"WikiLeaks: Using Wikipedia to Promote Diversity,"
Incorporation of technology in education can be seen through the many methods of instruction that are taking place in today’s classrooms. The idea of using technology for the students’ benefit is one that students hear but often interpret to mean “use technology to educate yourself,” however, rarely are students encouraged to use technology to help educate others. This panel will feature three archivists presenting ways that we have incorporated crowd sourcing and the presence of web 2.0 tools and technologies to increase awareness of minority collections and engage underrepresented contributors and students on social platforms such as Wikipedia.
In conjunction with the theme “Cultural Keeper X: Beyond Library Walls: Innovative Ways to Engage Our Communities,” this panel aims to share ways in which repositories have engaged students, faculty and the overall public by hosting Wikipedia edit-a-thons and/or incorporating web 2.0 initiatives into curriculum. The three panelists will highlight how the incorporation for these tools have aided in increasing awareness for hidden/underrepresented communities, encouraged diversity within the web platform - in both the collections being edited and the editing contributor - and lastly the collaboration amongst other information professionals that is needed to ensure these events are successful.