Education/News/November 2021/Wikipedia and Education Mentorship Program-Serbia and Philippines Partnership

Wikipedia and Education Mentorship Program-Serbia and Philippines Partnership

Author: Anthony B. Diaz

Social Media channels or hashtags:

• Wiki Education
• Wiki Advocates Philippines UG Twitter account
• Vikimedija Srbije

Summary: Nebojša Ratković, Education Program Manager of Wikimedia Serbia, and Anthony Diaz, a member of the Wiki Advocates Philippines User Group have conducted Wiki projects training in the Philippines under the Wikipedia and Education Mentorship Program.

• 
  Anthony Diaz discussing the Wiki projects
• 
  Nebojša Ratković and Anthony Diaz in meeting
• 
  Anthony receives certificate of appreciation for the training conducted
• 
  A certificate given to one of the participants
• 
  Souvenir Wikipedia pens for active participants

The Wikipedia & Education User Group Mentorship was piloted last September 2021. Nebojša Ratković, Education Program Manager of Wikimedia Serbia has been partnered with Anthony Diaz, member of the Wiki Advocates Philippines User Group and Network Organizer of Art+Feminism User Group. Two of them have collaboratively designed an activity that will engage prospective editors coming from the education sector and share with them the aspects of Wiki projects that can be incorporated in their teaching methods. Nebojša Ratković played the part of being the mentor of Anthony Diaz and guided him in crafting the program specifically on areas of Wiki projects that can be of use by the teachers.

A presentation and training on Wikipedia Editing and How to Use Wikiprojects for Education was the final outcome of the collaboration. This was included during the Brigada Pagbasa Orientation program at Juan F. Triviño Memorial High School last November 4, 2021 and was attended by a total of 30 participants. Brigada Pagbasa is a readership program of the Department of Education Philippines that seeks to improve the literacy skills of the students. Nebojša and Anthony have taken this opportunity to share a backgrounder on Wikipedia as it is also one of the online resources the students and teachers utilize every time they need information online. Wikipedia core topics, verifiability of information, Wikiprojects, and how to create user accounts on Wikipedia were the main points discussed in the training. Participants were given Wikipedia stickers and pens as souvenirs and they also received a certificate of training. At the open forum, teachers and students shared that they are now more comfortable on using Wikipedia in their lesson plans and home works and plan to contribute on creating new articles in the future.