Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Recommendations/Education Projects

Also available in Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, Spanish, French, Hindi and Portuguese.

The Wikimedia Foundation Education team created these tips based on lessons they have learned through their support and feedback from Wikimedia communities.

Education Projects

What makes a proposal “Education” focused?

• Are education system actors clearly identified as key partners or audiences for the project? (students, teachers, parents, school administrators, school system leadership, ministry of education, UNESCO, Allied organisations, OER networks, etc.)
• Is the project seeking to improve the quality of the national education system or to promote life-long learning experiences? (addressing specific issues, providing professional capacity development, strengthening literacies, etc.)
• Will the project take place at an educational institution?
• Does the project address non-formal education?
  • Examples include Wiki Clubs & Camps, senior citizen learning programs, other after school/co-curricular activities
• Does the project involve children/minors?

Types of documented education initiatives

• Student editing
  • Wiki clubs and camps
  • Edit-a-thons
  • Classroom editing assignments
  • Training/workshops for students
• Teacher training/ editing
  • In-service training
  • Workshop
  • Edit-a-thon
  • Online courses
• Advocacy/Other
  • Creating teaching resources
  • Providing technical support
  • Training/workshops for education system leadership

Tips for consideration

General

• The proposal outlines the key challenges being addressed by this project for both their Wikimedia community and the education sector and how they will benefit from the project
• The proposal outlines how the project is aligned with the 2030 strategic direction AND local/global goals for education
• The proposal demonstrates understanding of the local educational context and how this project is designed/adapted for that context
• The proposal expresses intention to share activities, results and learnings with the wider EduWiki community

Educational value

• The project clearly outlines the educational value for teachers and students (eg: learning objectives, relevant global or national education policies, digital literacy frameworks)
• The proposal demonstrates that the people carrying out activities have the experience and expertise to do so, OR that they are collaborating with partners who have the experience and expertise to do so (ex. If they propose to work in the public school system they should be working with qualified teachers, if they propose to do youth outreach, they are connected with a local youth outreach organization with demonstrated success, if it is an outside org without in depth community experience that they have partnered with local Wikimedians, etc.)

Safety Eligibility Criteria

• If the proposal indicates direct contact with children or youth, it also outlines compliance with international and local laws for working with children and youth, and provides documentation of the local laws in the annex
• The proposal demonstrates how they will ensure the safe engagement of young people in all of the project’s activities
• The proposal demonstrates that any adults who will be working in close contact with young people have been properly vetted and trained
• The proposal outlines an action protocol in the case that incidents occur relating to the physical and psychological safety of young people

Sufficient resourcing

• If the project is aimed at sustaining change in teaching and learning (ex. Training teachers to use Wikipedia as part of their teaching practice), it is scoped & staffed appropriately (part time staff as project manager, experienced trainers, etc.)

Training

• The proposal sufficiently outlines the training approach and instructional design of the training
  • We recommend funding proposals that use student-centered pedagogical approaches
  • We recommend a trainer/participant ratio of 1:30 with additional support as required by the particular characteristics of the learners and activities (eg: a seminar will require less 1:1 support than an editathon)
  • We recommend ensuring trainers have had prior training or proven facilitation experience
  • We recommend providing a prompt to optionally include the training plan and materials as an annex

Providing technical support in education

• If a proposal is providing technical support, for example Kiwix or Raspberry Pi devices, laptops, pre-loaded content, etc. it is accompanied by adequate training and pedagogical support by the project team or other partners.
• We recommend that technical support be a component of a project rather than the main focus of a project

Monitoring and evaluation

• The proposal clearly defines the project’s objectives and states how they will track and measure that the activities are implemented as planned
• We recommend funding projects that have metrics that go beyond outputs such as number of edits, bytes, participants, etc. In education, we want to see metrics that demonstrate Wikimedia projects being used to improve education quality.

The proposal expresses commitment to collecting and sharing data regarding the impact of the program with the Wikimedia Foundation and the EduWiki community (for example, by publishing an article in the monthly newsletter).