Education/News/January 2024/Reading Wikipedia in the Classroom Teacher’s guide - now available in Bulgarian language
Reading Wikipedia in the Classroom Teacher’s guide – now available in Bulgarian language
Among the merits to emphasize is the ability to start using the Teacher’s guide immediately, either as a self-study tool or as an educational program to implement in the classroom.
Summary: At the end of 2023, the Reading Wikipedia in the Classroom three-module Teacher’s guide's Bulgarian language version was added to the local implementations of the leading media and information literacy program of Wikimedia Education.
Bulgaria is participating and contributing to the Wikimedia Education program for the first time thanks to a project, implemented by the Media Literacy Coalition in the second half of 2023.
The organization has plans for the Teacher’s guide and the training to become one of the primary resources that users would find on the Media Literacy Coalition's official website which it strives to establish as a one-stop-shop for everything in the broader field of media and digital literacy, digital citizenship and education fit for the post digital, AI-in-everything age.
The huge plus of this program is that it provides both a methodology and a huge amount of content (almost 300K articles in Bulgarian) on which they can apply and build on what they have learned, and which they can start editing and improving themselves if they wish.
This is not the case with any other program or educational resource out there: having the methods, but not the environment or the content; or the other way – having content, but not the methods and environment, what to say about infrastructure and community – are the biggest obstacle in front of teachers and educators for the implementation of new methods.
The main goal of this program and publishing the Teacher’s guide in Bulgarian language (and context) was to bring Bulgarian teachers to Reading Wikipedia in the Classroom program and encourage/foster their participation in the training of trainers program which is a fantastic opportunity for them to expand the impact of the program further.
Recruiting more teachers for which we do not have the capacity outside of the projects we apply for and are green-lighted to implement who are well prepared but also well-equipped to continue working and improving programs like this one is a priority of the MLC and the true reward for the work and dedication to their mission.
About the project
A three-module online training took place for the first time within the 2023 Media Literacy Days campaign, organized annually by the Media Literacy Coalition – a networking organization focused on digital media literacy, increasing awareness, leading in advocacy, and developing programs for all age groups. 40 teachers from all around the country participated.
Among them were teachers of high-school students in mathematics and information technology; pedagogical adviser and teachers at elementary school; IT, computer modeling (5-7 grades), IT and mathematics, Programming & Design, technologies and entrepreneurship; English language (2-7 grades), Bulgarian language and literature (9-12 grades), French language, biology and chemistry (8-10 grades), Geography and economics (6-10 grades), history and civilizations, civic education (5-7 grades; 11-12 grades).
Right after the last, i.e., the third module, the participants were asked for their feedback (measuring satisfaction and attitudes).
Three of the questions aimed to find out the attitudes about the practical benefit and application of adapting the existing manual of the Reading Wikipedia in the Classroom program, on which this training is partly based, in Bulgarian language.
- Asked if they think that the Teacher’s guide Reading Wikipedia in the Classroom, presented and recommended as a basic educational resource during this training, would be even more useful if it were translated into Bulgarian, 100% responded with "yes".
- Asked if they think that if the guide is translated into Bulgarian, it will significantly contribute to the expansion of the choice of teachers in the selection of resources in the Bulgarian language for developing media and information literacy and digital competence, more than 80% responded with "yes".
- Asked if they are more likely to recommend this Teacher’s guide and the methodology for developing skills to their colleagues if it is available in Bulgarian, 61% responded with "yes".
- To the questions about how beneficial their participation in the training to them was and how likely are they to recommend this training to their colleagues, with 1 being the lowest rating and 5 – the highest (very beneficial, very likely), 90% responded with 5 and the rest – with 4.
The beneficiaries
These results were interpreted as a clear indication that the translation and localization of the Teacher’s guide would be beneficial and this attitude corresponds to the trainer's opinion. Which is that this guide, the program’s methodology, and the practical resources it combines – lesson plans, examples, and working sheets – provide valuable, rare and to an extent unique educational content and program with application in formal, but also in non-formal education.
Being translated and localized, the Teacher’s guide would be much more accessible to Bulgarian teachers and people who want to develop their media and information literacy. And, hopefully, will highlight the merits and need for open educational resources.
Acknowledgments
Special thanks to Wikimedia Foundation Education Program Officer Melissa Guadalupe Huertas and the whole Wikimedia Education team who worked on, developed, and created the guide and the ToT program and to all the ToT participants and Bulgarian teachers for the support and endless inspiration.