2025:Program/The WikiLearn challenge – Build a course prototype for your community in 65 minutes
Session title: The WikiLearn challenge – Build a course prototype for your community in 65 minutes
- Session type: Workshop - 55 minutes
- Track: Education
- Language: en
🎥 Session recording: https://w.wiki/F8ei 🎥
How can Wikimedians create impactful learning experiences for their communities—quickly, collaboratively, and sustainably? In this hands-on challenge, participants collaboratively design online course prototypes in just 65 minutes which can be later deployed on WikiLearn. Participants will apply WikiLearn's instructional design tools and workflows to craft a learning experience that responds to capacity-building needs from their communities. The session will conclude with a share-out and feedback round, where teams will pitch their online course prototypes, sparking connections with existing projects and identifying opportunities for future collaboration on capacity building in the movement. This session will equip participants with a structured approach to online course creation while helping shape the future of learning in WikiLearn.
Description
WikiLearn is a learning management platform that hosts self-guided and live courses developed by and for the Wikimedia community. It features courses created by Wikimedia affiliates, Wikimedia Foundation staff, and partner organizations such as OpenRefine. To date, close to 3,000 Wikimedians have enrolled in the platform, accessing courses that help them develop skills and engage as a learning community, strengthening the movement's ever evolving learning culture.
This session empowers Wikimedians interested in capacity building to rapidly design prototypes for online courses that serve their communities. At the same time, it provides an opportunity to co-validate WikiLearn’s course creation workflow and resources, identifying ways to enhance its accessibility and effectiveness. By simplifying the course creation process through real-time collaboration, we lower barriers to participation, strengthen connections between trainers, and expand learning opportunities for both newcomers and experienced contributors.
Participants of this session will engage in a hands-on, structured process to design their own course concepts through activities such as:
- WikiLearn 101: A brief introduction to WikiLearn’s course creation features. - The 65-Minute Course Design Sprint: A rapid prototyping session guided by WikiLearn's instructional design framework. - Pitch & Feedback Round: Participants present their course prototypes and receive constructive feedback from peers.
By the end of the session, participants will have gained practical experience in designing learning resources and a clearer understanding of WikiLearn’s workflow. Additionally, the session will generate actionable insights to improve the platform’s usability, documentation, and support materials for course creators. We hope to inspire new course ideas, with opportunities for participants to refine and develop their prototypes beyond Wikimania.
This session aligns with the Wikimania 2025 themes of Inclusivity, Impact, and Sustainability by making course creation on WikiLearn more accessible and collaborative. Community-driven course design enhances the impact of training materials in the movement, making them more relevant and effective for people seeking to contribute to Wikimedia projects. Finally, refining WikiLearn’s course creation process contributes to its sustainability, ensuring that contributors can continue developing high-quality learning resources long after Wikimania.
- How does your session relate to the event theme, Wikimania@20 – Inclusivity. Impact. Sustainability?
This session aligns with the Wikimania 2025 themes of Inclusivity, Impact, and Sustainability by making course creation on WikiLearn more accessible and collaborative. Community-driven course design enhances the impact of training materials in the movement, making them more relevant and effective for people seeking to contribute to Wikimedia projects. Finally, refining WikiLearn’s course creation process contributes to its sustainability, ensuring that contributors can continue developing high-quality learning resources long after Wikimania.
- What is the experience level needed for the audience for your session?
Average knowledge about Wikimedia projects or activities
Resources
Speakers
- Melissa Guadalupe Huertas
- I'm an international educator and instructional designer with 15 years of dedicated service to global education. My expertise lies at the intersection of technology and learning, and in collaboratively designing localized programs that empower people into action. From leading experiential learning initiatives in Peru, Panama, and Ecuador to steering global programs at the Wikimedia Foundation, I've honed my skills in the areas of human-centered design and cross-cultural facilitation. I currently work with the team that is leading the development of WikiLearn - an online learning platform for and by the Wikimedia movement. As part of the former Education team at the Wikimedia Foundation, I led the development of the Reading Wikipedia in the Classroom program and its corresponding Training of Trainers program. Through these programs, we provided thousands of secondary school teachers around the world with a framework to leverage Wikipedia as a tool for media and information literacy.