Educational+wiki+ideas

=Ideas=

A Free, On-line, Child-Oriented, Educational Encyclopedia.
I am a retired schoolteacher. Time is getting on for me, but there is one ambition that I would love to see fulfilled before it runs out.

Even before the advent of the internet, I used to dream of a global network of computers providing knowledge to everybody, and particularly, providing good educational content for children.

We can do this. Imagine an educational reference resource along the lines of Wikipedia, but oriented to children, covering the standard school curriculum. Such a resource should be of direct value to children, exploring knowledge alone, and also of value to teachers and their classes.

I have created WikiSpaces content in the form of example topics, plus a wiki explaining the project, and detailing how to join in and be a part of it. If you are a teacher, besides creating your own content, you can get your students to present their own work in a form* that can be used to expand the encyclopedia. The aims of the project should provide good motivation for them.

Example topics start here, http://wikids.wikispaces.com

A wiki all about the project can be found here, http://wikidia.wikispaces.com So what can you do?
 * 1) Please give me some feedback. I would like to know what you think. Please contact me via WikiSpaces messaging, or via FaceBook – my FaceBook page is [] You can also contact me via [] Given a good response, I am prepared to put some of my savings into paying for a private label which would make producing and managing the encyclopedia easier.
 * 2) To support the project, go to this page, http://wikidia.wikispaces.com/Help+Out and click on the FaceBook 'like' control.
 * 3) Join my 'cause' on Facebook, here, [] Invite your FaceBook friends to join, and ask them to invite their friends in turn.
 * 4) Go to the test wiki, http://wikids-test-wiki.wikispaces.com/ and have a go at producing content. This is a sandbox wiki. If you wish to integrate pages from this wiki into the project proper, they will need to be copied into a protected wiki*.
 * 5) Join the management/coordination wiki, http://wikidia.wikispaces.com This will become essential for all contributors, for coordination, and for control of possible abuse. Just scroll down to find the 'Join' control.
 * 6) Join any of the already created protected content wikis in the project, linked to by http://wikids.wikispaces.com/ (scroll down to find the 'join' control) and get improving or producing more content, or discussing pages.
 * 7) Create your own compatible protected wikis and integrate them into the project. (You will need to join any wikis that could usefully to link to yours, or contact members of those wikis, and notify us through the http://wikidia.wikispaces.com.)

If you do no more than FaceBook 'like' the project, media type="custom" key="8569602" join the 'cause' and invite friends, you will have helped raise its profile and helped it get off the ground.

Thank you.

user:Barry_Desborough

* The security of the project relies on the content being placed in protected wikis, but student work and experimental work may be produced in unprotected wikis and then copied to protected wikis before being integrated into the encyclopedia proper.