The wiki potentialin education

Florence Nibart DevouardWikimedia Foundation

fdevouard@wikimedia.org

Stroking the story-telling nature of all of us

Source: WiktionaryLicense: GFDL

wiki (plural wikis)A collaborative website which can be directly edited by

anyone with access to it.

The simplest online databaseRequires a computer and an internet connection

Goal: making exchanges of ideas, easier

The Read-Write Internet

Creation and modification of wiki pages open to anyoneLarge number of hyper links between pages

The Read-Write Internet

Use a simple markup language using a webbrowser

Quality control feature: versioning

Record the history of a page (previous versions stored)

The {{SoFixIt}} culture

Bottom-up community control

Controlling changesTitle search of full-text search

Wikis are suited for

• Easily create simple websites

• Group authoring (eg, assignment, report)

• Data collection / documentation / archiving

• Project planning

• E-learning platform

• Review of classes and teachers (by students)

Empowering individuals and communitiesSimple tools, wikis reduce the digital gap

Over 8 000 000 articles,Over 200 000 000 visitors per month

Wikipedia’s radical idea

Imagine a world in whichevery single person isgiven free access to thesum of all humanknowledge.

Imagine a bookshelf…

Wikipedia,The free encyclopedia

An online encyclopedia, created in january 2001available in over 200 languagesOperated by Wikimedia FoundationFree as in free beer (“gratis”)Free as in free speech (“libre”)Written by thousands of volunteers

1st lever: learning from others

Information: from scarcity to abundanceThe teacher: from knowledge possessor to learning facilitator

2nd lever: teaching others

Nobody knowseverything

but everyone knowssomething

Becoming an active voiceSkills for creation, but also negotiation, consensus building, conflict resolution

3rd lever: nurturing a respectful & critical mind

Neutrality of Point of View

• Readers are from diverse political, religious, culturalbackgrounds

• Content represent all significant views fairly andwithout bias

Respect of other people copyrights

Checking and citing sources

Behaving in an open environment

4th lever: reduce, re-use and recycle

Freedom as a bedrock principle• All content is under a free licence• Our software is free software• We use free format

DutiesAll derivative work is to be kept freeThe source must be mentionned

RightsUse the information without limitationDistribute it in as many copies as desiredModify it, reduce or add to it

4th lever: reduce, re-use and recycle

Open source maximizes progress through cooperationFree licence prevents restrictions to dissemination

5th lever: preserving linguistic diversity

Vigdis FinnbogadottirUNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for Languages

“Everyone loses if one languageis lost because then a nationand culture lose their memory,and so does the complextapestry from which the worldis woven and which makes theworld an exciting place.”