Who are we?

We are the innovators, the curious, the resilient, the researchers, the teachers, the mentors, the interpreters, the communicators, the explorers, the lovers (as opposed to the fighters!). Check out what we have been sharing on the first day of our conference. Expand your networks, find new friends, catch up with old friends, enjoy the opportunities to unwind and to learn. 

Here's some of today's twitter activity #eurocall2019

There has been lots of live tweeting - so much that my wakelet curation and the wifi are struggling to cope but don't let that stop you! You can remix the collection above to tell your own story of today. Get creative. 

Check out the twitter connections who are part of our story. 

The workshops started our day:

and we were warmly welcomed by our President Mirjam Hauck:

and so it begins, enjoy!

Opening knowledge creation with Wikipedia

EuroCALL 2018 kicks off with a range of workshops for language specialists. One such workshop is a hands-on session looking at how wikipedia editing can contribute to language learning and how becoming part of the open knowledge community that is wikipedia can be of mutual benefit to our communities. 

Wikipedia was launched in 2001 by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger. It is the largest and most popular general reference work on the internet. A multi-lingual, free encyclopedia which has adopted an open-door policy which allows anyone to edit. Those who contribute often have a passion for their area of expertise and the community uses technical tools to check the quality of articles hosted on the site. Editors have to observe a strict set of style guidelines and support their article with citations. It has been called the largest OER on earth (open educational resource) and you can read all about it here.

The language community could have an instrumental role in extending contributions to a more diverse range of contributors. There are many possibilities for contribution to existing articles and projects, improving and reviewing citations in some of the many languages which are active on Wikipedia and helping to eradicate the bias which is sometimes a source of criticism. This workshop will be an opportunity to explore how we can do this. 

A set of resources about the many facets of the Wikimedia Foundation activities have been made openly available here to support those who will join the workshop and we will tweet from the event so that those who would like to follow from afar can do so. Look out for #eurocall2018 tweets to ask your questions or join the session remotely. 

My session slides are available here.