CEE/Newsletter/October 2017/Contents/Macedonia report

Macedonia report

Three months WiR at the City Library in Skopje accomplished successfully

By Violetova

The working area of the WiR at the City Library

On September 9, 2017 Gordana Jovik Stojkovska finished her three months tasks as Wikipedian in Residence of GLAM Macedonia at the City Library "Braḱa Miladinovci" in Skopje. This period was very productive and she accomplished all tasks that were planned in the project. We can proudly state that the agreement of collaboration with the City Library will continue in the 2018.

During the period of three months, the WiR at the City Library "Braḱa Miladinovci" accomplished the following:

• The total number of added new references in the articles on the Macedonian Wikipedia is 301.
• A successful Wiki-tour was held in June. A group of students was introduced with the Library Departments and were introduced with the information of how to use the City Library for their needs. Moreover, the students were introduced to the employees and were informed on how to use the Library for their future engagements.
• A workshop was held with the group of students that took part in the Wiki-tour. This was the first edit-a-thon organised by the Wikipedian in Residence. The students had the chance to prepare and add text to articles on the Macedonian Wikipedia. They used the books available in the Library. In addition, the students were trained how to add references in the articles on Wikipedia.
• At the end of the period a successful, second, edit-a-thon was held. The number of participants that took part in the edit-a-thon was 9, of which 3 were trained by the WiR at the City Library. The total number of new articles created at this event was 12.
• The WiR trained 5 new users to edit on Wikipedia and they have created 22 new articles, and 6 existing articles were edited with text.

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  Wiki Tour at the City Library.
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  Workshop for editing on Wikipedia.
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  Training new users on Wikipedia.

Macedonia-Brazil photographic collaboration

By Македонец

On 13th of October 2017, on the occasion of marking the establishment of diplomatic relations between Macedonia and Brazil, as a result of the cooperation between "Shared Knowledge" - Wikimedia Macedonia and "Wiki Education" from Brazil, was opened the exhibition of photographs titled "Brazil through photos - in front of the eyes of the Macedonian public ". Over 40 visitors were briefly introduced about the Wikipedia its significance and meaning, the collaboration between Wikimedia Macedonia and Wikimedia Brazil and there was a presentation of a geopolitical analysis of the development of relations and cooperation between Macedonia and Brazil, after which the audience had the opportunity to see 20 images of nature and buildings in Brazil, which have been chosen as the best qualified pictures on the contest "Wiki Loves Earth" and "Wiki Loves Monument" held in Brazil. All of the images have been printed with QR-codes of links of the articles on Macedonian Wikipedia, which have previously created on the editing weekend dedicated to Brazilian topics. The next day, on 14th of October 2017, in the morning, an edit-a-thon was held on the topic: Brazil. Exhibition of the images lasted for 2 weeks.

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  Audience of the exhbition
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  The opening address
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  Visitor tests the QR-codes
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  Kiril Simeonovski explains an image to the visitors of the exibition

Hundred teachers trained in the Republic of Macedonia

By Violetova

From the conference in October 2017

The conference hall was too small for all interested teachers

During 2017, GLAM Macedonia held two Wiki conferences for teachers, in April and October, where 130 teachers from secondary and high schools in the Republic of Macedonia were trained for the proper use of Wikipedia in the teaching process and in the classroom.

One hundred and thirty teachers were trained on how to use Wikipedia in the classroom in the two Wiki conferences for teachers held in Skopje, the capital of the Republic of Macedonia, by user group GLAM Macedonia, in April and October 2017. The interest in participation was significant, and the conference room turned out to be too small to accommodate all interested teachers. Four speakers, all members of GLAM Macedonia, all of them teachers in the real life, gave introductory talks about Wikipedia and the teaching process. Speakers in the conference were:

• Matilda Bajkova - teacher in three secondary schools in Skopje, and also Coordinator of education program at GLAM Macedonia user group
• Виолетова - High school teacher
• MB - teacher in an international high school in Skopje
• Wikimk - University professor in Skopje

A survey of the meeting participants was held after the event, and the results were surprising: 58% of participants said that they are ready to use in the classroom what they learned about, and 72% of participants found the booklet "How to use Wikipedia as a teaching tool" useful.