The Wonderful World of Wikimedia

I'm been looking for a new creative outlet lately (not like I have any extra time :)...something not exactly work-related, but media-oriented and imagination-stretching. I started a small-format documentary video project, but it wasn't really moving along. I tried Second Life...well, let's just say that didn't really work out for me.

At the same time, I've been spending a lot of time thinking about "copyleft" content and the Open Source philosophy applied to educational materials. And so, I decided that I'd work on contributing some stuff to the Wikimedia Foundation group of projects.

So for the last couple weeks, I've been trying to spend a couple hours each day on this. I started by putting some photos up on Wikimedia Commons and making some additions and edits to Wikipedia articles. Now that I've got a feel for it, I'm working on some Wikibooks, which is designed to be an "open-content textbook collection." Their tag line is "Think Free. Learn Free." You gotta love that. Also, it seems likely that Wikbooks and other Wikimedia content assets are likely to become one of the major content assets for the OLPC project. That's interesting to me.

I'm currently working on the Wikijunior Human Body book. Not really a big personal interest of mine, but it's the "featured book of the quarter" and I've written kids' books on this before so I thought it would be a good way to learn the ropes of this community. And what a community it is! It is really like learning a whole new language and culture. I'm thinking now of doing a whole sociological study on the phenomenon. LOL.

A few random first impressions...

- The potential of this kind of collaboration is immense. (Just look at Wikpedia. Like uit or hate it, it's a huge content repository that is literally reshaping how millions of people research and use content.)
- The potential of this type of content for the "developing world" is huge. (Having taught in Africa, I'm keenly aware of this.)
-The learning aspect of collaboration is invigorating.
- Like any new learning experience, it's simultaneously fun and frustrating. :)
- I think that if people experienced this process firsthand, they'd be more embracing of its power.


Stay tuned for more on this.