This Saturday July 19 (starting at 11:00 am Pacific), Pete Forsyth and I will join friends in leading a "Wiki Barn Raising" at the Oakland Impact Hub in California (2323 Broadway) – and online.
A what?
"In the wiki world, we often borrow the term 'Barn Raising' to evoke the idea of a community coming together to build something substantial in a short time. It's been described as a way to 'make the impossible possible'," Pete explains. And he would know – my longtime friend and colleague, he's been an active Wikipedian since 2006.
This event is the project's last hurrah, but it marks the beginning of something truly exciting. I've had the privilege of working with Pete on the Communicate OER project (funded by the Hewlett Foundation), a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia articles about Open Education, since mid-2012. We've helped newcomers to Wikipedia create, review and improve hundreds of articles, largely through our "Writing Wikipedia Articles" (WIKISOO) class with the School of Open, and with extensive collaboration with members of the Open Educational Resources community. Our work has contributed to formation of "WikiProject Open," an online community which will carry our work forward after this project's funded period ends.
This Saturday we'll be looking at articles that still need improvement, and identifying tasks for the future, to help present the world with an accurate picture of open education principles and projects. We welcome online participants from around the globe (time zone permitting - check event in local time here) – and we have a few tricks up our sleeves to get everyone working together, collocated or not.
Register here if you can join us. We'll get you the links you need to tune in, some background on editing Wikipedia, and info on how to stay in the loop as the day progresses. And for those who can join us in Oakland, CA, a bonus: free lunch!
Hope to see you there.
The Communicate OER project is funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.
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