2023:Program/Poster sessions/V7BU9R-Poster: 5 editions of the education offline initiative WikiChallenge Ecoles d'Afrique
Title: Poster: 5 editions of the education offline initiative WikiChallenge Ecoles d'Afrique
Speakers:
Florence Devouard
Username:Anthere (She/her). French. Languages : FR N; EN-4. I am:
- Co-Executive Director of Wiki in Africa
- Wikipedian-in-Residence at World Intellectual Property Rights (WIPO)
- Former Chair of Wikimedia Foundation board of trustees
- Co-founder, former Vice-Chair and currently member of Wikimédia France Chapter
- on my user page https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Anthere
- and on linkedin : https://www.linkedin.com/in/devouard/
Room: Expo Space
Start time: Thu, 17 Aug 2023 17:46:00 +0800
End time: Thu, 17 Aug 2023 17:48:00 +0800
Type: Poster session
Track: No (pretalx) track id specified
Submission state: confirmed
Duration: 2 minutes
Do not record: false
Presentation language: en
Abstract & description[edit source]
Abstract[edit source]
Poster Category: Education Session Time: 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM in Singapore
The WikiChallenge initiative is a training and writing program designed for schools I n French speaking Africa. It is targeted at the education community towards using wikimedia tools to acquire and share knowledge to develop skills of the youth and of their teachers.
Over 5 editions, the initiative has benefited about 300 participating schools. Several hundred of kids were trained and increased their digital schools. Over 350 texts were produced and published on Vikidia, over 2000 illustrations published on Commons, 49 schools won for the direct benefit of hundreds of pupils and their teachers.
Description[edit source]
The WikiChallenge African Schools is a writing competition. It is a competition dedicated to pupils aged 8-13 and which takes place in several French-speaking African countries such as Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Guinea, Tunisia, Madagascar, Mali, Niger and Senegal.
The objective is to learn how knowledge is constituted by contributing through the Vikidia platform, the Wikipedia for children. 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 network of Orange Digital Schools and using (WikiFundi), a platform of Wiki editing in offline mode. Many of those schools are not connected to the Internet. It therefore implies the presence of an on-site digital facilitator (and possibly the help of Wikimedians and Vikidians) for training, facilitating and ultimately collecting the content produced by the students. The articles submitted by the children are all published on the Vikidia encyclopedia. Better known in educational circles, Vikidia has been developing 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 competition is open to schools in the Digital Schools network of the Orange Foundation. It is aimed at students from around 9 to 13 years old, and 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 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.
Links * Page on meta for more details : https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiChallenge_Ecoles_d%27Afrique/en * Main page of the competition : https://fr.vikidia.org/wiki/Projet:WikiChallenge_Ecoles_d%27Afrique : * Facebook page of the competition : https://www.facebook.com/ConcourswikiChallengeEcolesdAfrique/ * Images on Wikimedia Commons related to the competition : https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:WikiChallenge_African_Schools
Further details[edit source]
Qn. How does your session relate to the event themes: Diversity, Collaboration Future?
It relates mostly to « collaboration”. The poster (and my presence in front of it during the poster session) will be a way to learn from each other and share knowledge like community initiatives (here, the contest) tools usage (such as WikiFundi and Vikidia), organizing events (working in poorly connected areas), governance (partnership with Fondation Orange, Vikidia community, African uaergroups), online campaigns (5 years campaigning), and edit-a-thons, solving Wiki-related problems (how to source within our guidelines when the editor is offline…), and more.
Qn. What is the experience level needed for the audience for your session?
Everyone can participate in this session
Qn. What is the most appropriate format for this session?
Onsite in Singapore
Remote online participation, livestreamed- Remote from a satellite event
- Hybrid with some participants in Singapore and others dialing in remotely
- Pre-recorded and available on demand
