Reading Wikipedia in the Classroom

Reading Wikipedia in the Classroom is a professional development program for teachers co-developed by the Wikimedia Foundation with community partners. Based upon UNESCO’s Media and Information Literacy framework, the program helps both educators and students to develop vital skills for the 21st century, including:

Understanding how information is produced
How to access and evaluate content online
How to understand biases and knowledge gaps in the information they consume.

Thousands of teachers around the world, from Bolivia to Yemen, have successfully completed the program, and an active community of trainers is expanding its reach through partnerships with national and international institutions.

About the program

In 2020, Reading Wikipedia in the Classroom was piloted in three countries: Bolivia, Morocco, and the Philippines.

The pilot initiative focused heavily on collaboration between civil society actors in the open knowledge sector, secondary school teachers, and government authorities. It was conducted in partnership with Wikimedistas de Bolivia, Wikimedia MA User Group, Philwiki Community, and the Pasay City School District.

The training resources and sessions were adapted to the needs of the local context in our three pilot countries. Find out more about the results of the first training and the first cohort of teachers who earned the certificate.

Between 2021 and 2023, the program was scaled through a global online Training of Trainers program. A total of 73 wikimedians from over 40 countries successfully completed the training, and they are continuously leading implementations of Reading Wikipedia in the Classroom in their school districts. Trainers and educators have not only adapted and translated the open educational resources of the program, they’re also creating new activities and digital assets to transform their new knowledge into innovative teaching practices.

Are you a secondary school teacher?

Are you interested in the program? Review our open Teacher’s Guides or connect with a trainer in your region. The Teacher’s Guides used in the program are available in English, Spanish, Ukrainian, Arabic, and 10 more languages. They are free for you to download, adapt, translate, and share!