MyKlexikon at EBGIS
Students and Faculty Spearhead Creation of Free Online Children’s Encyclopedia
EBGIS middle school students and faculty are proud to be working in partnership with the German children’s encyclopedia Klexikon to create an English version called MyKlexikon. This free online encyclopedia will offer knowledge in an engaging and understandable way to English-speaking children around the world.
A collaboration between our middle school German and English departments, this project-based learning endeavor develops students’ language and digital skills in a real-life context. As they select and translate articles from German to English, students increase their understanding of how language, culture and politics interact. Students and faculty alike draw inspiration and energy from the important, concrete purpose of their work, namely, the creation of an encyclopedia for children by children.
EBGIS is not just building the encyclopedia but also leading a coalition of German international schools across North America. EBGIS faculty will train teachers from other German schools with the goal of expanding the number of myKlexikon articles to 1,000 by June 2020. EBGIS will also take charge of assuring the quality and consistency of new articles. Our work with other schools will not only allow us to expand the project within a short period of time but will also strengthen ties among German international schools and provide language teacher development through professionally led workshops.
Acclaimed German children’s author Andreas Steinhöfel has joined us as spokesperson for this project. He had this to say about myKlexikon:
“All those participating in the creation of Klexikon are united by the idea of presenting knowledge to young people in an exciting and understandable way. That is important and it is something that deserves our support because the more we know, the harder it is to pull one over on us. And the more new things we learn, the more wonders are revealed to us by the world and by life.”
German schools interested in joining the myKlexikon project can email us at myklexikon@ebgis.org.