Assignments by type of content
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There are many ways that students can contribute content to Wikimedia projects through education programs. Below are some examples.
Translation
Translation projects can be scaled to fit student ability.
Images
Students studying art, graphic design, video editing, scientific illustration.
- WikiArs: Art students in Catalonia created illustrations.
- Illustrations, Bruce Sharky, United States
- Photos, Jiří Reif, Czech Republic
- Videos, Jennifer Geigel Mikulay, United States
Writing articles
Students with advanced writing skills in the language of the project where they will be contributing content.
Teaching to student ability
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Students of all ages can contribute to Wikimedia projects in a classroom setting, but it is important to remember to adjust assignments and training strategies to fit the age and abilities of students. Below are recomendations for a variety of age groups, but how you choose to teach will ultimately depend on the students you are working with.
"We were surprised to see 8th grade gifted children did really incredible work. They can create articles from beginning to end on their own, whereas 'regular' kids from 7th-9th grade don't have the maturity to work on full articles. They work in groups with heavy teacher supervision." - Shani Evanston, Wikimedia Israel
Primary school students
- Focus on group work.
- Consider using Wiki's created by and for children aged 8-13:
- Wiki Kids NL has 15,972 articles, 200,307 users, 6 admininstrators and 60,971 pages in total. There is an education portal with planning tools for teachers that includes worksheets.
- Vikidia is a network of enclopedias written for and by children age 8-13 available in: English, Català, Deutsch, Español, Français, Italiano, Русский, Swedish.
Secondary school students
- Start in sandbox, move to main namespace after work is reviewed by peers or the educator.
- Secondary students may need more practical workshops on editing than older students.
- Try interactive training modules such as the Wikipedia Adventure, which can be localized and translated.
- Create localized interactive training modules for students to access on local language education portals. The interactive trainings on the French and Serbian portals are good examples.
- Assignment designed for secondary students
University students
- Do not assume that university students have strong writing skills. Make sure to choose an assignment that suits their abilities.
- University students may not need much one-on-one support to learn Wikimarkup, but it is important that they know where to get help if they do have questions.
- Think about the resources available to university students. Do they have art galleries or archives they can use for resources?
- Talk to students about how the skills they learn while contributing to Wikimedia projects can be used on their resume or CV.
Adult students
Students completing required internships and volunteer hours
- Consider working with institutions that have an International Baccalaureate (IB) program. Students in this global program are required to complete volunteer service hours. Find an IB program near you. Learn more about how to work with IB students.
- "Social service students are motivated because it allows them to complete service hours on their own time (i.e. late at night, not on a regular schedule) and because it allows them to use ‘volunteer time’ to focus on academic work. Students have to complete a certain number of social service hours each year. They design a project and I assign a number of hours based on what they have selected. Technical projects are worth more hours, “i give them ‘extra credit’ for their knowledge”. The more challenging the project, the more hours it is worth, students do not track/report the number of hours they spend working on the project. Hours are awarded on an “all or nothing” basis, if the project is not completed no hours are given. They are given timelines for completing their work in stages, they get dropped if they do not make cutoffs." Leigh Thelmadatter
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