Education/News/April 2023/KWASU Fan Club Leads the Way in 21st Century Learning with Wiki in School Program

Summary: The KWASU Fan Club, under the guidance of its Staff Advisor Mrs. Mariam Gobir, participated in the Wiki in School Nigeria Program organized by the Wikimedia User Group Nigeria. This program provided an excellent opportunity for students to develop 21st-century skills by contributing to Wikipedia while also enhancing their collaboration and research abilities. In the end, 3 students contributions stood out and they were rewarded with Gift vouchers.

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The Wiki in School Program simple injective is to empower a selected cohort of academicians to guide their students to contribute to Wikipedia as an exercise in developing 21st-century skills. The KWASU fan Club was a beneficiary of this program, through the participation of its staff adviser Margob28 a lecturer from the Linguistics department of the Kwara State University, Malete, Nigeria who undergone an in-person 3 days Train-the-Trainer Program organized by the Wikimedia User Group Nigeria.

At the end of her Train-the-Trainer program, she identified 25 students across different departments within the institution who participated in a month-long training with strong mentoring components. Wikipedia editing focuses on different fields of study that were relevant to the students e.g., sciences, social studies, art and entertainment, and technology, among others.

In order to evaluate students at the end of the month training program they were assigned articles to work on and their contributions were tracked using the Wikimedia Outreach Dashboard.

The students were engaged in a joint review of topics, and marks were awarded based on their different outcomes for articles created or improved.

The program's success was evident as we had three top contributors who were awarded gift vouchers at the end of the program. Here's what they had to say about their experience:

“It was an amazing journey volunteering. The Wiki in School Program was an amazing and valuable one as not only were my research and digital skills sharpened;l had the opportunity to get acquainted with like-minded, brilliant, and distinguished personalities. In addition,l got a gift at the end of the program." Thank you, Wikimedia!

"During the program wiki-in-school I was able to have more knowledge about research and how to use the internet very fast, during the process of the training I was able to explore new things and have experiences with them. At the end of the program I was able to build myself on digital skills and how to go about doing my research. In addition, I was given a gift at the end of the program. Thank you wikimedia!"

"In all simplicity, it was an exposition for me! I was able to explore another aspect of education and learning I didn't know existed. It was tasked to be true, but in all, the added advantage was worth the effort."

Overall, the KWASU Fan Club is proud to have led the way in promoting 21st-century learning through the "Wiki in School Program," and we look forward to more opportunities to empower our students in the future.