% Wikimedia projects, education and the capability to edit % David Ramírez-Ordóñez % January 2019 ## Introduction This document present my cover letter for the position *Program Officer, Education* at Wikimedia Foundation (2019). I am presenting here projects I was leading or involved, my experience and other notes to give you some references aiming to fit to the Job application requests, so you can evaluate if I have the skills for this job. I finish this letter with the answer to the question: Why do Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia projects belong in education? ## Projects As a teacher, librarian and blogger, I use Internet, Wikipedia and others Wikimedia projects to teach, learn and share with others, not just for a specific moment, as an exam, but trying to make the learning process useful for the life, to develop digital literacy and critical thinking and change people's lives. In March 2018, I was a teacher in a virtual course at the National Council of Scientific and Technical Research of Argentina (CAICYT, the acronyms in Spanish) and librarians from Latin America participate to learn about accessibility for libraries. My topic: The Marrakesh Treaty. My main idea was to develop a project for my students not just for this class, but for their daily work and even make it an advocacy tool. The project for this class was to adopt the Wikipedia's article on Marrakesh treaty and make it better during the class. When you compare the article[^1] you can see the difference between an article with very general information to other with more specific details, specially to describe the status of the copyright laws in Latin America. The students didn't work for the exam, they met each others at least in a Moodle forum, to debate and create strategies of collaboration. The result is not just for the teacher, but for every Internet user who speaks Spanish. [^1]: [http://a.nomono.co/gk](https://es.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tratado_de_Marrakech&type=revision&diff=108475533&oldid=92144398) (in Spanish) As a student I thought that taking notes could be redundant and could be better if the whole class contribute in a single document, like a wiki. I installed my own wiki (Mediawiki) and use it for my classes[^2] as a bachelor student, postgraduate student and as a teacher to share my digital notebook in public domain. We didn't take notes for a single person like me (as student or as a teacher) but for anyone with Internet access. We didn't take notes in a notebook that you are not going to use the next year or that you can not access in other moment of your life. What if as professional you want to visit a website that someone else shared in a class? What if you want to include in a portfolio something that you created with your classmates years ago? This wiki is used as an information knowledge platform for professionals in Library and Information Science, Education and related areas. Here you can find documentation for 68 classes and hundreds of students. [^2]: [http://a.nomono.co/gl](http://wiki.nomono.co/index.php/Categor%C3%ADa:Clases) (in Spanish) I was part of the IFLA Leaders Programme, where the International Federation of Libraries Associations and Institutions (an INGO) choose just 9 librarians around the world. As the representative of South America I develop with my colleagues the project "Stories that matter"[^3] to create a qualitative approach to demonstrate how libraries are changing the world and helping to achieve the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). In a research for librarians we found how libraries in Latin America are contributing, specially to the SDG 4 (education)[^4]. The English is a problem for some Spanish speakers, so we are building alternatives to connect the Latin American librarians to be represented in international scenarios, where very often we don't have a voice. Happily our region, and being specific my country (Colombia in this link[^5], is being represented in international events because my work and my community's work. [^3]: [http://a.nomono.co/gt](https://librarymap.ifla.org/stories) [^4]: [http://a.nomono.co/dq](http://www.conector.co/blog/noticia/resultados-de-la-encuesta-objetivos-de-desarrollo-sostenible-y-bibliotecas/) (in Spanish) [^5]: [http://a.nomono.co/gm](https://www.youtube.com/embed/vkYARkhxZ2Q?start=4300) ## Experience I believe that to fix global problems you need global actions, that's why I m participating in communities of practice as the Copyright Network for Latin America and the Caribbean, a community of librarians making advocacy on copyright. I am a founder and active member of #BibliotecariosAlSenado (the Spanish translation of #LibrariansToTheSenate) and I was a leader of the Colombian copyright reform to achieve better exceptions and limitations for copyright and Grafoscopio and Dataweek community. I was part of the GLAM committee attending to the World Intellectual Property Organization [^6] to advocate for better rules on copyright and participating in public policy and GLAM in Wikimedia Colombia [^7] to support a better and stronger Open Knowledge Movement and a free and open Internet. I used blog posts [^8] that actually are included in The Wikipedia Library Newsletter [^9] and using comics[^10] or even short videos to explain topics related to community networks and libraries [^11] or freedom of expression [^12]. [^6]: [http://www.eifl.net/blogs/action-wipo](http://www.eifl.net/blogs/action-wipo) [^7]: [http://a.nomono.co/go](http://a.nomono.co/go) [^8]: [http://a.nomono.co/fm](http://a.nomono.co/fm) [^9]: [http://a.nomono.co/gp](http://a.nomono.co/gp) - the second link in Spanish. [^10]: [http://a.nomono.co/iflapresident2018pdf](http://a.nomono.co/iflapresident2018pdf) [^11]: [http://a.nomono.co/fl](http://a.nomono.co/fl) (video in Spanish) [^12]: [http://a.nomono.co/gq](http://a.nomono.co/gq) (in Spanish with English subtitles) - the context of this interview is available at [http://a.nomono.co/gr](http://a.nomono.co/gr) I created the Colombian Public Domain Calculator[^13], a curriculum on copyright for librarians [^14] and collaborate in international courses as teacher in P2PU[^15]. I know basic concepts on instructional design but to be honest I feel that I need improve my methodology on it. [^13]: [http://a.nomono.co/dominiopublico](http://a.nomono.co/dominiopublico) (in Spanish) [^14]: [http://a.nomono.co/derechodeautor](http://a.nomono.co/derechodeautor) (in Spanish) [^15]: [http://a.nomono.co/gs](http://a.nomono.co/gs) (in Spanish) I used data visualizations to explain the status of libraries and archives on copyright in Latin America [^16] to policy-makers in international forums. It's better when you have to take decisions that affect to millions of human being around the world and you don't have time to read and understand 500 pages. [^16]: [http://a.nomono.co/crewsindetail](http://a.nomono.co/crewsindetail) My students in the university wrote me letters being thankful for what they learnt [^17] and even colleagues from other countries made it [^18]. At the end to synthesize, I am finding ways to explain in a simple way difficult concepts and learning by doing not in an artificial environment, but in public spheres like Internet to consolidate communities of critical thinkers. [^17]: The first letter at [http://a.nomono.co/40](http://a.nomono.co/40) and other two letters at [http://a.nomono.co/4q](http://a.nomono.co/4q) (in Spanish) [^18]: [http://a.nomono.co/cc](http://a.nomono.co/cc) (in Spanish) ## Why do Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia projects belong in education? Because learn today means learn to edit. In my experience, you learn better using that principle of *do it yourself*. You can understand how things work when you deconstruct them and remix it in different forms, to get new uses that solve problems in your own context. It doesn't matter if is a philosophical concept, maths or a dataset, you need access to the information, the power and capability [^19] to edit, interaction with communities and skills to adapt it to understand who you are and where do you want to go. Wikipedia and the other projects (Wikimedia Commons, Wikidata, Wikisource, etc.) are the materialization of a way to live in the world in a ethic, aesthetic and political way. A world that sometimes want you to be a passive consumer but you have refreshing oasis as Wikipedia where you can be passive if you want, but you can have more fun and become an active human being, a critic citizen, a cosmopolitan being that can share common things respecting the identity of others. I encourage my students and colleagues not just to understand something, but to make advocacy actions to change laws, make available more information for create with others, debate with their communities and that is exactly what happens in Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia projects. If you don't give access to the source code and the capability to others to reproduce something, you are teaching with inner inequality, where the student never can be better than the teacher. Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects are a warranty of equality in this way. We don't learn to be human repositories of data, we learn to survive in this pale blue dot, the planet Earth, and make our lives better as a community and Wikipedia's ideals are a prove that it's possible[^20]. [^19]: Capability in the meaning of Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capability_approach](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capability_approach) [^20]: This document was created in a markdown file that you can download from [http://a.nomono.co/gu](http://a.nomono.co/gu) and converted in PDF with Pandoc and Latex. It's my way to share the *source code* of this letter in case that anybody else need it. An open knowledge approach by default :-)