User:KHarold (WMF)/Sandbox/Education Toolkit/

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The tips and resources within this toolkit have been developed in consultation with program leaders, who have been working with educators around the world for nearly ten years to teach people of all ages to contribute to Wikimedia projects in an educational setting.

Within each section of the tool kit, you will find strategies and solutions that have been tested and refined by Wikimedians to help your program succeed whether you are just starting to use Wikimedia in the classroom, growing your program to support many different kinds of educators and institutions or even working with local authorities to integrate Wikilearning into national curriculum.

Success factors:

  • Start small, grow smart.
  • Work with the community.
  • Teach to student ability.
  • Focus on motivation.
  • Set goals and track progress.
How to use this toolkit


Plan[edit]

Planning your program[edit]

Starting an education program does not require extensive research, but you should invest some time reviewing best practices and resources in this toolkit as you plan your project. This section will prepare program leaders and educators do the following:

  • Plan a pilot to test out new ideas on a small scale.
  • Choose a program model that will work well with your local education system.
  • Set reasonable goals, and plan how you will measure them before you start.

Plan a pilot[edit]

It is a good idea to plan a pilot project any time you want to start a new initiative or make significant changes to an existing project. Piloting a project means testing out a new idea with a small number of participants so that you can learn what works well and what you might need to do differently in order to grow your program.

"You […] may have unlimited initiative, but you have limited capacity — be aware of your limited time and other resources to stay on track for success! Enacting the plan you've established for your first term is the most important thing for you to do. You can consider expanding your scope after you have a successful pilot, but stay focused on your specific goals for at least your first term."[1]

Choose a program model[edit]

Program leaders and educators around the wolrd have taught students of all ages how to contribute to Wikimedia projects in classrooms, summer camps, community centers and even in online courses. Choosing a program model will help you target your outeach to the best institutions and participants. Identifying priorities for Wikimedia projects in your language can help you narrow your focus even further.

"The biggest mistake new education program leaders make is trying to do too much. Because there are so many connections between Wikipedia and education, it's easy to get pulled in different directions by well-intentioned people. What education program leaders globally have found is the key to success is to choose a specific program and stick to it." [2]

Setting goals for your program[edit]

Setting goals for your program will help you and program participants focus on a spesific set of activities. By tracking your progress towards these goals, you will be able to see if the program model, activities and training materials you are using are helping participants get where you want them to go. Many program leaders and educators have found that setting goals at the classroom level is a good way to motivate participants.

"What gets measured gets done."

"Our main focus in the last edition was to increase the quantity of articles. We set goals for quantity and surpassed them. One factor that contributed to this was that we shared the goal with students and professors and they got excited about it." - Reem, Egypt Education Program Leader

Partnerships and Participants[edit]

Education programs are mutually beneficial activities with a high potential for meaningful impact. While students may benefit in a number of ways (research and writing skills, information and media literacy, to name a few) their contributions benefit Wikimedia projects and users around the world. To this end, clear and transparent partnerships can do a lot for programs to gain traction in a local context, and they can gain trust and keep good faith with the community of editors that maintain and develop a specific wiki.

The best education programs have resourceful volunteers, committed educators, motivated students and an understanding community. In this section you will learn how to find partners to work with and start conversations with the community of editors on Wikimedia so that you can develop an education program that will benefit both educators, students and Wikimedia projects.

Collaborate with the community[edit]

Building a positive relationship with the local Wikimedian community is a key factor in an education program's success.

The community includes a wide range of volunteers who spend their time maintaining and improving the quality of Wikimedia projects. Some editors contribute content to projects, others monitor recent changes and correct errors. There are administrators who clean up messes and manage disputes, developers who build tools and still others who work on policies to improve the way the projects work. All of this incredible work is accomplished through discussion and consensus within the community.

The community welcomes new editors and people who want to contribute to Wikimedia projects, but it is important to remember that they have invested a lot of time and energy into maintaining the quality of the projects where they work. When students contribute to Wikimedia projects as part of an education program or classroom project, they have an impact on Wikimedia communities. Therefore, it is important to involve the community when planning a project, both so that the community can plan and prepare for how they work a group of new contributors and because they have valuable experience and advice to share with project or classroom leaders.

Communities are different on every Wikimedia project, and everyone will have a different experience with the community when they start to contribute to Wikimedia projects, many students have reported that interacting with community members has been one of the best parts of their education program.

  • Get the community involved with your education project before the term begins every time you plan to have students contribute to Wikimedia projects in the classroom.
  • Learn how to build a positive relationship with the community whether you are just starting a Wikimedia education program, or have have started having problems with student or educator work getting deleted.
  • Community policies for education programs can help ease tension between new and long term editors by setting clear guidelines and expectations for both groups to follow.
  • Learn more about who the Wikipedia community is and what they do. It is important to teach students about the community, resources for doing so will be included in the XX section.

Working with institutional partners[edit]

From a single educator to a ministry of education, your program may have different needs for partnerships. Some may be practical: you need a professor to teach a Wikipedia course or a friendly institution to host your events. Some may be more aspirational: you want Wikipedia in every classroom, so you want to gauge support and start conversations from the very top. We've captured best practices from established education programs around the world so you can learn from their experience. This is not worded right yet, but trying to rephrase the paragraph below.

When you are first planning and education program you may have questions about how to find educators and schools to partner with. Program leaders have tried many different ways of reaching out to educators and have identified best practices for Wikimedians to follow when you are starting out. More established education programs have begun to share their experiences working with local governments and GLAM institutions. These best practices and learnings are captured in the resources below.

Outreach to partners[edit]

Generating participant interest[edit]

This section will give you ideas for how to find people to participate in the program you have planned and importantly, how to motivate participants to contribute high quality content to Wikimedia projects.

  • Motivate students in a variety of different education programs using strategies that have worked for other program leaders.
  • Learn how to get students interested in participating in an education program in their free time. (redlink)
  • Using social media to find participants (red link, or add questions to existing LP's and tag people)
  • Focus on working with the most promising participants if you have more interest than you can handle.

Finding resources for your program[edit]

If you partner with an education institution that has space, equipment and internet access to train students, you can start a successful education program with very few additional resources. In fact, educators often become interested in using Wikimedia in the classroom because it is a low-cost way to teach students important skills.

In this section you will find useful tips about:

  1. Volunteers: Find online and offline volunteers to help support an education program.
  2. Training and outreach materials: Choose from existing training and outreach materials and learn about printing and localization.
  3. Grants and In-kind donations: Learn how to get resources donated by local partners and find funding guidelines for WMF grants.

Education Program »Plan

Find volunteers [edit]

Volunteers are one of the most important resources for running programs, but many organizations and program leaders have said that it is difficult to find enough volunteers to support projects and programs. In this section program leaders and educators who are new to Wikimedia will find ideas on how to find and work with volunteers who want to support education both online and offline.

“WikiMed would have never been a success without support of the community who gave guest lectures, online support, and behind the scenes work. I had a lot of support, but I made it a priority to seek community support". "Wikipedians dont usually get to meet the User names that comment on their work.” - Shani

"...There is value to getting people into the tea room who are in the same time-zone as students and spell things the way they do." - Toni

"Advertising results and success stories on social sites and on chapter channels got more volunteers involved." - Vojtech

← Back to Planning your program


Outreach and Training Materials[edit]

Many useful teaching and outreach materials that have been created by WMF and members of the community and have been translated into several languages.

Training materials
Outreach materials

Translating, localizing and printing:

Some program leaders have found that having printed materials in their local language can be an assett, but is not necessary. Printed materials can be useful for conducting outreach, but once you are working with students in a classroom, PDFs or instructions on course pages may be sufficient.

Grants and in-kind support[edit]

You may not need money to start and education program. In fact, most classroom based education programs do not seek funding from WMF because resources such as meeting space, internet and computers and printing are available at low or no cost in schools. As education programs grow to include several institutions or program models, some elligible organizations seek funding through Annual Plan Grants (APG) program to pay for staff to coordinate education program. Organizations, groups and individuals who are not eligible for APGs can apply for Project and Event Grants (PEG) program to pay for printing, training and outreach materials, renting space for events, and to reimburse volunteers for travel costs.

“Using Wikimedia in the classroom doesn’t require significant resources at first,” but you “must show results to get funding and other resources in order to grow.” -- Leigh Tec21

Many program leaders have found that it is much easier to get resources donated by partner than it is to get funding. Donated items include space for events, use of computers, Wifi hotspots or internet access, or food and beverages for events.

PEG planning tools: Guidelines, eligibility and planning tools for Project and Event Grants. Recent education PEGs:

APG proposal process:Timelines, eligibility, processes and proposal guidelines for Annual Plan Grants. Recent education programs included in APGs:

  • Amical Wikipedia included education projects in many parts of its 2013-14 APG proposal, including supporting volunteers to build an education portal and a plan to work with a GLAM partner on a collaboration with 13 educational institutions.
  • Wikimedia UK requested funding for a part-time education program coordinator to work with several universities and plan an annual regional EduWiki conference.

Designing for Growth[edit]

Strategies and best practices for growing your education program. After you have completed a successful classroom collaboration there is a good chance that other educators will want to work with you. In this section you will find strategies for growing in a sustainable way.

People:

  • Find a local champion: There is no replacement for local program history or real achievements. - Tighe
  • Focus on growing your program at one institution, this will make it easier to develop a network of ambassadors, and reduce the amount of travel neccessary for volunteers to visit classrooms.
  • Educator retention - why we focus on educator retention, what we can do to improve this. [EDU team: do you have any ideas on this?]
  • Train staff in libraries or ICT centers to support students and teachers. (stub, include examples from Leigh, Fernando, maybe Amical (they use national network of libraries)
  • Recruit ambassadors [Stub - to include examples from Reem / Tighe]

Tools:

  • Creating local portal: Local education portals make it easier to share training materials and organize participants at several institutions or ability levels.
  • Use the education extension: As your education program grows it is important to use an efficient tool to track student work.
  • Education program leaders have found that media attention helps grow awareness of programs Let the media know (add questions in discussion page about how to for education, tag Sweden, Armenia, Ukraine)

Run[edit]

Participant support[edit]

No two education programs are alike and participants may need different kinds of support to contribute quality to Wikimedia projects. This section contains course planning guidelines, links to interactive trainings, best practices and tools to identify and monitor student work.

Educators[edit]

Many educators decide to do a Wikimedia education project because they have been offered one-on-one support to plan the course and teach students. Although some education programs conduct group training sessions for educators, in most cases educators who have completed a training course do not go on to use Wikimedia in the classroom without some kind of follow-up. Educators who do not want to or are not able to work with a Wikimedian should follow guidelines below when planning and preparing to teach students to contribute to Wikimedia projects as part of a class activity. Spending a few hours learning about best practices for course planning, teaching and using tools to monitoring student work will help educators and students have a positive and productive experience using Wikimedia in the classroom.

"We try not to make ourselves indispensible so that after one or two years, they are able to do it without us. Training usually takes one morning, but engagement with professors also includes course planning, follow up throught the semster and a final debrief to get feedback on how things went. We want them to know that their experience is important to us."-- Vojtech

  • Course planning: Planning a course involves choosing an assignment, creating a course page, developing a list of topics for students to work on, setting timelines for student work and deciding how contributions will be evaluated.
    • Types of assignments: There are many different ways that students can contribute to Wikimedia projects, including writing and translating articles, catagorizing content on Commons, adding images, sounds, videos to articles and beyond.
    • Selecting articles for students to work on: It is a good idea to help educators create a list of content for students to work on that meet notability requirements and fill important gaps on Wikimedia projects.
    • Week-by-week course planning: Contributing to Wikimedia in the classroom can be done in just a few weeks or for the full term. These guidelines for teaching students about Wikimedia in 6 week and 12 week courses can be adapted or shortened for different assignments.
    • Brochures for educators
    • Create course page: Every group of students contributing content as part of an education program should have a course page.
  • Training for educators: It is a good idea for educators to learn basic wiki markup skills and complete a short assignment before they begin teaching their course.
  • Teach educators how to monitor student work by adding student articles to a watch list, or by using the activity feed feature on the education extension. Educators should remove plagarism if they see it, and be prepared to join discussions on talk pages if needed.[3]
  • End of course evaluation: Talk to educators after a program has ended to find out what went well and what to change in the future. [Resources for educators to get feedback from students.]

Students[edit]

  • Training for students: Make sure to teach students about copyright, rules and norms, and the 5 pillars, very clearly in class, even if students complete training independently online.
  • Teaching to student ability: Links to LPs about how to change teaching methods when working with students at different age and ability levels.
  • Help students produce quality work. Give them examples of quality articles. Advise students to engage in peer review. Motivate students.
  • Make sure students know where to find help. You can direct students to the Teahouse or local equivalent. Programs with local portals can add a 'help' button to student training portals that will direct a question to an online volunteer. [link to amical]
  • You can do XYZ to see if students are using skills you have taught them, i.e. editing in the sandbox, other stuff. @TFlanagan-WMF: You mentioned this the other day - can you send me instructions that i can add? Added a few bullets below. Should there be a learning pattern that we should redlink for now on namespaces and Wikimetrics?
    • Are students using sandboxes? Are they engaging others on user talk pages or article talk pages? Each course page on the education extension shows all on-wiki activity for the student usernames that are registered (just click on the "View activity" tab near the "Edit" and "History" tabs.
    • You can also run reports on a specific namespace with a cohort of users on Wikimetrics, to see the number of edits or size of activity in other areas of the wiki besides the main article namespeace. You can look at trends over time. Are student edits more frequent in their sandboxes at the beginning of the semester? Do they shift to the article namespace? Do they use talk pages? Your learnings from this type of investigation may impact how you design your courses in the future.
  • Student retention techniques:
    • Invite students to participate in contests and local events.
    • From working with senior citzens After the lesson ends, send every participant an e-mail summarizing what has been done during the class (and ask them to try something at home on their own). This improves the retention of your participants.[4]
  • Templates on student talk pages
  • Best practices for using watch lists
  • Teaching with VE
  • Using WP adventure and interactive training
  • Creating a local portal
  • Using hidden categories + GLAMorous
  • Tools for identifying content gaps
  • Social media

Teaching and Assignments[edit]

"There is a longstanding assumption that writing articles is the best way to contribute to Wikipedia. Some useful contributions from classes have included charts that explain theories, editing, recordings and adding references. -- Toni"

"...for some teachers it is more important goal to have some specific learning outcomes that are not writing a featured article. Even if what they write gets deleted, students are still learning, i.e. have students learned that licensing is important. -- Toni

"Seeing what someone else has done is not as inviting as engaging with someone directly who will make it work for you spesifically." (in some ways this is similar to having someone from the library to come to your class to teach your students about researching and library services). One way to make this sustainable is to focus efforts on a few campuses, that way they can have direct in-person support." -- Toni

"I tend to move away from suggesting that students write articles. There is so much less focus on writing in the education system in the UK, which is one reason why it is better to focus on other material contributions.1/4th of what we are presently doing is translation - the quality of the translation is what we are interested in." --Toni

Assignments type of content[edit]

There are many ways that students can contribute content to Wikimedia projects.

  • Illustration
  • Writing articles
  • Copy editing

Teaching to student abilities[edit]

  • Consider working with gifted students: "We were surprised to see 8th grade gifted children did really incredible work. They can create articles from beginning to end on their own, whereas 'regular' kids from 7th-9th grade don't have the maturity to work on full articles. They work in groups with heavy teacher supervision." - Shani
  • Secondary school students
    • Start in sandbox, move to main namespace after peer/teacher review
    • Secondary students may need more practical workshops on editing than older students.
    • Try interactive training modules, WP adventure, french portal, Serbian portal, WMF student training.
  • University students

Problem solving[edit]

Working constructively with the Wikimedia community[edit]

How to build positive relationships with the Wikimedia community.

Quality of student contributions[edit]

How to resolve problems with the quality of student work.

Connectivity in the classroom[edit]

How to make sure students are able to access Wikimedia projects.

Evaluate[edit]

Evaluating your program[edit]

Global Metrics[edit]

Call the ones that are relevant to education programs

Evaluation Tools & Resources[edit]

Program leaders have found that sharing impact metrics with their success stories is one of the best ways to get the attention of school administrators, new partners and the media, but measuring impact student-by-student can be tedious and time consuming.

Reporting & Storytelling[edit]

Connect[edit]

  • EducationL
  • Educators FB page coming
  • Link to the Collab
  • Link to Outreach countries page

Recent news and reports[edit]

  1. ↑ https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia:Starting_an_education_program/Resisting_scope_creep
  2. ↑ https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia:Starting_an_education_program/Narrow_your_focus
  3. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Training/For_educators/Other_topics_3
  4. ↑ https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Learning_patterns/Training_senior_citizens
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