Pequeñas poblaciones del interior de Argentina

Argentina es un país desbalanceado en términos de regiones, con casi la mitad de su población concentrada en sólo una de sus 24 provincias. La comunidad de editores y usuarios de Wikimedia refleja esta base desigual y los contenidos locales muestran sesgos de cobertura y falta de diversidad.

El proyecto apunta a sensibilizar y generar capacidades en comunidades educativas. Busca motivar a docentes y estudiantes de nivel medio y superior a sumarse a proyectos Wikimedia y contribuir a su desarrollo, al mismo tiempo que generar innovación en las prácticas de enseñanza-aprendizaje. Para ello, se unirá a otras experiencias en curso y se centrará en artículos y contenidos multimedia que se refieren a pequeños pueblos del interior de Argentina.

El trabajo sobre contenidos cercanos a los centros educativos motiva la investigación, exploración y recuperación de fuentes, generación de contenidos textuales y no textuales, edición de código wiki y más, posibilitando articulaciones transversales en las currículas.

Small towns in inner Argentina

Argentina is an unbalanced country in terms of regions, with almost half of the population concentrated in only one of its 24 provinces. The community of Wikimedia editors and users reflects this unequal basis and local contents show coverage biases and lack of diversity.

The project aims to raise awareness and build capacities in educational communities. It seeks to motivate teachers and students of middle and upper level to join Wikimedia projects and contribute to their development, while generating innovation in teaching-learning practices. For that purpose, it will join another ongoing experiences and focus on articles and multimedia contents referring to small towns in inner Argentina.

Work on contents that are near the educational centers can motivate research, exploration and recovery of sources, generation of textual and non-textual contents, edition of wiki code and more, enabling cross-curricular articulations.

Value to local education context

We believe that Wikimedia belongs to education. This has resulted in concrete initiatives such as the Wikipedia Education Program, where educators and students share knowledge by contributing to Wikimedia projects in an academic environment. A Programs and Events Dashboard has also been created, a platform to learn, acquire skills and coordinate educational experiences. The Wikipedia and Education user group is another permanent space to request support and and collaborate.

As educators, we know first hand the local educational context, policies and priorities of Argentine schools. In this sense, we enroll in the National Planning 2016-2021, with its objectives of educational quality, teacher training, digital education, connectivity and federalization. All of them globally framed in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 4: Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.

Wikimedia projects are widely used as a source of knowledge. However, this is just the tip of the iceberg. There are lots of possibilities for active participation by students, teachers and the educational community. The edition of Wikipedia is a perfect vehicle to incorporate digital literacy skills, including research, critical thinking, writing, content poduction, peer review and more. This affirms trust, motivation and commitment to learning processes. These capacities are considered fundamental for employment and citizenship in the future.

Participation in Wikimedia projects does not require specific knowledge to get started. All activities are available for free, without generating any cost to the institution in any case. They do not necessarily generate a long-term commitment or extra efforts for the daily teaching task that, we know, implies in many cases the full working day.

Workshop Pequeñas poblaciones

The project consists in two workshops, one each semester, covering different regions on the province of Córdoba, Argentina.

The workshop will be held in three meetings every two weeks. Each meeting will consist of 3 hours, divided into two parts, with a focus on learning by doing.

Teachers will raise awareness about Wikimedia projects and their importance for education, and acquire skills in basic editing and content uploading. Participants will be able to reflect and create proposals that fit their particular course.

Activities

First meeting:

Presentation of the objectives of the workshop. The Wikimedia movement and Wikipedia. Uses and dilemmas for teachers.
Presentation of a short video on Wikipedia and education, taking experiences from Mexico and Argentina.
Practical training on searching, identifying related articles, talk pages, article history and language editions.
Working groups will search for missing or incomplete articles about local history or heritage. They will contact local organizations and find sources.
Groups share their thoughts, findings, opinions.

Second meeting:

Practical training on the visual editor, sandbox, using templates and adding sources.
Each group works on pages previously identified, adding and improving content.
Participants share their thoughts, findings, opinions.

Third meeting:

Basic definitions of free content, licenses and conditions to upload to Commons.
Practical training on uploading content using Commons and the Commons Mobile App.
Working groups based on affinities of courses, explore and diagram class assignments.
Groups share their thoughts, findings, opinions.

Final assignment

Two weeks after the third meeting, each group will submit a brief proposal of class assignment that could be implement in their particular course: Should include: objectives; skills involved; resources and expected results.

Instances

before the project starts

communicate the idea in discussion groups and nearby groups at the university
contact and communicate the project to the different stakeholders
Create an event page with information and a list of participants.
Disseminate the activity to gather interested participants

while is developing

prepare an brief presentation about wikipedia, basic editing and graphs creation.
Participants will be asked to create their users, and will be followed by the Programs & Events Dashboard.
share the ongoing experience in networks and media.
develop friendly relationships with the group!

after completed

evaluate the process and results, participants and pending issues.
share the results in networks and media.

Problem tree

Objective tree

Stakeholders

Internal stakeholders

Team, local editors that I met before, editors interested in education
Direct supporters, local schools interested in implementing the project, teachers, students
Local University, the project can be supported by education research groups

External stakeholders

Wikimedia local chapter, education team
Wikimedia global community
Local municipalities, Education departments
Local cultural organizations
Local press and media
Provincial governments, Ministry of Education and Culture
Policy makers

Stakeholder	Type	Contact	Interest/Power	Strategy: Monitor, Communicate (high/low), Engage	Mediums of communication	Concrete actions
Local schools interested in implementing the project	Authority	Direct contact	Promoter. Interested in promoting digital skills an innovating learning practices. Schools can be used as space for workshops and training.	Engage	Phone, email address, in-person meeting	Present a formal letter with project proposal to authorities Present reports of activities during implementation. Schedule a meeting to define local implementation.
Local municipalities	Public sector	Direct contact	Latent. Can influence local organizations and promote activities.	Communicate	Phone, email address, in-person meeting	Report on the launch and conclusion of the project. Request support and funds.
Ministry of Education and Culture (Provincial government)	Public sector	Direct contact	Promoter. Interested in promoting digital skills an innovating learning practices. Can include Wikimedia projects into school's curricula. We have previously worked together on Wikimedia projects.	Engage	Phone, email address, in-person meeting	Present a proposal to articulate ongoing initiatives. Present reports of activities during implementation.
Team	Person	Direct contact	Defenders. There are some free culture activists and experienced editors who can give talks and orientation.	Communicate	In-person meeting, Phone, email,	Schedule an initial meeting to organize activities and distribute tasks.
Local cultural organizations	Public/ private sector	Contact through local schools	Latent. There are collections of heritage held by individuals or organizations. They could provide primary content such as texts or images.	Communicate	Phone, email address, in-person meeting	Present a summary of the project and how they can get involved. Request support and content.
Education research groups at local University	Public sector	Direct contact	Apathetics. Interested in improving students engagement and learning methodologies, but not considering a special link between Wikimedia and Education.	Monitor	Email address	Inform about the project, activities and results. Invite to join for monitoring and evaluation purposes.

Budget


Workshop 1	Start date: May 15, 2020	End date: June 26, 2020	Available budget: Not determined yet
Stage/Tasks	Items	Estimated costs	Covered with in-kind donations	Needed to finance
Stage: First meeting	Bus tickets or gasoline per diem for coordinator snack & mate x10 Meeting location Infrastructure and connectivity	80 80 40 0 0	0 0 0 provided by local school provided by local school	200
Stage: Second meeting	Bus tickets or gasoline per diem for coordinator snack & mate x10 Meeting location Infrastructure and connectivity	80 80 40 0 0	0 0 0 provided by local school provided by local school	200
Stage: Third meeting	Bus tickets or gasoline per diem for coordinator snack & mate x10 Meeting location Infrastructure and connectivity Certificates	80 80 40 0 0 20	0 0 0 provided by local school provided by local school 20	220
Total Workshop 1		620	20	620
Workshop 2	Start date: Oct 16, 2020	End date: Nov 27, 2020	Available budget: Not determined yet
Stage/Tasks	Items	Estimated costs	Covered with in-kind donations	Needed to finance
Stage: First meeting	Bus tickets or gasoline per diem for coordinator snack & mate x10 Meeting location Infrastructure and connectivity	80 80 40 0 0	0 0 0 provided by local school provided by local school	200
Stage: Second meeting	Bus tickets or gasoline per diem for coordinator snack & mate x10 Meeting location Infrastructure and connectivity	80 80 40 0 0	0 0 0 provided by local school provided by local school	200
Stage: Third meeting	Bus tickets or gasoline per diem for coordinator snack & mate x10 Meeting location Infrastructure and connectivity Certificates	80 80 40 0 0 20	0 0 0 provided by local school provided by local school 20	220
Total Workshop 2		620	20	620
Total Cost of Project				1240

Evaluation Plan

Evaluation will generate feedback on activities and determine how objectives were achieved. This results will be shared with stakeholders and funders in different formats, including reports for the Wikimedia community, social media infographics and academic presentations for my local university.


Logic model	Evaluation questions	Indicators of success	Data Collection Method	When
Impact (long term) (I1) Teachers become active editors and increase the representation of their local community (I2) Teachers implement innovative class tasks through Wikimedia projects	(I1) number of editions (I1) number of articles created (I2) Have you implemented class assignments for your subjetcs? (I2) What resourses have you used?	(I1) 40% of teachers have edited articles (I1) 20% of teachers have created articles (I2) 30% of teachers implement class assignments for their subjetcs (I2) variety of resources used	(I1) outreachdashboard (I2) online survey	(I1) one year after the workshop (I2) one year after the workshop
Objectives (short term outcomes) (O1) Promote innovation through the development of digital skills in teachers. (O2) Raise awareness about Wikimedia as an open educational resource	(O1) Can teachers perform basic editing features? (O1) Can teachers perform image uploading? (O2) What is the potential of Wikimedia for education? (O2) Could you think of practical assignments for your subjetcs?	(O1) 60% of teachers are able to perform basic editing features. (O1) 60% of teachers are able to perform image uploading. (O2) 60% of teachers identify potencials. (O2) 60% of teachers are able to visualize of practical assignments for their subjetcs	(O1) observation (O2) online survey	(O1) after each meeting (O2) after the end of the workshop

Resources

Previous related experiences

Related Projects

Wikipedia:Encuentros/Editatón Comunidades originarias del centro de Argentina