Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/ Reading Wikipedia in the Classroom in Morocco (2nd edition, 2022)
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Applicant details[edit]
Wikimedia username(s):
- Reda benkhadra - Anass Sedrati – Rachida Roky - Abdeaitali – Rachidourkia – Farajiibrahim - Soukaina Abelhad – Mounir NEDDI
Organization:
- Wikimedia MA User Group and reading netwoork in morocco
G. Have you received grants from the Wikimedia Foundation before?
- Applied previously and did receive a grant
H. Have you received grants from any non-wiki organization before?
- No
H.1 Which organization(s) did you receive grants from?
- N/A
M. Do you have a fiscal sponsor?
- Yes
M1. Fiscal organization name.
- Association du Réseau Marocain de Developpement de la Lecture
Additional information[edit]
R. Where will this proposal be implemented?
- Morocco
S. Please indicate whether your work will be focused on one country (local), more than one or several countries in your region (regional) or has a cross-regional (global) scope:
- Local
S1. If you have answered regional or international, please write the country names and any other information that is useful for understanding your proposal.
T. If you would like, please share any websites or social media accounts that your group or organization has. (optional)
- Wikimedia Morocco user group has several social media accounts on various platforms, these include Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, as well as a comprehensive Meta page that is regularly updated.
Facebook: @WikimediaMAUserGroup Twitter: @Wikimedia_MA Instagram: wikimedia_ma Meta: Wikimedia MA User Group
M. Do you have a fiscal sponsor?
- Yes
M1. Fiscal organization name.
- Association du Réseau Marocain de Developpement de la Lecture
Proposal[edit]
1. What is the overall vision of your organization and how does this proposal contribute to this? How does this proposal connect to past work and learning?
Wikimedia MA User Group seeks to contribute actively to the dissemination, improvement and advancement of free knowledge and culture through the development and distribution of encyclopedias, collections of quotations, books and other educational compilations of documents, especially in the languages spoken in Morocco. More details can be found on our meta-page.
2. What is the change that you are trying to bring about and why is this important?
This project aims to solve the following challenges:
- Misinformation and fake-news on the internet
- Low digital literacy rate in Morocco
- Wrong image about Wikipedia among the teachers and teaching them how to use it as an educational tool.
- Low participation in free content creation in Morocco
The solution that we propose is to train teachers about Wikipedia, so that they can use it in the classroom. This will help address the problems mentioned above, as the pilot version of the project (run in Morocco in 2020) [1] gave very encouraging results.
During a time where disinformation and misinformation tend to run rampant, this project aims to teach educators thus students media and information literacy skills using Wikipedia in order for them to be able to build critical thinking and not be an easy victim of misinformation.
The project aims also to shift attitudes towards Wikipedia in order to use it as a reliable educational tool in the classrooms.
Imagine a place where all teachers can use Wikipedia to help their students develop MIL (Media and Information Literacy skills set by UNESCO) [2] competencies by learning to: establish their information needs; search for information from diverse sources; evaluate information and media content; and understand how information is created. As a consequence, students gain agency in the digital space and their information consumption habits are improved. Additionally, students gain the foundations needed to have a more active role contributing content to Wikipedia in the future - they can go from passive consumers of information to active creators of knowledge for the common good.
We believe that gaining the trust of teachers and including Wikipedia in the classrooms will have several positive outcomes, including building a strong new generation of wikipedians, bridging the digital literacy gap in our country, and strengthening the critical thinking abilities for students.
[1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/af/Reading_Wikipedia_Final_Report.pdf [2] https://en.unesco.org/themes/media-and-information-literacy
3. Describe your main approaches or strategies to achieve these changes and why you think they will be effective.
Main strategies to achieve this objective:
- Use the three previous modules from the pilot project and add a new one dedicated to editing on Wikipedia.
- Module 1:
MIL competency: search and access to information Learning outcome: able to incorporate wikipedia as a learning tool and evaluate the use of wikipedia to access information
- Module 2:
MIL competency: Understanding and evaluation of information Learning outcome: able to analyze article's quality using wikipedia's pillars and guiding principles.
- Module 3:
MIL competency: Creating and monitoring information Learning outcome: able to explain ways one can contribute to free knowledge
- Module 4:
MIL competency: Creating and monitoring information Learning outcome: able to make first contributions to wikipedia
- Retain teachers through various actions (see question 18)
- Provide support to teachers during and after training, with a special attention to those in rural areas.
- Organize two types of activities as part of the project: weekly virtual sessions (phase one) and a face-to-face workshop to train teachers (phase two).
- Recruit a strong team skilled on many levels:
a) Two previous certified trainers on the pilot program that was led by the educational team of the Wikimedia Foundation b) Coordinators with high communication and organization skills c) Team members that master all the different language variants in Morocco (Tachelhit, Tarifit, Darija) to include all regions. d) User group members and advisors with mentoring/teaching experience on a national and international level (2 PhDs, one mentor, university professors and students in international relations).
- Collaborate with the association “Reading Network in Morocco”, who has a large network of contacts, especially within the educational field in Morocco.
- Use innovative ways to attract teachers through social media and setting selection criteria
- Pre-organisation and tasks splitting between all team members, with project management skills available in the team.
- Providing learning pathways and certification for participants.
4. What are the activities you will be developing and delivering as part of these approaches or strategies?
- Introduce teachers to the communities and practices behind Wikipedia.
- Provide MIL skills to teachers.
- Changing the perception of teachers about Wikipedia and encouraging its use as an educational tool in the classrooms.
- Encourage teachers and their students to become active contributors and join the Moroccan user group.
- Enlarge the activities of Wikimedia Morocco to touch new backgrounds (rural and urban areas), and add more diversity to the group.
5. Do you want to apply for multi-year funding?
No
5.1 If yes, provide a brief overview of Year 2 and Year 3 of the proposed plan and how this relates to the current proposal and your strategic plan?
- N/A
6. Please include a timeline (operational calendar) for your proposal.
7. Do you have the team that is needed to implement this proposal?
We have created a strong team within the user group, with a number of key skills and sharp expertise, in order to ensure a successful implementation of this second version of Reading Wikipedia in the classroom in Morocco. The team includes 8 people, 4 of which will be contractors, while 4 are volunteer advisors.
Two members have a strong previous experience in organizing a similar program (in collaboration with the WMF education team), while others have insights in project management, general organization, communication, Wikimedia movement and Wikipedia editing knowledge, as well as finance and partnerships.
The team members are the following:
- Mounir Neddi (User:Mounir Neddi): Project coordinator
- Brahim Faraji (User:Farajiibrahim): Project assistant
- Abelhad Soukaina (User:Soukaina Abelhad): Communication officer
- Rachid Ourkia (User:Rachidourkia ): Responsible for logistics and training sessions
- Anass Sedrati (User:Anass Sedrati): Advisor
- Reda Benkhadra (User:Reda benkhadra): Advisor
- Abderrahman Ait Ali (User:Abdeaitali): Advisor
- Rachida Roky (User:رشيدة رقي) : Advisor
8. Please state if your proposal aims to work to bridge any of the identified CONTENT knowledge gaps (Knowledge Inequity)? Select up to THREE that most apply to your work.
Content Gender gap, Age (regency) , Geography, Language, Socioeconomic Status
8.1 In a few sentences, explain how your work is specifically addressing this content gap (or Knowledge inequity) to ensure a greater representation of knowledge.
9. Please state if your proposal includes any of these areas or THEMATIC focus. Select up to THREE that most apply to your work and explain the rationale for identifying these themes.
Education, Advocacy, Diversity
10. Will your work focus on involving participants from any underrepresented communities? Please note, we had previously asked about inclusion and diversity in terms of CONTENTS, in this question we are asking about the diversity of PARTICIPANTS. Select up to THREE that most apply to your work.
Gender Identity, Geographic , Socioeconomic status, Age, Digital Access
11. What are your strategies for engaging participants, particularly those that currently are non-Wikimedia?
Target participants are teachers who are currently active, and that will be trained by our team to be skilled in using Wikipedia and disseminating this knowledge later in their classes.
Specific requirements to participate:
- The participant should be a teacher in primary, secondary or high school
- The participant should dedicate at least 2 hours a week for this program and must commit to the activities and requirements
Strategies to retain participants:
- Continuous monitoring for the teachers about their advancement
- Set one to one meetings/calls with the teachers that seem to face difficulties
- Collecting feedback during the program in order to improve it
- Creating polls for some decisions (time/day of training that suits everyone, etc)
- Organizing a meet-up by the end of the training to do a workshop on-site and getting to know each others in person (that would motivate them to finish the trainings)
- Organizing a ceremony to celebrate the teachers who finished all the requirements and inviting the educational team of Wikimedia to the celebration.
- Providing continuous support even after the end of the program in order to spread the knowledge and help them become trainers in their schools.
- Invite the highly committed teachers to our future events as a user group (ex: Editathons etc)
- Invite the active teacher to join the Wikimedia Morocco User group and become full members.
- Connect the teachers with other Wikimedians in the education sector around the world, inform them about the Wikimedia Education team, and about the user group working specifically on education.
- Clarify the project goals to teachers, as well as its impact on the local community and globally.
12. In what ways are you actively seeking to contribute towards creating a safer, supportive, more equitable environment for participants and promoting the UCOC and Friendly Space Policy, and/or equivalent local policies and processes?
During all phases of the project, the project team will strictly respect the general principles of human rights, and ensure a healthy environment that includes respect and equality. The friendly space policy and UCOC will be presented to all the participants during the first introduction session, as well as during the in-person event. A team member will be designated as security officer so that participants could reach out to them in case of any eventual problem, concern, or worry that they have.
During their communication, team members will use as simple and inclusive language as possible, in order to provide a welcoming atmosphere for all participants, no matter their background. Mutual respect will be the rule, and workshops will encourage editing on important topics within this spirit, including: equality, gender gap, social justice, the environment, and climate change.
13. Do you have plans to work with Wikimedia communities, groups, or affiliates in your country, or in other countries, to implement this proposal?
No
13.1 If yes, please tell us about these connections online and offline and how you have let Wikimedia communities know about this proposal.
We will inform the Wikimedia community about this project through our community, Wikimedia communication platforms, our social media pages, and using different relevant mailing lists as well as village pump and relevant discussion pages.
14. Will you be working with other external, non-Wikimedian partners to implement this proposal?
Yes
14.1 Please describe these partnerships and what motivates the potential partner to be part of the proposal and how they add value to your work.
As part of this project, we will be mainly in partnership with “Reading Network in Morocco”. One of the most important resources that are provided by the partner is the diverse and large network of contacts which includes, among others, teachers, professors, officials from the ministry of education, university students, volunteers and media contacts. This large network provides a wide range of skills that will be useful throughout the project such as experience in event organization and logistics. Another important aspect of the partnership is the fiscal sponsorship of the project which will facilitate a number of legal and administrative matters which otherwise would be difficult for our user group, a not registered organization in Morocco, to do alone.
15. How do you hope to sustain or expand the work carried out in this proposal after the grant?
Once the project is finalized, the team projects to conduct a number of activities that will be considered in the continuation of “Reading Wikipedia in the Classroom”. Some of these activities are:
- Initiate a discussion with the ministry of education in order to start a potential partnership, using the project as a case to motivate the need for a collaboration.
- Starting the creation of Wikipedia clubs in schools where teachers who benefited from the program are working.
- Launch a third edition of the program, with more ambitious objectives in terms of diversity, outreach as well as covered thematics.
- Support and advise other Wikimedia affiliates who would like to implement this project in their countries, and who would like to benefit from our experience in the domain.
- Provide documentation and tutorials that can be used to implement similar projects in other regions, or to be used by future teams, in order to manage our internal knowledge in a wise manner.
16. What kind of risks do you anticipate and how would you mitigate these. This can include factors such as external/contextual issues that may affect implementation, as well as internal issues, such as governance/leadership changes.
- n/a (GA notes that this question was likely added to the application form after this grant was approved)
17. In what ways do you think your proposal most contributes to the Movement Strategy 2030 recommendations. Select a maximum of three options that most apply.
Increase the Sustainability of Our Movement, Invest in Skills and Leadership Development, Evaluate, Iterate, and Adapt
18. Please state if your organization or group has a Strategic Plan that can help us further understand your proposal. You can also upload it here.
- No
Learning, Sharing, and Evaluation[edit]
19. What do you hope to learn from your work in this fund proposal?
Through our work in this fund proposal, we would like to learn several aspects related to this experience, so that we can adjust and improve our work in the future. The main questions that we hope to have answered after completing the project are:
- How can teachers change their perception about Wikipedia? What are the strongest arguments that help in that?
- What are the best strategies to retain teachers in the Wikimedia community?
- What are the best metrics to be used in education projects? Especially those performed in the classroom?
- What are the best techniques used by teachers to encourage students to participate and contribute to Wikimedia projects?
- Did the program answer the expectations of the teachers?
- How many of them are willing to use Wikipedia in their classroom?
20. Based on these learning questions, what is the information or data you need to collect to answer these questions? Please register this information (as metric description) in the following space provided.
| Main Metrics | Description | Target |
|---|---|---|
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
Here are some additional metrics that you can use if they are relevant to your work. Please note that this is just an optional list, mostly of quantitative metrics. They may complement the qualitative metrics you have defined in the previous boxes.
| Additional Metrics | Description | Target |
|---|---|---|
| Number of editors that continue to participate/retained after activities | Teachers who will continue as active editors after one month of the end of the program | 5 |
| Number of organizers that continue to participate/retained after activities | People who will continue being active in Wikimedia movement after | 1 |
| Number of strategic partnerships that contribute to longer term growth, diversity and sustainability | Reading network in Morocco is considered as a strategic partner, given its very extended network, as well as the number of members within it, who are interested in free knowledge, who can become a strong ally for us, as well as an important source of volunteers and editors in the future. | 1 |
| Feedback from participants on effective strategies for attracting and retaining contributors | Surveys from participating teachers. We intend to have 3 surveys, one at the beginning (to know the expectations), one in the middle (to see how it goes), and one at the end (to see what worked well and what could be improved) | 3 |
| Diversity of participants brought in by grantees | We are planning to work on gender, geographic and socioeconomic diversity within the teachers of Morocco, by targeting female teachers, as well as teachers living in different regions of the country, including the rural ones with low digital literacy and difficult access to the Internet.
Target: 40% of female teachers participating 10% of teachers based in rural areas Teachers from at least 6 regions of morocco (among the total of 12 regions) |
1 |
| Number of people reached through social media publications | Number of new followers of Wikimedia Morocco on social media. In addition to the new people, the group will use paid advertisements, and try to touch as many people as possible. | 500 |
| Number of activities developed | Zoom sessions
In person Event One-on-one calls with teachers requesting them Target: 20 online sessions on Zoom (1 session of 2 hours per week for 5 months). 1 in-person event 10 One-on-one calls/meetups |
1 |
| Number of volunteer hours | Number of volunteer hours from the organizers, mostly the project advisors, but also editors who will help in sessions. | 100 |
21. Additional core quantitative metrics. These core metrics will not tell the whole story about your work, but they are important for measuring some Movement-wide changes. Please try to include these core metrics if they are relevant to your work. If they are not, please use the space provided to explain why they are not relevant or why you can not capture this data. Your explanation will help us review our core metrics and make sure we are using the best ones for the movement as a whole.
| Core metrics | Description | Target |
|---|---|---|
| Number of participants | Teachers who will participate to the program | 100 |
| Number of editors | People who will be writing in Wikipedia either during or after the program | 40 |
| Number of organizers | People involved in the organization and implementation of the program and its different activities | 8 |
| Wikimedia Project | Description | Target |
|---|---|---|
| Wikipedia | New Wikipedia articles that will be generated as a consequence of this program | 40 |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
21.1 If for some reason your proposal will not measure these core metrics please provide an explanation.
N/A
22. What tools would you use to measure each metric selected?
We will use several tools to measure our different metrics, these include:
- Surveys
- Interviews with teachers
- Statistics about the attendance and continuous participation, engagement of the teachers
Financial Proposal[edit]
23. & 23.1 What is the amount you are requesting from WMF? Please provide this amount in your local currency. If you are thinking about a multi-year fund, please provide the amount for the first year.
- 323386 MAD
23.2 What is this amount in US Currency (to the best of your knowledge)?
- 35614 USD
23.3 Please upload your budget for this proposal or indicate the link to it.
- Please find a detailed budget table below, including the costs of organizing, staff, internet, memory cards, the expenses of organizing the hackathon, printing, prizes, transportation, and other things at the answer of question 36.
Link to budget document: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1OSqZEKJX1YCnGkEFJfVnzza-M0wr1daQ/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=108870512907320255089&rtpof=true&sd=true
23.4 Please include any additional observations or comments you would like to include about your budget.
- N/A
Please use this optional space to upload any documents that you feel are important for further understanding your proposal.
- Other public document(s):
Final Message[edit]
By submitting your proposal/funding request you agree that you are in agreement with the Application Privacy Statement, WMF Friendly Space Policy and the Universal Code of Conduct.
We/I have read the Application Privacy Statement, WMF Friendly Space Policy and Universal Code of Conduct.
- Yes
Feedback[edit]
- Please add any feedback to the grant discussion page only. Any feedback added here will be removed.