Education/Archive/About

From Outreach Wiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search

The idea behind the Wikipedia Education Program is simple: educators and students around the world contribute to Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects in an academic setting.

Wikipedia is being used as a teaching tool in education around the world (see list of countries). In some parts of the world, the academic setting is a traditional classroom and the editing is for a course assignment. In some parts of the world, students contribute to Wikimedia projects for community service, or as part of a club or a camp, or at campus edit-a-thons, hackathons and workshops. In some places, teachers learn Wikipedia editing as part of their teacher training. And in some cases, there are government partnerships between Wikimedia groups and academic agencies.

Programs are run by Wikimedia chapters and dedicated volunteers worldwide. The education team at the Wikimedia Foundation supports these efforts with a variety of tools -- like the Education Program Extension -- and materials -- like the Education Toolkit -- for volunteers and educators to help start and scale programs sustainably. Thanks to our community of volunteers, these are available in many languages. There is an overview of all of our resources here.

In four years, more than 10,000 students have participated in the Wikipedia Education Program, adding 12 million words, the equivalent of 45,000 printed pages, to more than 10,000 Wikipedia articles in multiple languages.

Program

We believe that Wikipedia belongs in education, and we are working to make that a reality.

Collaborative

The Wikipedia Education Collaborative brings together program leaders from around the world to set the agenda for the Wikipedia Education Program and to mentor other up-and-coming programs.

Dashboard

Wikipedia Education Programs are making a positive impact on Wikipedia, and we are collecting the numbers to prove it.