Grants:Project/Wikipedia and the Aotearoa New Zealand History Curriculum/Timeline

This project is funded by a Project Grant

proposal

timeline & progress

Timeline for Wikipedia and the Aotearoa New Zealand History Curriculum

Timeline	Date
Recruit researcher	October 2021
Literature review completed	December 2021
Survey designed and circulated	Late January 2022
Workshops with interested teachers	January-February 2022
Report written	Mid-March 2022

Monthly updates

Please prepare a brief project update each month, in a format of your choice, to share progress and learnings with the community along the way. Submit the link below as you complete each update.

June 2021

We are in the process of setting up the project. Job descriptions and advertisements have been submitted with our HR team and we will be recruiting for the researcher position over the next month.

This coming weekend the Auckland Wikicon is being held at the Museum, where we will be discussing the project with Wikimedians from across the country.

July 2021

Job description and ad for researcher is being processed by HR following a couple of changes made at their request. We will be advertising shortly.

James Taylor (Project Manager) spoke at the Wikicon held at the Museum on the weekend of 17-18 July. One part of his presentations was on this project, and there was a positive response from local Wikimedians.

James also met with a local high school teacher who has expressed interest in taking part in this work with his year 9 (14 year old) students.

August 2021

The Research Assistant job was advertised on a number of recruitment websites this month, with the ad closing at the end of the month. We have had 26 applicants for the position, and in general there were of a very high quality and we have begun the shortlisting process.

In the middle of the month (18th August) New Zealand entered a COVID lockdown due to an outbreak of COVID delta here in Auckland. This has meant the Museum has closed and all staff are working from home and some work plans have been shifted around to adjust to this.

Recruitment will be done via Zoom, and it likely most of the Research Assistants work will be done remotely as staff will not be returning to work on-site for at least another month.

September 2021

We have had a slow month of progress as the COVID lockdowns continue here in Auckland and staff remain working from home, with resource diverted to more immediate work. The recruitment for the research assistant position has continued. Applicants have been screened and interviews arranged for the start of October.

The project lead, User: jetaynz, applied for the WMF education course "Reading Wikipedia in the Classroom" Training of Trainers and was successful so will also begin that work in October.

While our progress has been slow this month, the project will pick up from October with the Research Assistant coming on board, though we will need to modify our project timeline due to the disruption because of the current COVID situation here.

October 2021

The COVID lockdown continues here in Auckland and staff are still working from home. This month the project manager James Taylor met with Wikimedia Foundation Programme managers and also started on the Wikimedia Education course, Training of Trainers. We have also successfully recruited our RA, Mark Sheehan, and we are delighted to have him on board.

Mark has contributed to the history teaching community since the 1980s as a secondary/tertiary teacher, researcher, museum educator and a curriculum developer. He was a senior lecturer at Ako Pai o Te Herenga Waka (Faculty of Education: Victoria University) until July this year. His research focus was on understanding teaching and learning history in Aotearoa in a range of settings (included investigating how young people learn in museums). He has been closely involved in a number of history education initiatives over the years and was one on the writers of the Aotearoa New Zealand Histories curriculum.

Over the next month we will undertake online induction and begin on the literature review. Schools are returning in mid November, then we have our summer holidays late December to early February, so will hopefully schedule in workshops and further work with teachers early next year, depending on the COVID situation. If there are further lockdowns we will move this part of the project online. In the next month we will also publish a detailed project plan.

November 2021

Museum staff continue to work from home this month as our COVID lockdown in Auckland continues. Mark started as the Research Assistant this week, and started work on the literature review. As well as this we have undertaken an online induction to various Museum staff, including teams working on research, Wikipedia and online partnerships and education. He also presented to the monthly Collections & Research staff meeting about the Aotearoa NZ Histories curriculum.

Because of COVID the new history curriculum has be pushed out to begin the year after next (2023), so it allows us more time to work with teachers around using Wikipedia in their classroom.

We have finalised a project plan, which has been updated on this page, and remain on track to complete on time.

Over the course of the month the Project Manager James Taylor, has continued on the WMF Education training programme Training of the Trainers for "Reading Wikipedia in the Classroom"

December 2021

Work continued apace this month, and staff continued to work from home under New Zealand's red COVID level. Mark has been working on the literature review, surveying international research about the use of Wikipedia in classrooms. This first phase of the project was close to being completed by the end of the month, and the writing of a first draft of the report has begun which will be ready in mid January once staff return from their summer holidays.

We also remotely met with various members of the research team, including Nina Hood and Matthew Crumpton.

Progress on this project is tracking well and we remain on track for completion by the project due date. Next month (January) work will continue on revising the draft report/literature review and finalising the survey which will be sent out to teachers.

In good news for the project the NZ Government has announced that Auckland will transition to a orange alert framework, which allows staff to work back on site and most in person activities to resume, depending on vaccination status. This will allow us to undertake in-person workshops with teachers, as there is a vaccination mandate for education professionals here.

As well as this the Project Manager James Taylor successfully completed the WMF Education training programme Training of the Trainers for "Reading Wikipedia in the Classroom", and is now certified to offer this professional development opportunity to local teachers.

Month 10

Is your final report due but you need more time?

Extension request

New end date

31 March 2021

Rationale and Approval

Noting here that the grant extension's details and approval are posted in the proposal's discussion page. The new midpoint report due date is 16 February 2022 and new final report due date is 30 April 2022. -- JTud (WMF), Grants Administrator (talk) 17:58, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

Midpoint Report Approved

Midpoint report reviewed and accepted. Conversation with the project team and programme officer took place on 25 Feb 2022. -- JChen (WMF) (talk)