Olympicpedia

Background

In Pittsburgh, PA, USA, and with others at WikiEducator, we are building a grant application for a five week, 2-hour per day, literacy focused camp for middle school students (going into grades 6, 7 and 8) for the summer of 2010. The camp is called, Olympicpedia, as it blends student energy with wiki pages and sports content.

The grant /Application submission to Pittsburgh Pubic Schools occurred November 13, 2009. All grant applications were rejected by Pittsburgh Public Schools and a new call for proposals was made. media:PPS-RFP-TitleI-FINAL.pdf.

The camp is to meet in a school computer lab for five weeks in July and August 2010 with as yet un-hired teachers who have state certification. A 15-1 ratio of students to teachers is needed.

The RFP with its Title I needs requires a curriculum that has been proven with research.

Vision with WikiEducator

• The camp's grant application will be written and crafted here, on this wiki, for all to witness and assist.
  • Application
• The camp's lessons plans can be crafted here.
  • Lesson Plans
• Outcomes for the students can be discussed here.
  • Outcomes
• Mentors and the process of recruitment of distance mentors can be organized here so to get other educators thinking of wikis and kids as they tie to sports around the world.
  • Mentors
• Action plans for recruitment of teachers and engagement of employees that guide the literacy lessons can be crafted here.
  • Teachers
• Drafting in progress
  • /raw
  • /rawBenchmarks We need metrics and measurements

Cite studies

Proven, researched methods are necessary.

There has to be some research about wikis helping with literacy instruction with kids in middle school grades, or high school.

Wiki workshops offered at Journey to Learn in 2009. Teachers claim wikis are an invaluable teaching tool.

Source: http://www.theconsortiumforpubliceducation.org/jtl09wrapup.htm

Jennifer Sylves uses Wikis for class projects because:

• The web-based collaboration sites of wikis help students with organization.
• Wikis create a sense of “individual accountability.
• Wikis create a sense of interdependence among the students.
• Teaching with wikis can draw together students who might not otherwise interact.
• Teaching with wikis can help lower-achieving students contribute on an even footing with students who excel, said Jennifer Sylves, an English teacher in western Pennsylvania's Trinity High School. “They (wikis) give everyone a meaningful task, so they (wikis) level the playing field.”

Jennifer Sylves finds wikis an invaluable teaching tool. She and a colleague, Nancy Hoffman, teacher of math and computer science, presents workshops about Wikis to peers from across the region as part of The Consortium for Public Education’s 2009 Journey to Learn. Journey to Learn is a regional in-service day for teachers to share best practices across district lines.

Olympicpedia = Camp Name

The students are to read, write, resarch, present, and master wiki pages on a wikia.com site, AforAthlete.wikia.com about the global areas associated with sports and the Olympics: athletes, sports, teams, nations, languages, terms, jargon, results and general fitness.

History of Olympicpedia

Old handout / brochure for Olympicpedia Camp in 2008 in Pittsburgh, PA.

A drop in day camp of 2 hours per day was held in a 2008, prior to travels to the Beijing Olympics.

Additional sources

Turn this way in a quest for details and help.

• http://www.globalkids.org/ A New York organization.
  • Due to economy, not interested in expanding to Pennsylvania, as per email in Nov 2009. Rauterkus 16:38, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
• Murder Madness and Mayhem project --- A professor at the University of British Columbia who assigned a project for students to develop articles in Wikipedia to attain featured article status:
  • Google the project title you may find research publications on the project.

• Declan Mcabe from St. Michaels College and his WE project on Biology for Elementary Schools where students work on the wiki as part of their curriculum.

• Nellie Deutsch, in Israel has done some pioneering work with her high school students at Ort Gutmann High School using the wiki to support her teaching of writing skills.)

• This is a bibliography of very up to date media and learning research. He should check out Robert Halpern's work to start.

• Valerie Taylor, at Deanza College in California, check out her work with Community Service Learning

• Ask about Title I (NCLB) regulations to get funding at http://www.wikispaces.com/about, a huge user base of U.S. schools. They may have come across similar situations. There may be some small action research type things - instructors writing about their own classroom experience as a paper with data. However, these may not satisfy your funders. The folks at wikispaces may have that information.

• Bookmarks of Nancy Hoffman: http://delicious.com/nancy.hoffman
  • Links to wikis: http://delicious.com/nancy.hoffman/wikis
  • Links to cff_wiki: http://delicious.com/nancy.hoffman/cff_wiki
  • She especially likes: http://eduwikius.wikispaces.com/Wikis

• Teachers can create free wikis at http://www.wikispaces.com/site/for/teachers
• Blog about using wikis: http://weblogg-ed.com/category/wiki-watch/
• Abington CFF wiki: http://abingtoncff.wikispaces.com/

Links

News Coverage

• Post-Gazette article, Jazzing it up, summer school style http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09312/1011759-298.stm

Blog Postings

• Rauterkus & Running Maes blog about Jazzing it up, summer school style article [1]
• PURE Reform Blog, covering educational threads in Pittsburgh, PA, http://purereform.blogspot.com/2009/11/plans-for-summer-school.html

Drafts

• /raw A place where content from wikipedia lands, gets edited, and re-positioned to support the efforts here.