers opinions
      •  Public wikis
        • A good place to teach and practice source criticisms (and possibly othermedia literacy subjects)
        • Wikis sometimes build strong communities, that can be hard to enter(especially Wikipedia)• Children and grown ups alike are very reluctant to edit other peoples texts.
        • Being able to show the result of ones work is a major reward.
      • Local/private wikis
        • Local wikis are often used just as a cms, not specifically for the wikifunctionality.
        • Lack of a built in blog-like commenting function in many wiki softwaresis seen as a problem.
        • MediaWiki and Wikispaces seem to be the most common tools by far,possibly because some of the earliest wiki training programmes forteachers in Sweden have been using these.
        • Using the same tools are everyone else is considered important,familiarity with the tools lower thresholds.
        • Being able to show the result of ones work is a major reward, even if onlyto a limited audience.
   3. Examples of scenarios imagined by teachers
      This exercise was taken out due to lack of time. These are ideas that were mentioned during other parts of the workshop.
      • For Qualified Vocational Education (KY) teaching materials become outdatedreally quick. Build a common curriculum wiki for Swedish KY education!
      • Add hyperlocal knowledge to Wikipedia as a cross disciplinary / cross stages project. Hyper local articles give the participants a competitive advantage. One real world example is the school in Nacka that used to do extensive research and then write in Wikipedia about a minor lake in the area.
      • See also the examples from the section “Teacher current practices: experience of teachers” above: ATK, Pedagogiskt café, FBN and Socimedia.
   4. List of needs
      • Support from the management needs to real, i.e. teachers need to get the time forusing new tools, not just supportive words
      • Better looking wiki skins are in demand. Many young student refuse to work with tools that are not attractive. Someone recommending building on the“rounded blue” theme for MediaWiki.
      • Usability skins are in demand. Readability on e.g. English Wikipedia is far to low due to the amount of links, footnotes, etc
      • Extension packages for common wiki platforms are in demand. Tools likecommenting gadgets, possibility to put the whole wiki in “archive mode” afterthe semester, etc, etc. Or even a custom wiki farm for teachers...
      • Gamification. When it comes to common wikis for e.g. teachers sharingcurriculums, everyone tend to nurse their own darlings. How can we rewardthose that help building others platforms? Organizing meeting places afk mightalso help.
      • Technical support (templates etc) when building a new wiki.
      • There is at least one education company (running quite a few high schools andother institutions) that has a employment contract claiming the rights of allmaterial produced by their teachers during work time, in a way that mightconflict with using open licenses. Might be worth discussing with the teachersunions, as well as the particular company.
3. Results of the evaluation form
   1. satisfaction with the event
      (Mean values)

      Topics	4,8
      Overall organization	4,6
      Distributed material	N/A
      Facilitator	4,6
      Presentations	4,2
      Relevence of topics	4,8
      Useful contacts	4,4
      Duration	3

   2. Willingness to go on with the project
      • Everyone
   3. Willingness to be informed of the project activities
      • Everyone