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WikiChallenge Ecoles d'Afrique/Results and best practices 2024

< WikiChallenge Ecoles d'Afrique

Introduction

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The WikiChallenge African Schools is a writing competition dedicated to pupils aged 8-13. It takes place in several African countries since 2017.

The key elements of the competition:

  • improve teachers' ability to learn, understand, contribute and foster contribution to Wikipedia (and other Wikimedia projects) within their school;
  • an illustrated article by Vikidia about the village of each school (or about the city, neighborhood, local industry or geographic feature nearby);
  • a friendly, inclusive and transdisciplinary project, generating satisfaction for the participants;

Links

Tags

Education, Offline, WikiFundi, Vikidia, Writing competition, Francophonie, Africa

 

Presentation of the writing competition

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The project is a training and writing program designed for schools. It is targeted at the education community to develop various skills of the youth and of their teachers, such as digital skills, collaborative skills, critical thinking etc. It is also meant to provide the opportunity to share knowledge since the content produced is shared through the Vikidia platform as well as through Wikimedia Commons.

Pupils from participating schools are invited to write encyclopedic articles on a subject relating to their immediate environment. The competition is open to organizations that are part of the Digital School network of the Orange Foundation and using WikiFundi, a platform of Wiki editing in offline mode. Indeed, one of the peculiarities of these schools is… that they are not not connected to the Internet! [1] Their participation therefore implies the presence of an on-site digital facilitator (and possibly the help of Wikimedians and Vikidians) responsible for training, facilitating and ultimately collecting the content produced by the students. The competition fits into the pedagogical and educational framework. A teacher or school staff as a team can supervise and support it, with the local support of the Orange Foundation. Orange's support is expressed through the presence and support of a digital facilitator.

The articles submitted by the children are all published on the Vikidia encyclopedia, less known to the general public than its big sister Wikipedia. Better known in educational circles, Vikidia has been developing for over 12 years on principles similar to those of the well-known encyclopedia, but aimed at a younger audience, 8-13 year olds. It is distributed in the same way as Wikipedia, under the same license, and is open to the participation of young and old, according to rules co-constructed by the community of editors.

The theme of writing is free...but it is strongly suggested to create an article concerning the environment close to the school: its city, its village, a geographical point of interest, a museum located nearby or a local curiosity. The writing style should be suitable for an encyclopedic publication.

Impact so far

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Poster sur 6 ans de WikiChallenge 2017-2024, présenté à Wikimania Katowice

6 Editions of WikiChallenge (2017-2024)

  • 12 participating countries (Burkina Faso, Cameroon, DRC, Ivory Coast, Guinea Conakry, Madagascar, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Tunisia, Morocco, and Sierra Leone)
  • 794 participating establishments
  • 618 texts proposed by children and published on Vikidia
  • 3361 photos, drawings and videos published
  • 74 winning schools, for the direct benefit of the hundreds of students and staff of the schools
  • Skills acquired by all participating students

Highlights of the 2023-2024 year

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Key figures
  • 9 participating countries (Cameroun, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinée Conakry, Madagascar, Mali, RDC, Sénégal, Tunisie and Sierra Leone).
  • 337 registered schools
  • 151 texts submitted by the students
  • 715 Photos and 38 videos produced by the students
  • 12 winning schools
Winners

The 3 articles selected for the international prizes :

The 9 articles selected for the national prizes :

  •  
    Communication visual
  •  
    Another visual
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    And yet another...
  • Video in a tunisian souk
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    A few students
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    Krio dress
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    Students during a workshop
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    Certificate of the Open Education Award for Excellence
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    International winning ceremony in Rabat
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    Winning ceremony in Sierra Leone
To go further
Various elements to note
  • For the first time, the contest took place in an English speaking country (Sierra Leone)
  • The 12 winning schools (9 national prizes and three international prizes) were announced on the 18 of June 2024 in introduction of the Prix Orange du Livre Afrique (POLA) in Morocco.
  • In September 2024, Open Education Global is awarding the "Open Pedagogy Award for Excellence" at the WikiChallenge competition.
 
Selection committee
  • under the présidence of Françoise COSSON, Déléguée Générale de la Fondation Orange :
  • Hafida Guenfoud, Directrice Mécénat, évènement & grands projets
  • Stéphanie Duvoux, Directrice de l’influence digitale
  • Valerie Tiacoh (RSE), Directrice Stratégie et Innovation Sociétale groupe
  • Françoise Fernandes (Fondation Orange), Directrice Mécénat littérature et musée
  • Yann Molidor (Fondation Orange), Responsable projets culturels
  • Cyril Beauchais, responsable de la communication de la Fondation Orange
  • Mathilde Louis, Chargée de mission projets pédagogiques Wikimedia France
  • Fawaz Tairou, Wikipédien. Responsable du Bureau National AUF Bénin
  • Florence Devouard, Wikipédienne. Fondatrice Wiki in Africa, ancienne présidente Wikimédia Foundation
  • Ludovic Issartelle, Directeur mécénat Afrique à la Fondation Orange
  • Daniel Maitry, Chargé de mécénat international à la Fondation Orange

Report presented to the jury The report

People and structures involved

Lessons and next steps

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Lessons
  • Participation in the countries is still strong and motivation high to continue
  • In some countries the implementation is more difficult than others, due to various factors
    • no facilitator or facilitator with limited time
    • local facilitators from Orange are regularly changing (every year, some facilitators are brand new and need to be trained and onboarded)
    • schools may be disseminated over large geographies, making access and activation more complicated
    • some teachers less motivated than others, teachers do not always understand well the expectations
    • local challenges making implementation complicated (in 2024, big strikes in Morocco prevented the contest to take place)
  • Generally, the Vikidia community is supporting... but a few individuals have a rather critical voice and consider the articles of poor quality and not sufficiently sourced
  • The English Vikidia is very under developed and hardly has a community. Hence a limited support (or even a certain degree of resistance of the few around)
  • Several Wikimedia Communities very involved and keen to help !
  • Training proposed online was appreciated : Learning about Vikidia, basic editing of a Wiki, how to upload images on Commons, and the brand new training of the year : how to write a quality article.
Next year intent
  • Continue in the Francophone space as previous year. Expand in the Anglophone space to three countries : Sierra Leone, Botswana and Liberia
  • Reinforce online training (in particular the « quality article » training) and try a new strategy to get some training done face to face in most countries with the support of more wikimedian groups
  • Continue to successful dual communication campaign by WIA and Fondation Orange
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