(Summer 2012)
I am Simon Villeneuve, an active reader of the French Wikipedia since mid-2000. I use Wikipedia as a tool to satisfy my curiosity and to improve my educative material (I have been teaching physics at the Cégep de Chicoutimi since January 2005).
I have been editing the French Wikipedia and adding material on Wikimedia Commons since the end of 2007. I work sporadically on other Wikimedia French projects like Wikinews, Wiktionary, Wikiquote and others. In my experience, the public wikis hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation are some of the most developped and best applications of social constructionism. Social construtivism is also a pedagogical approach pushed by the Ministry of Education, Recreation and Sports (Quebec). This is partly why I have been promoting these projects in my institution and I try to initiate my students to them.
So, from Fall 2008 to Fall 2013, I have used the French Wikipedia in my astronomy class and initiated my students to the commons-based peer production principle of public wikis. I have been coordinating their work with the Cégep de Chicoutimi pedagogical project. Since the beginning of 2013, I extend my education project to my astrophysics class in college and at the Université du Québec à Chicoutimi.
Since Fall 2011, I have been giving French online training to ICTE experts from the college educative community on the use of the Wikimedia Foundation projects, particularly the French Wikipedia.
Since summer 2012, I edit the French Signpost.
I'm mostly present on the French version of Wikipedia with the same username. You can contact me directly in English on my French talk page.
