[Wikimedia Education] Wikikids/Vikidia Re: Wikimini, the Children's

[mathias . damour]

Hi,

> Message du 18/04/13 20:04
> De : "Jean-Marc Gailis" 
> A : "Wikimedia Education" 
> Copie à : 
> Objet : Re: [Wikimedia Education] Wikimini, the Children's Encyclopedia has 
> reached 10 000 articles (word cloud inside)
>
> Hi!I think it can be interesting for all to join this project to Wikimedia, 
> to promote it and make versions for other languages than french.

Well, let's work on the proposal: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikikids
However it is about Vikidia, which content is more developed. ( 
http://fr.vikidia.org )
Article are longer as on Wikimini, but still children readers on the "Livre 
d'or" (guestbook) often ask for more content 
http://fr.vikidia.org/wiki/Vikidia:Livre_d%27or

> 2013/4/18 Erlan Vega 
> > It looks really interesting. I went straight to Spanish version but a pass 
> > is required. Are there plans to open other languages?
> Great job so far!!

Vikidia in spanish in opened right now, and it once had a good (but small) 
contributors group. http://es.vikidia.org/
Its content is still here, and it needs a new community.
The adoption as a sister project could help, you can drop your name on 
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikikids#People_interested to support it, 
Wikimedia France just decided to do so. :-)

Mathias Damour

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Re: [Wikimedia Education] Wikikids/Vikidia

[Samuel Klein]

That's very cool Laurent!  Thank you as well for sharing.  Hopefully
there's some natural way to connect the projects.

On Sun, Apr 7, 2013 at 4:10 AM, Laurent Jauquier
 wrote:
> Salut Mathias,
>
> Thank you for sharing your vision of such a project and taking the time to
> collect information about it.
>
> I've added a description of the Wikimini encyclopedia. Here is a copy:
>
> Wikimini.org (License: CC-BY-SA 3.0): currently in French*, started in
> October 2008, 10180 articles in April 2013, anonymous contributions not
> allowed**
>
>
>
> * is working on new language versions
>
> ** collecting and publishing the IP addresses of participating schools and
> children (without parental permission) has been considered a problem by the
> people who designed the project
>
>
>
> As it is the case in the two projects described above (Wikikids.nl and
> ZUM-Grundschulwiki), Wikimini is an online encyclopedia where almost all of
> the content is being written by children and teenagers (~8 to 15 years old
> in the case of Wikimini). 10-15% of its articles are being created or
> developed in the context of class/school projects (see an original example
> covered by the press here (in French)), while the rest is being edited by
> other contributors outside any formal teaching context (see one of their
> young contributors interviewed at home by the national FrenchTV). Adults are
> welcomed to participate and have a dedicated portal. Basically they can be
> seen as "helpers". They help in: organizing the content; following the
> recent changes; checking and proof-reading the articles; making text
> understandable when it is not; adding pictures and videos; providing
> encouragement and advices to new contributors; etc. (More details here (in
> French)). It should be noted that moderation and administration tasks are
> shared between both adults and children. Ultimately, the children remain the
> main actors and builders of the project and their contributions are not
> overwhelmed by massive adult inputs. This is a central scope of Wikimini and
> probably one of the most important factors regarding its success and the
> large-scale participation of children of all abilities (not only those
> excelling at school and with a high self-esteem).
>
>
>
> The conceptual design of Wikimini began in Switzerland in 2008, within a
> small group of primary education teachers and students in educational
> sciences from the universities of Fribourg (CH) and Mons (BE). Actually, the
> initial aim was not to bring the project into reality, but only to imagine a
> successful way of building such a wiki. Laurent Jauquier, a Swiss teacher
> currently living in Brazil, and who was at the origin of the idea, took the
> lead and decided to transform it into reality. He launched Wikimini in
> French in October 2008. The project has been growing fast ever since and has
> received a warm welcome from children, educational and media professionals
> around the French-speaking parts of the world. In 2011 it has even been
> invited, nominated and finally awarded as the “Best French site / content
> for children” in a contest organized by the European Commission (more info
> here). More recently, Wikimini has received the financial support from
> Wikimedia CH to improve its technical infrastructure, develop a common
> repository of shared media files suitable for children (something like
> ''Commons''), implement the technical requirements to support the
> development of other language versions and finally relieve the
> (non-technician) founder of the most highly technical workloads.
>
>
>
> It has been expressed on different occasions that Wikimini wants to
> collaborate/exchange with similar wikis and that motivated persons would be
> welcomed to coordinate and represent new versions of Wikimini in their own
> language.
>
>
> Please feel free to contact me to discuss more about this.
>
> Kind regards
>
> Laurent
> http://wikimini.org
>
>
>
> 2013/4/6 Everton Zanella Alvarenga 
>>
>> Hi, Mathias.
>>
>> I've sent your e-mail to the Brazilian volunteers. If someone if
>> interested, I hope they will contact you.
>>
>> Tom
>>
>> On Sat, Apr 6, 2013 at 11:17 AM, Mathias Damour
>>  wrote:
>> >
>> > Hi, I have updated and better again the proposal:
>> >  http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikikids
>> > It refers in particular to the 2010 /Wikimedia Study of Controversial
>> > Content/.
>> >
>> > I added :
>> > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikikids/Review_of_current_existing_wikis_akin_to_Wikikids
>> > and I may write a /*Wikikids/Questions and answers
>> > */
>> > to anserw the questions and concerns this proposal can raise.
>> >
>> > One next step it certainly to draw up a project plan/potential
>> > schedule/roadmap for a migration to WMF hosting and for the first months...
>> > And to have your remarks on the proposal !
>>
>>
>> --
>> Everton Zanella Alvar

Re: [Wikimedia Education] Wikikids/Vikidia

[Laurent Jauquier]

Salut Mathias,

Thank you for sharing your vision of such a project and taking the time to
collect information about it.

I've added a description of the *Wikimini* encyclopedia. Here is a copy:

*Wikimini.org * (License: CC-BY-SA 3.0): currently in
French*, started in *October 2008*, *10180 articles* in April 2013,
anonymous contributions not allowed**



* is working on new language versions

** collecting and publishing the IP addresses of participating schools and
children (without parental permission) has been considered a problem by the
people who designed the project



As it is the case in the two projects described above (Wikikids.nl and
ZUM-Grundschulwiki), *Wikimini* is an online encyclopedia where *almost all
of the content is being written by children and teenagers* (~8 to 15 years
old in the case of Wikimini). 10-15% of its articles are being created or
developed in the context of class/school projects (see an original example
covered by the press here *(in
French)*),
while the rest is being edited by other contributors outside any formal
teaching context (see one of their young contributors interviewed at home
by the national
FrenchTV).
Adults are welcomed to participate and have a dedicated portal. Basically
they can be seen as "helpers". They help in: organizing the content;
following the recent changes; checking and proof-reading the articles;
making text understandable when it is not; adding pictures and videos;
providing encouragement and advices to new contributors; etc. (More details
here *(in French)* ). It should
be noted that moderation and administration tasks are shared between both
adults and children. Ultimately, the children remain the main actors and
builders of the project and their contributions are not overwhelmed by
massive adult inputs. This is a central scope of Wikimini and probably one
of the most important factors regarding its success and the large-scale
participation of children of all abilities (not only those excelling at
school and with a high self-esteem).



The conceptual design of Wikimini began in *Switzerland* in 2008, within a
small group of primary education teachers and students in educational
sciences from the universities of Fribourg (CH) and Mons (BE). Actually,
the initial aim was not to bring the project into reality, but only to
imagine a successful way of building such a wiki. Laurent Jauquier, a Swiss
teacher currently living in *Brazil*, and who was at the origin of the
idea, took the lead and decided to transform it into reality. He launched
Wikimini in French in October 2008. The project has been growing fast ever
since and has received a warm welcome from children, educational and media
professionals around the French-speaking parts of the world. In 2011 it has
even been invited, nominated and finally awarded as the “*Best French site
/ content for children*” in a contest organized by the European
Commission (more
info 
here).
More recently, Wikimini has received the financial support from Wikimedia
CH to improve its technical infrastructure, develop a common repository of
shared media files suitable for children (something like ''Commons''),
implement the technical requirements to support the development of other
language versions and finally relieve the (non-technician) founder of the
most highly technical workloads.



It has been expressed on different occasions that Wikimini wants to
collaborate/exchange with similar wikis and that motivated persons would be
welcomed to coordinate and represent new versions of Wikimini in their own
language.

Please feel free to contact me to discuss more about this.

Kind regards

Laurent
http://wikimini.org


2013/4/6 Everton Zanella Alvarenga 

> Hi, Mathias.
>
> I've sent your e-mail to the Brazilian volunteers. If someone if
> interested, I hope they will contact you.
>
> Tom
>
> On Sat, Apr 6, 2013 at 11:17 AM, Mathias Damour
>  wrote:
> >
> > Hi, I have updated and better again the proposal:
> >  http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikikids
> > It refers in particular to the 2010 /Wikimedia Study of Controversial
> Content/.
> >
> > I added :
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikikids/Review_of_current_existing_wikis_akin_to_Wikikids
> > and I may write a /*Wikikids/Questions and answers <
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikikids/Questions_and_answers&action=edit&redlink=1>*/
> to anserw the questions and concerns this proposal can raise.
> >
> > One next step it certainly to draw up a project plan/potential
> schedule/roadmap for a migration to WMF hosting and for the first months...
> And to have your remarks on the proposal !
>
>
> --
> Everton Zanella Alvarenga (also Tom)
> "A life spent mak

Re: [Wikimedia Education] Wikikids/Vikidia

[Everton Zanella Alvarenga]

Hi, Mathias.

I've sent your e-mail to the Brazilian volunteers. If someone if
interested, I hope they will contact you.

Tom

On Sat, Apr 6, 2013 at 11:17 AM, Mathias Damour
 wrote:
>
> Hi, I have updated and better again the proposal:
>  http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikikids
> It refers in particular to the 2010 /Wikimedia Study of Controversial 
> Content/.
>
> I added : 
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikikids/Review_of_current_existing_wikis_akin_to_Wikikids
> and I may write a /*Wikikids/Questions and answers 
> */
>  to anserw the questions and concerns this proposal can raise.
>
> One next step it certainly to draw up a project plan/potential 
> schedule/roadmap for a migration to WMF hosting and for the first months... 
> And to have your remarks on the proposal !


--
Everton Zanella Alvarenga (also Tom)
"A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more
useful than a life spent doing nothing."

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Re: [Wikimedia Education] Wikikids/Vikidia

[Mathias Damour]

Hi, I have updated and better again the proposal:
 http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikikids
It refers in particular to the 2010 /Wikimedia Study of Controversial 
Content/.


I added : 
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikikids/Review_of_current_existing_wikis_akin_to_Wikikids
and I may write a /*Wikikids/Questions and answers 
*/ 
to anserw the questions and concerns this proposal can raise.


One next step it certainly to draw up a project plan/potential 
schedule/roadmap for a migration to WMF hosting and for the first 
months... And to have your remarks on the proposal !



Le 24/03/2013 22:03, Mathias Damour a écrit :

I have also translated and adapted this page :
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikikids/For_children_or_by_children_%3F
(main page of the proposal to update : 
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikikids )


You may fix my english, reactions welcomed !

Le 23/03/2013 19:01, Mathias Damour a écrit :

Hi,

I've just translated a page that I wrote on Vikidia that expound how 
a Wikikids project can meet the prescriptions of some articles of the 
1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child.
See : 
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikikids/Relation_to_the_Rights_of_the_Child 
(you may correct my translation since my english is not perfect)
I'd like to translate as well another page : 
http://fr.vikidia.org/wiki/Vikidia:Pour_les_enfants_ou_par_les_enfants_%3F 
in [[Wikikids/For children or by children ?]]. I think both can help 
to understand and imagine what such a wiki can be.


I will attend the "Education Program Leaders Workshop 2013" by 
Wikimedia in Milan on Thursday, April 18. And I offer to make a 
presentation about the Vikidia/Wikikids project there, as I wrote 
there : 
http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikipedia_Education_Program/Education_Program_Leaders_Workshop_2013#Wikikids/Vikidia


By the way, I have a figure to give you. Surprisingly Vikidia in 
spanish, despite having no more real community, has shown the number 
of unique visitors jump from 25.327 to 80.417 unique visitors a month 
in one year, that is a 217,51 % progression...
Vikidia in french get 467.943 unique visitors a month (having by 
contrast a lively and active community).


We had a thread about Wikikis/Vikidia on this mailing list in early 
February, 2013 (subject : "[Wikimedia Education] Update on 
Vikidia/Wikikids (was Wikipedia in schools)"), in which Samuel Klein 
suggested to "Describe a potential schedule for a migration to WMF 
hosting.  See the history of the Wikivoyage page and the OmegaWiki 
page for examples."


Your help, reactions questions, and involvement for that are welcomed !

Thanks !




--
Mathias Damour
49 rue Carnot
F-74000 Annecy
00 33 (0)4 57 09 10 56
00 33 (0)6 27 13 65 51
mathias.dam...@laposte.net
http://fr.vikidia.org/wiki/Utilisateur:Astirmays

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Re: [Wikimedia Education] Wikikids/Vikidia

[Mathias Damour]

I have also translated and adapted this page :
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikikids/For_children_or_by_children_%3F
(main page of the proposal to update : 
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikikids )


You may fix my english, reactions welcomed !

Le 23/03/2013 19:01, Mathias Damour a écrit :

Hi,

I've just translated a page that I wrote on Vikidia that expound how a 
Wikikids project can meet the prescriptions of some articles of the 
1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child.
See : 
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikikids/Relation_to_the_Rights_of_the_Child 
(you may correct my translation since my english is not perfect)
I'd like to translate as well another page : 
http://fr.vikidia.org/wiki/Vikidia:Pour_les_enfants_ou_par_les_enfants_%3F 
in [[Wikikids/For children or by children ?]]. I think both can help 
to understand and imagine what such a wiki can be.


I will attend the "Education Program Leaders Workshop 2013" by 
Wikimedia in Milan on Thursday, April 18. And I offer to make a 
presentation about the Vikidia/Wikikids project there, as I wrote 
there : 
http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikipedia_Education_Program/Education_Program_Leaders_Workshop_2013#Wikikids/Vikidia


By the way, I have a figure to give you. Surprisingly Vikidia in 
spanish, despite having no more real community, has shown the number 
of unique visitors jump from 25.327 to 80.417 unique visitors a month 
in one year, that is a 217,51 % progression...
Vikidia in french get 467.943 unique visitors a month (having by 
contrast a lively and active community).


We had a thread about Wikikis/Vikidia on this mailing list in early 
February, 2013 (subject : "[Wikimedia Education] Update on 
Vikidia/Wikikids (was Wikipedia in schools)"), in which Samuel Klein 
suggested to "Describe a potential schedule for a migration to WMF 
hosting.  See the history of the Wikivoyage page and the OmegaWiki 
page for examples."


Your help, reactions questions, and involvement for that are welcomed !

Thanks !


--
Mathias Damour
49 rue Carnot
F-74000 Annecy
00 33 (0)4 57 09 10 56
00 33 (0)6 27 13 65 51
mathias.dam...@laposte.net
http://fr.vikidia.org/wiki/Utilisateur:Astirmays

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[Wikimedia Education] Wikikids/Vikidia

[Mathias Damour]

Hi,

I've just translated a page that I wrote on Vikidia that expound how a 
Wikikids project can meet the prescriptions of some articles of the 1989 
Convention on the Rights of the Child.
See : 
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikikids/Relation_to_the_Rights_of_the_Child 
(you may correct my translation since my english is not perfect)
I'd like to translate as well another page : 
http://fr.vikidia.org/wiki/Vikidia:Pour_les_enfants_ou_par_les_enfants_%3F 
in [[Wikikids/For children or by children ?]]. I think both can help to 
understand and imagine what such a wiki can be.


I will attend the "Education Program Leaders Workshop 2013" by Wikimedia 
in Milan on Thursday, April 18. And I offer to make a presentation about 
the Vikidia/Wikikids project there, as I wrote there : 
http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikipedia_Education_Program/Education_Program_Leaders_Workshop_2013#Wikikids/Vikidia


By the way, I have a figure to give you. Surprisingly Vikidia in 
spanish, despite having no more real community, has shown the number of 
unique visitors jump from 25.327 to 80.417 unique visitors a month in 
one year, that is a 217,51 % progression...
Vikidia in french get 467.943 unique visitors a month (having by 
contrast a lively and active community).


We had a thread about Wikikis/Vikidia on this mailing list in early 
February, 2013 (subject : "[Wikimedia Education] Update on 
Vikidia/Wikikids (was Wikipedia in schools)"), in which Samuel Klein 
suggested to "Describe a potential schedule for a migration to WMF 
hosting.  See the history of the Wikivoyage page and the OmegaWiki page 
for examples."


Your help, reactions questions, and involvement for that are welcomed !

Thanks !

--
Mathias Damour
49 rue Carnot
F-74000 Annecy
00 33 (0)4 57 09 10 56
00 33 (0)6 27 13 65 51
mathias.dam...@laposte.net
http://fr.vikidia.org/wiki/Utilisateur:Astirmays

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Re: [Wikimedia Education] WikiKids - Vikidia: encyclopedia for children

[Mathias Damour]

Hi,

I sent a message on this list about WikiKids - Vikidia last october.
Then I developped it a bit and sent to the WM Foundation mailing list, 
and later had a discussion about it on /simple /there :
http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Simple_talk/Archive_96#WikiKids_-_Vikidia 
in last december.
A few month later, I wanted to let you know about it, in case some of 
you are interested in this model.


There is quite a few schools working on Vikidia for now, we have our own 
"WP:School and university projects" witch is : 
http://fr.vikidia.org/wiki/Vikidia:Projets_p%C3%A9dagogiques .
Actually, a still better point for this project is that children say (or 
write) that they appreciate the content to be understandable for them, 
wheras Wikipedia's often isn't.


And still, http://es.vikidia.org/ needs you !

--
Mathias Damour
[[User:Astirmays]] onfr:wp  ,en:wp  
  andVikidia  

49 rue Carnot
74000 Annecy
France
00 (33)4 57 09 10 56
00 (33)6 27 13 65 51
mathias.dam...@laposte.net

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[Wikimedia Education] WikiKids - Vikidia: encyclopedia for children

[Mathias Damour]

Hi all,

I subscribed to that mailing list since its beginning, but didn't get 
involved in it yet. I've just checked about all the previous messages ;-)
I am a French wikipedian, and would like to tell you about a pretty old 
project: a wiki encyclopedia designed for children.


It seems that this list mainly focus on Wikipedia-editing in higher 
education and to a lesser extent, offline content from Wikipedia for 
children, with the "Wikipedia for Schools" selection.

However, I noticed this message:

Le 20/04/2011 03:31, Nikhil Sheth a écrit :
The 2008/09 edition of Wikipedia for Schools is very good, but also 
limited in that it has only 5500+ articles (contrast with Wikipedia en 
latest selection that has 45000+) and many times topics we need aren't 
there.

(...)
I got Okawix and downloaded Simple Wikipedia package for offline - 
it's got many articles in simpler language and can be very useful for 
lower-age children. But it's uncensored and so unusable. Is it 
possible to start a simple wikipedia project to collect the 
for-schools articles, or better yet just filter out inappropriate ones?


The idea of a equivalent of Wikipedia for children was discussed in 
particular in 2005-2006 on this page : 
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikikids


Although it had no continuation as a Wikimedia project, wikis with such 
a feature were launched first in Dutch: WikiKids 
; in french a few month 
later: Vikidia  (article on Wikipedia 
) and then in Spanish Vikidia in 
spanish . I opened Vikidia.
WikiKids and Vikidia in French are doing well and are quite alike in 
size and activity, whereas Vikidia in Spanish doesn't make it so well.


On Vikidia in French, we currently have a guest-book opened, and the 
comments left on it 
 are quite 
encouraging.
Children say they appreciate the article to be more readable for them 
than on Wikipedia, their main reserve being that some article are not 
developed enough, or that there isn't articles on every subject they 
would like to know about... They clearly expect (and claim) some 
substantial content, though it has to be easier than the wikipedia's 
content.


We have yet a bit more than 10 000 articles in Vikidia in French, and 
about 220  000 unique visitors a month.


This "Wikikids" question was mentioned again in the Wikimedia scope one 
year ago there: meta:2010 Wikimedia Study of Controversial Content: Part 
Two#Recommendations: Controversial Text 
:



/Because of the considerations outlined above, our recommendations 
surrounding text in WMF projects are the following:

It is recommended:
(...)
3. That, however, the Foundation investigate the creation of a 
"WikiJunior" version of the Wikipedias, aimed at children under the age 
of 12, either as a stand-alone project or in partnership with existing 
and appropriate educational institutions.


Explanations:
(...)
Recommendations 2 and 3
(...) Much more successful, in our opinion, is a project specifically 
targeted to children, and to the quite different needs of children in 
different age groups. Some projects of this nature have already been 
begun in the WikiJunior section of WikiBooks,[3] but it is our feeling 
that the scope of such a venture might necessitate the formation of 
partnerships with institutions who have experience and resources already 
devoted to this area./



...to which I had this response on meta:User talk:Sj 
.


Another feature of WikiKids/Vikidia is of course that it let children be 
involved in building the content, and does not "only" aim to produce and 
offer content for children, for the same benefits that you can find in 
Wikipedia-editing workshops for students. There is both some school 
projects and volunteer children editing on Vikidia along with teenagers, 
students and adult writers.


My question is of course: */why is there no equivalent in English yet 
?/* ;-)


(And if you are Spanish speaker or if you know people that would be 
interested in it, please tell them about http://es.vikidia.org ; I would 
be glad that there is new people involved in it, or even take it in charge.)


Greetings,

--
Mathias Damour
[[User:Astirmays]] onfr:wp  ,en:wp  
  andVikidia  

49 rue Carnot
74000 Annecy
France
00 (33)4 57 09 10 56
00 (33)6 27 13 65 51
mathias.dam...@laposte.net

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