Education/News/January 2024/Czech programme SWW in 2023 – how have we managed to engage students
Czech programme SWW in 2023 – how have we managed to engage students?
It started in Vodnany...
Collaborations with schools are sometimes the result of chance, other times they are the result of long-standing agreements and preparations. This was not the case with the two-day workshop "Get Vodňany on Wikipedia", which was initiated by the representative of the Gelast Vodňanský Library, Lucie Hasilová. The first meeting took place at the Libraries of Today conference in Olomouc in September 2022. The library subsequently applied for a grant from the OSF Foundation and the workshop was scheduled for February.
Under the guidance of two lecturers (Pavel Bednařík, and Tadeáš Gregor), 125 primary school pupils and students of the multi-year grammar school in Vodňany were introduced to the principles and history of Wikipedia. During the workshop, they also learned how to edit, upload photos and references. The aim of the cooperation was to create or expand articles that connect their hometown, the South Bohemian town of Vodnany.
Under the guidance of the teachers and with the involvement of the children's parents, new articles were thus created, for example, about the Gelast Vodňanský Library, the founder of the fishing tradition and school, Theodor Mokré, or the local Šumava II Partisan Group. The latter article was also supplemented with original photographs from the archive of the group's chronicler, which the students obtained with permission for publication.
Wikipedia as a tool for understanding our history?
Introducing Wikipedia to students should never be an end in itself. Lectures, seminars, workshops, trainings, and editathons are aimed at other educational goals, among which we can include, among other things, an introduction to Czech or Czechoslovak history. Insights into history are not avoided in the case of the challenges of Women's Month on Wikipedia, Human Rights Month, or Asian Month.
However, the greatest emphasis on illuminating various aspects of Czech history is placed during the Czechoslovakia (formerly Czechoslovakia 1948–1989) challenge. As in previous years, this challenge was launched on Czech Statehood Day on 28 October and ran until 10 December. Several seminars for students were held during the challenge, including at the Hejčín Gymnasium in Olomouc and the Military Historical Institute for students of the Thomas Mann Gymnasium in Prague.
The aim of the workshop on Wikipedia as a tool for learning about history was to learn how Wikipedia relates to historical topics. But an important goal was also the development of critical thinking, which they were able to test during practical tasks focused on the personality of General Ivan Stepanovich Konev, but also the fate of his statue on Prague's Victory Square. Just as Koněv's legacy has changed over time, so too has the view of his statue's permanence. Similarly, both articles on Wikipedia have changed with an immeasurable amount of conflict and attempted vandalism.
All students also tried out minor typo corrections to overcome the mental barrier of not being able to change information on the largest online encyclopedia. Pavel Bednarik's open discussion also got students discussing their first curious attempts to write "funny" insertions into existing articles. It also made them realise that Wikipedia's administrators don't sleep and that they get away with very little.
Media education and students
A critical approach to the information presented is also part of other programs that have traditionally been aimed at university students, specifically the Department of Information Studies and Librarianship (KISK) at Masaryk University in Brno. Under the guidance of a high school teacher, Wikipedian, and columnist Jaroslav Mašek, students of the course wrote entries related to media education.
The second year of the cooperation, which is provided on the school's side by the teacher Pavlína Mazáčová, brought again excellent results. For example, new articles on digital exclusion (using infographics from the Digistrategie 2020 project), a living library (human library) or a significant expansion of articles on the information theorist Nicholas J. Belkin were produced.
The collaboration with KISK has inspired, among other things, a new collaboration with its sister Institute of Information Studies and Librarianship at the Prague Faculty of Arts. In the spring, under the supervision of assistant professor Pavlína Kolínová, the course Writing Wikipedia – Media Literacy Portal will be opened. Systematic cooperation with future librarians helps to spread awareness of Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects among those who will take care of the information literacy of our population in the future.
Meaningful work for university students
Cooperation with first-year students of the Department of Asian Studies at Palacký University in Olomouc was built on a different basis. Wikipedia administrators have pointed out the increased number of articles with Asian themes on the Czech Wikipedia, which appear regularly and do not meet the quality requirements or principles.
After the agreement of the educator Ondřej Kučera and the main Wikimedia lecturer Pavel Bednarik, a lecture, training, and editathon focused on selected articles was held. These were published in turn, taking into account the topic, on the Czech or Slovak Wikipedia (many of the students in Olomouc come from Slovakia). Most of them were close to the standard of encyclopaedic articles, which are appropriately decorated, linguistically well prepared, and in some cases supplemented with the students' photographs.
Thanks to the students' work and experience, we can read about the Korean god Susanoo, the Tottori sand dunes in Japan, and the Maocetung mausoleum in China on the Czech Wikipedia. Although most students are unlikely to become avid Wikipedia editors, trying out the preparation and work of a Wikipedian can also help students in the production of academic texts (research papers). Thus, a significant benefit is that they are not writing term papers in a drawer, but creating content that is read and followed by potentially all Wikipedia users.
Conclusion
So what is the balance sheet of the student programme for 2023? Previous collaborations have been built upon, new collaborations have been established, some will continue and develop, and others may end. Nevertheless, it is essential to introduce pupils and students to the world of the largest online encyclopaedia and to remind them that they too can help to improve, complete and disseminate information. Only in this way can Wikipedia be accepted as a relevant (secondary) resource for work at all levels of Czech schools. This is the only way to remove the prejudices that many educators still harbour.