Education/News/August 2022/The Making of a Certified Trainer of Reading Wikipedia in the Classroom
The Making of a Certified Trainer of Reading Wikipedia in the Classroom
The journey of the 2nd cohort of Training of Trainers (ToT) for “Reading Wikipedia in the Classroom began with 24 participants from all over the globe. In Nigeria are six of us: Ngozi, Obii, Euphemia, Atiba, Kemi, and Clement. The composition was: Nigeria 6, Ghana 3, Kenya 2, Morocco 2, Peru 1, Burundi 1, Mexico 1, Democratic Republic of Congo 1, Cameroon 1, Polinesia 1, Uganda 1, Benin 1, India 1, Italy 1, and Uruguay 1.
My journey and story of becoming a Certified Trainer of trainees (ToT) started in April 2022.
Interestingly, Reading Wikipedia in the Classroom program was designed to support equitable quality education which SDG4 emphasizes. It also hinges on the nurturing of teachers and students with the media and information literacy (MIL) that UNESCO upholds. So we were selected and trained to step it down to the teachers, while the students receive it from the teachers to improve their searching skills and avoid plagiarism. The program has amazing 3 modules which were Learn, Teach and Plan. The program also has flexible structures for translating the learning resources to any language to enable inclusive participation. So far 53 Certified Trainers of Reading Wikipedia in the Classroom have been produced from the Pilot training in 2020 that produced 7 trainers, 22 Trainers from the first cohort of 2021, and the current trainers of 24 in 2022. It is that good and ongoing.
The 9 weeks online program was worth all the learning, meeting other participants across the world, networking, and sharing over the discussion platform. We were exposed to WikiLearn, Asana, Google Meet, Google Spreadsheets, Google Jamboard, Zoom, and UpWork. Who would think that one online training would have so many platforms? It was expository as our information and digital literacies were enhanced through the Wikipedia Education Program. We experienced all these through synchronous training sessions, weekly office hours, open conversations and reading of the educational resources.
Being in the second cohort, our program ran from April to May 2022 under the tutelage of User Melissa Guadalupe Huertas, our amiable facilitator with her Team. We did assignments that prepared us for the stepping down and for all-time total quality Wikipedia Education. We learned how to design and facilitate an engaging program, create a needs assessment and implementation plan, do outreach and link partners, create a budget, and observe monitoring & evaluation strategies.
Being a participant in the second cohort of Training the Trainee (ToT) Reading Wikipedia in the Classroom (2022) has opened the spaces for me to:
- Network with Wikimedians all over the world
- Meet physically with 2 of the Nigerian participants during Wikimania 2022, the Nigerian section in Lagos.
- Plan Wikimedia activities and share thoughts and ideas for collaboration with some participants.
- Get more insights from more knowledgeable participants for keeping up.
- Build confidence and facilitate Wikipedia programs in my state.
- Present Wikipedia experience-based papers in local and international conferences.
- Tell and share my own stories in Wikipedia Education Newsletter I can go on and on.
.png)
Although the training was not easy as the internet was not always consistent, data subscription was costly and meeting up with the assignments and modules was another struggle. But I made it successfully and came out with a badge – Certified Trainer: Reading Wikipedia in the Classroom. This is the height of it as I plan to implement my Training of teachers in my locality.