Some of my students watching Mr. Wales
Before we went to the webcast we brainstormed questions we could ask Mr. Wales. My students thought of some pretty thought provoking questions ranging anywhere from how did you come up with the idea to start Wikipedia to what are your other interests? During the video session three of my students got to speak with him live! They were so excited to ask their questions and did a great job.
Mr. Wales throwing up deuces
Some of the cool facts I learned about Wikipedia are:
~It's the research website with the highest hits, about 5 million per week.
~It is in over 100 languages
~There are over 3 million articles on the site, an average encyclopedia only has around 64,000!
~There are only 25 employees that work for Wikipedia.
The students were loving it!
Overall it was very enlightening to hear Mr. Wales goals for the future. He has a passion to get educational resources to all parts of the world. For example, he wants remote villages in Africa and women in the Middle East to be able to have access to educational resources. As you can imagine it is not an easy job, but that is what makes Wikipedia so cool. People that know the language can update it and pass the learning on. It is also a very difficult job since some regions don't have a written language. I was just amazed at how much this man knew and how humble he was. One important fact he said and that answered a question I had was that Wikipedia is not completely a valid source for a research paper. He said it is a good place to find background information, but not your in depth research. Just what a teacher wants to hear! I am loving my job and all the opportunities it provides.
1 comment:
What a fantastic learning experience! I have enjoyed following what you're up to in a classroom abroad - and this event is just amazing! Only 25 employees for Wikipedia? Who knew?
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