2023:Program/ESEAP Region/QBZVBP-Wikipedia and the Aotearoa NZ History Curriculum
Title: Wikipedia and the Aotearoa NZ History Curriculum
Speakers:
James Taylor
James Taylor (jetaynz) is Online Collections Information & Partnership Manager at Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum. He is responsible for the Museum’s Collections Online and various partner websites, where the Museum’s open images and data are shared across a range of websites from data aggregators, research portals, social media channels and curated platforms. One of the most important partnerships is with Wikipedia, where 170,000 images are available on Wikimedia Commons and work is guided by the Museum’s Wikipedia workplan which was developed in conjunction with local Wikimedians: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/Auckland_Museum
Room: Room 324
Start time: Fri, 18 Aug 2023 14:15:00 +0800
End time: Fri, 18 Aug 2023 14:35:00 +0800
Type: Lecture
Track: ESEAP (East, South East Asia, and the Pacific) Region
Submission state: confirmed
Duration: 20 minutes
Do not record: false
Presentation language: en
Abstract & description
editAbstract
editFor the last two years staff at Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum have been investigating how Wikipedia could be used as a learning resource in secondary schools for the new compulsory Aotearoa NZ Histories Curriculum. This session will present the results of two projects undertaken with WMF funding projects towards this broad goal.
The first project sought to understand teachers attitudes towards the use of Wikipedia in secondary school classrooms in Aotearoa New Zealand. The second project is currently underway enhancing local Auckland suburb Wikipedia pages for use as educational resources for teaching the new curriculum.
Description
editThis year for the first time a compulsory national history curriculum rolls out across schools in Aotearoa New Zealand for students in primary and secondary schools (years 1-10, ages 5-15). For the last couple of years staff at Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum have been thinking about how to reach this new large, diverse, audience of secondary students and their teachers in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland with online resources suitable for the new curriculum.
As the curriculum has a focus on applying broad historical themes and methods to local contexts, we came up with a project enhancing local Wikipedia suburb pages, editing them so they had detailed and up to date histories which covered Māori settlement, colonization and 20th century developments, richly illustrated with images from local GLAM institutions and references to further reading. This would enable Wikipedia to be used as a starting point for the teaching of the new curriculum, while also enabling GLAM organisations such as ours to engage with the curriculum at scale.
However, we wanted to test whether this idea would be suitable, and in doing so more generally investigate what teachers in New Zealand thought about Wikipedia and how they used it in the classroom. In 2021 we received WMF Research funding for this work and completed it in 2022.
We then applied for Alliance Funding last year for a follow-up project that has two components. The first part is editing and enhancing suburb pages over the course of this year. The second part involves a cohort of students joining the Museum’s summer studentship programme as Wikipedia Interns from Nov 2023-Feb 2024.
In this presentation we will report back on the findings of the research project, sharing the results of our surveys and interviews with teachers and also provide a work-in-progress report on the current project, what is working well and any roadblocks we are facing.
While our projects are both focused on the New Zealand context, there are learnings relevant to other contexts, particularly around modern educators perceptions of Wikipedia and the use of Wikipedia as a learning resource in the classroom. Our work also point towards some ways that GLAM organisations can take an active approach towards engaging with Wikipedia by running projects which sit at the intersection of GLAM-Wiki and Education-Wiki activities.
Further details
editQn. How does your session relate to the event themes: Diversity, Collaboration Future?
This session relates to all the conference themes. In terms of Diversity and Future, we will discuss how were are going to be working with a group of student editors at the end of this year, which we hope will become a diverse cohort of Wikipedia Interns, empowering them to become a generation of new Wikipedia editors.
We will also discuss how GLAM organisations can diversify the content on Wikipedia, by talking about the work we are doing editing and enhancing Auckland suburb pages with rich histories, recognising the diversity of experiences in the city and re-balancing the predominantly European/Pakeha history that makes up much of the currently available content.
In terms of collaboration, we will discuss how we are working with the local Wikipedia community as part of the Alliance Funded project, and also how we have worked with local teachers in both projects.
Finally, we hope to sustain the future of Wikipedia, by creating resources that are trusted for use in classrooms across Aotearoa New Zealand, ensuring the Wikipedia remains a relevant tool for accessing knowledge and information for generations to come.
Qn. What is the experience level needed for the audience for your session?
Everyone can participate in this session
Qn. What is the most appropriate format for this session?
Onsite in Singapore
Remote online participation, livestreamed- Remote from a satellite event
- Hybrid with some participants in Singapore and others dialing in remotely
- Pre-recorded and available on demand
