Wikis for children
Some wikis focused on education by and for children:
It is unsure how often the child's laptop would be used with an Internet connection. Anyway, a wiki is not only to give knowledge but also to write and built it (in several languages). This apporoach has proved its efficiency in Wikipedia. Not only its content (or simple WP's) should be posted, but rather its way of working. Such experiences are documented in Dutch (wikikids.nl and in French : http://fr.vikidia.org/. Both projects keep in touch each other but are independent. They are quite successful with 800 articles in 8 months for the Dutch one and just as many in 2.5 months for the French one. It could become an international project and both can help to build free encyclopedic data in many languages, but dedicated to children and also have a strong pedagogical interest because of its Writing to learn approach.
Current projects
- wikikids.nl Dutch, for kids & teachers, via Kennisnet - 8 - 12 years old, started in march 2006 ; 3867 articles on 29 July 2008 english explanation about Wikikids.nl
- Vikidia
- In french , an encyclopedia for 8-13 years old kids, started in november 2006 ; 4851 articles on 29 July 2008 english explanation about Vikidia.org,
- in spanish, started in may 2008, 105 articles on 29 July 2008
- Wikimini French, an encyclopedia written by 8-13 years old kids (new 2008 project)
- ZUM-Grundschulwiki in german, started on december 2005, 299 articles on 29 July 2008.
The wikikids idea was proposed as a wikimedia foundation project here : Wikikids on meta.wikimedia.org but the above 3 projects are independent of it. The Dutch and French project are willing to work together and would welcome and help any sister projects (could be it.vikidia.org, pl.vikidia.org...)
Secondary school
- High School Online Collaborative Writing wiki, via Wikia