Wikipedia in Secondary and Adult Education: presentation at CIE2014 in Corfu, Greece

Wikimedia Education Programmes are primarily geared to the needs of primary, secondary and tertiary schooling. But what about adult education? Three educators discussed their experience using Wikipedia as a teaching tool in adult and second-chance learners’ settings.

The paper «OERs in Secondary and Adult Education: Wikipedia» they co-authored was presented at the Conference on Informatics in Education (CIE) which was held 10 – 12 October 2014 in Corfu, Greece. The ultimate goal of the presentation was to encourage more educators to get involved in Wikipedia and Wikimedia editing by showing that subjects adult students are well acquainted with can generate ideas for interesting contributions!

Mina Theofilatou from Argostoli Evening Secondary School has used Wikipedia editing in her classes since 2007, with impressive results. With students from every imaginable walk of life, their contributions to Greek Wikipedia range from a photo of swimming sheep by a student shepherd, to an article on pyrography and icons created by the recent graduate Father Vassilios, to Kefalonia’s Wind Farms in the context of a school project on Renewable Energy Sources. The school’s latest project involved two «open science» galleries on Wikimedia Commons (read Wikimedia blog post here and here).

Kostas Skiadopoulos from Kastellani Middle School used a teamwork approach and encouraged his students to create articles on local sites of interest in Corfu.

Marios Magioladitis from Corfu Second-Chance School worked on Wikipedia with his students and then handed out questionnaires asking for their opinion on the experience. Most were excited and stated that Wikipedia editing was one of their favourite online activities!

The three intend to continue introducing new Wikimedia approaches to their teaching methods and will report again soon with their findings.