Education/News/November 2020/The first Online EduWiki Camp in Serbia

Author: Nebojša Ratković

Summary: Wikimedia Serbia has organized the first Online EduWiki Camp during which the participants had the opportunity to learn about the programs and projects of Wikimedia Serbia, but also to improve the skills that will help them in further volunteer engagement in Wikimedia Serbia. The camp, which was held through the Zoom platform on October 24, 25, and 31, was attended by 14 students from all parts of Serbia.

Wikimedia Serbia has organized the first Online EduWiki Camp during which the participants had the opportunity to learn about the programs and projects of Wikimedia Serbia, but also to improve the skills that will help them in further volunteer engagement in Wikimedia Serbia. The camp, which was held through the Zoom platform on October 24, 25, and 31, was attended by 14 students from all parts of Serbia.

This year's camp is the first event of its kind, considering that Wikimedia Serbia has organized camps throughout Serbia for the past four years. Encouraged by the new health situation and taking care of the health of the participants in our projects, we decided to use new technologies this year and to hold the camp in an online environment. Wikimedia Serbia wanted to show its motivation to work on the same goals, not wanting to miss the opportunity to organize the EduWiki camp this year, despite the obstacles and challenges that are currently imposed on us. This year's team for the realization of the camp consisted of the manager of the Education program Nebojsa Ratković, Projects, and community manager Ivana Madzarević, manager for cooperation with cultural institutions Gorana Gomirac, and Wiki ambassadors Miljan Simonović, Teodora Lukić, and Luka Jovičić.

Taking into account the high workload of students and online activities they have during the working days, we held the camp during the two weekends, trying to meaningfully connect lectures and workshops into the larger units. The first day of the camp held on Saturday, October 24, was the day of introducing Wikipedia and Wikimedia Serbia to the participants, which ended with a workshop on editing Wikipedia. The second day of the camp was held on October 25, during which the participants had the opportunity to apply what they learned in practice and to edit Wikipedia in accordance with the instructions they received. The camp continued on the same day with a project writing workshop. During the workshop, they learned the basic segments of project writing, after which they had the task to come up with an idea for a project in groups and develop it. The third and last day of the camp was held on Saturday, October 31, and the participants had the task to present the Wiki projects they wrote during the week. The best written and presented project, as well as the best-written article on Wikipedia, were specially awarded. All participants received certificates of participation.

Participants were able to use a table of notes to leave impressions about the camp or make suggestions that could be used to improve the quality of future camp programs. We hope that the participants from the camp had a nice experience that will motivate them and encourage them to be Wikimedia Serbia contributors in the future. We are sure that we will see some of them as the Wiki Ambassadors or EduWiki volunteers who will work hard on developing the Educational Program of Wikimedia Serbia.