Education/News/November 2022/Wikimedia Israel’s Educational Innovation: “Students Write Wikipedia” as a Matriculation-Exam Alternative

Wikimedia Israel’s Educational Innovation: “Students Write Wikipedia” as a Matriculation-Exam Alternative

Summary: Wikimedia Israel is leading an innovative educational project in both in Hebrew and Arabic Wikipedia, during which students expand entries in Wikipedia as an alternative to matriculation.

Israel’s Ministry of Education encourages teachers to initiate students’ research works in civics (a.k.a. “Tamar Program”) as an alternative to the traditional “Bagrut” (matriculation) exams. With this in mind, a pilot collaboration was established a year ago between Tamir Levy Sabag, a MOE regional coordinator, and Wikimedia Israel. The goal was to launch a first-of-its-kind educational program that would also include Wikipedia editing. The successful pilot was expanded this year and is now implemented in the Hebrew and Arabic education system.

As part of this learning process, the students find relevant sources about a subject of their choice, review the literature available, and edit and expand relevant articles in Wikipedia. They are not left with this task on their own - Tamir Levy, their civic teachers, and Wikimedia Israel’s education coordinators offer them close professional and educational guidance.

This educational program has several unique characteristics:

All participants are 12th-graders (senior students) who participate in the broader “Tamar” program; namely, they have already acquired research and writing skills as part of the program in previous school years.
The students start editing Wikipedia following thorough research. When reaching the stage of actual editing, they are already immersed in their chosen subject and can write about it accurately and profoundly.
The students tend to prefer topics that interest them while at the time aim at a large audience, hence their choice to write about violence elimination, the cost of living, the influence of the Covid-19 crisis on various fields, etc.

Let’s talk numbers: In the past school year, students from four classes joined the program and added quality information to 32 Hebrew-Wikipedia articles. And this is just the beginning. Following last year’s success, the program is implemented this year, too, with an extension of seven participating classes, including a teacher and students from the Arab community of Israel. Consequently, Wikimedia Israel is now leading the program with two coordinators and two languages: Dr. Ruti Alster, the education coordinator for Hebrew-speaking schools, and Abeer Abu Zhaia, the education coordinator for Arabic-speaking schools.