Dear all,
We are organising a webinar for educators in Ukraine, and we were thinking of sharing examples we are aware of, when the photo contests we organise (Wiki Loves Monuments, Wiki Loves Earth, Wiki Loves Folklore etc) were used by educators in their education initiatives or Wikimedia education programme efforts.
For Wiki Loves Monuments in 2017 we had a special award for pupils of the Kyiv schools to take and upload pictures of the monuments -- there was a special page for pre-registration for them, so we would know to also evaluate their pictures separately. We have organised 4 workshops for the interested pupils, explaining how to upload pictures, criteria etc. We had a separate awards ceremony for them, giving out souvenirs. As far as we know there were no great results coming out of this effort (some of the kids did try editing Wikipedia that same year, but if they have continued editing or participating, they did it under some new accounts), but it was certainly a very interesting experience for us as a team, trying to figure out how to explain rules of the contest to kids :)
We also have educators who know about our contests, and they build them into their curriculum as a separate activity, urging them to take and upload pictures. After the contest they usually request certificates of participation for their pupils, to keep their pupils motivated.
There might be quite a lot of other potential activities around the contests we can think of (especially for Wiki Loves Folklore), but at this stage we were interested if anybody in the wider Movement has experience of doing or trying to do any of such activities, so we can collect information about the known international experience, and share it with our community. Thus, we would be grateful if you can share with us any examples of using our photo contest for Wikimedia education programmes / initiatives you are aware of (or tried to organise), especially for school education (as this is the focus for us at the moment).
Thank you all, and please take care!
З повагою / Best regards, antanana Wiki Loves Monuments Ukraine
Disclaimer: This letter is sent in my Wikimedia volunteer capacity, not as a Board member of Wikimedia Foundation