Planning your program

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Starting or growing a Wikimedia education program does not take extensive research. Teaching students around the world to contribute to Wikimedia projects over the last ten years has taught Wikimedia volunteers and educators many valuable lessons about planning and growing successful education programs. This section will prepare program leaders and educators to do the following:

Partnerships and participants

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Education programs have a high potential for meaningful impact for students, educators, and Wikimedia users and editors. Students may benefit in many ways: research and writing skills, information and media literacy. Their contributions benefit Wikimedia projects and users around the world. Clear and transparent partnerships with education institutions and the community can do a lot for programs to gain traction in a local context. This section includes tips for how to:

Finding resources for your program

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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 learn how to get the resources you need, such as:

Designing for growth

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Good news travels fast. After you have completed a successful classroom collaboration there is a good chance that other educators will want to work with you.

Participant support

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While recognizing that each education program operates in a unique context with different sets of participants, there are guidelines each program should take into consideration. Built on global best practices and years of experience, these guidelines will help your educators and students have a positive experience using Wikimedia in their classrooms:

Teaching and assignments

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Students of a variety of ages and levels have improved Wikipedia and the sister projects by contributing photos, videos, animations, illustrations, and sound recordings in addition to research and translations. Program leaders and educators can be creative when designing student assignments. In this section you can learn how others have done this before through case studies, sample assignments and projects reports.

Problem solving

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Contributors, new and old, can run into unforeseen conflicts when editing Wikimedia projects, and students are no different. Some of these problems are small and easy to fix, others may require more coordination and troubleshooting. A little preparation will go a long ways towards preventing common pitfalls that previous education programs have made. Not all problems can be anticipated, but being aware of these best practices can help to quickly resolve conflicts if they occur, and allow your students to focus on adding high quality content.