Program guides/Education/Plan

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Program Guides: Education

• Start
• Plan
• Report
• Contribute
• Connect

Planning your program

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:

• Plan a pilot: test out new ideas on a small scale.
• Choose a program model: select a program model that will work with your local education system.
• Set reasonable goals: track progress toward goals to understand what strategies work in your context.

Partnerships and participants

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:

• Connect with the Wikimedia community: build positive relationships with the community.
• Find educators and institutional partners: choose the best partners to start or grow your education program.
• Get participants involved and excited: focus on participant motivation to improve the quality of their contributions.

Finding resources for your program

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:

• Volunteers: find online and offline volunteers to help support an education program.
• Training and outreach materials: select training and outreach materials and learn about printing and localization.
• Grants and In-kind donations: get resources donated by local partners and learn how to apply for WMF grants.

Designing for growth

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.

• Designing for growth: learn strategies to grow your education program in a sustainable way.

Participant support

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:

• Supporting educators: plan courses, choose training materials and find tools to monitor student work.
• Supporting students: prepare students to contribute quality content to Wikimedia projects.

Teaching and assignments

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.

• Choose an assignment by type of content: explore the full range of content students can contribute.
• Teach to student ability: learn how to adjust assignments and teaching methods to fit participant age and ability.

Problem solving

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.

• Problem solving:anticipate and resolve common challenges.