Education/News/June 2020/Wikipedia in schools competing for innovations in teaching award

Wikipedia in schools competing for innovations in teaching award

Author: Nebojša Ratković

Summary: New circumstances and changes that are happening encourage us to constantly adapt our learning patterns. Since the educational process "moved" to the e-space, the changings in learning patterns open up a huge opportunity for creativity and new ideas.

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  Education program of Wikimedia Serbia at The Mathematical Grammar School
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  Workshop, The Mathematical Grammar School

New circumstances and changes that are happening encourage us to constantly adapt our learning patterns. Since the educational process "moved" to the e-space, the changings in learning patterns open up a huge opportunity for creativity and new ideas.

The conditions in which schooling functioned in Serbia during the COVID-19 pandemic led our numerous partners to think about an innovative model of student`s assessments. Our associate Mirjana Savić Obradović, an English teacher at the Mathematical Grammar School in Belgrade, used Wikipedia and Wikidata to give students project assignments. This was the second time we implemented the project with mentioned professor, but the conditions this time were significantly different from the previous time. In addition to Wikipedia and Wikidata, we also used the interactive platform PlayPosit, Dashboard and Gmail for the realization of activities.

We used this activity to apply for the competition for the selection of the best examples of distance learning called "Magic is in the hands of teachers". The competition was realized by National Alliance for Local Economic Development and the Organization for Career Development and Youth Entrepreneurship "Connecting" in cooperation with the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development, the Institute for the Advancement of Education, and the Republic Secretariat for Public Policy, and with the support of the United States Agency for International Development. They recognized that it is necessary that innovation in teaching in changed conditions deserves broad social recognition. We hope that our project idea of ​​writing about world-famous mathematicians on Wikipedia and Wikidata will be recognized by the expert jury and will be recognized as an example of distance learning that will be awarded based on predefined criteria. We expect the results of the competition by the end of June.

Social Media channels or hashtags: Wikipedia, Wikimedia Serbia, Education program, Serbia, students’ assignments