Wikipedia as an Educational Tool in Achachicala

It’s common to hear phrases like, “But that’s not serious—that’s from Wikipedia,” in educational communities or academic settings. Although virtually all of us have used Wikipedia at some point—often to begin a research project—we rarely acknowledge it or cite it in our bibliographies. We know that students use it to do their homework and that even artificial intelligence relies on it as one of its main sources of information, yet we still fail to fully recognize its value as an educational tool. Objectively speaking, however, it is a very powerful educational tool. That’s why, to me, recognizing that value is, at the very least, only fair.

I am currently the coordinator of the “Ciberdefensa Juvenil” project, which we are implementing in partnership with the Machaqa Amawta Foundation in the Achachicala area. The project works with the entire educational community on preventing digital violence and promoting the critical, safe, and responsible use of technology. In that context, the idea of incorporating Wikipedia came up almost naturally: if we’re training educational communities to interact more effectively with the internet, it also makes sense to discuss one of the tools we use most often to search for information.

Based on this concern, I decided to incorporate Wikipedia into the training programs we developed at three schools in the area. The collaboration was carried out on a voluntary basis, with the support of Julia Velasco, Ángel Ramos, and Camilo Morales, who joined us to share their knowledge and provide support during the sessions.

The idea was not simply to explain what Wikipedia is, but to challenge some of the myths and misconceptions circulating about it. Many teachers were familiar with the encyclopedia, but they didn’t necessarily know how its articles are created, how the content is reviewed, or what opportunities it offers for learning. Therefore, I coordinated with the volunteer team to organize three presentations, one at each school (Luis Ernst School, República de Francia “B” School, and Nuestra Señora de La Paz II).

In these sessions, we discussed how Wikipedia works and highlighted its academic potential—from the creation and editing of its articles to the importance of verifying sources and the possibilities for using it in an educational setting. We also sought to dispel some of the most common misconceptions about the encyclopedia and show that Wikipedia doesn’t have to be just a place to quickly complete an assignment. It can also serve as a starting point for researching, verifying information, learning, and contributing to free knowledge.

I found it particularly valuable to see the teachers themselves begin to envision activities with their students: not just asking them to look up information on Wikipedia, but teaching them how to conduct research. Or assigning them a research project and having them use the structure of a Wikipedia article as a model.

One of the parts that interested me the most was showing the teachers that they could get directly involved. During the sessions, each teacher created a Wikipedia account and began exploring its tools. This transformed the activity from a lecture into a hands-on experience.

In the sessions, we also discussed something that’s already part of students’ daily lives: they use Wikipedia, but they’re also increasingly turning to artificial intelligence to complete their homework and even to make everyday decisions. We discussed an MIT study that warns that relying too heavily on AI can weaken memory and critical thinking, so we emphasized a simple yet powerful approach: asking students to explain in their own words what they found, encouraging them to question that information, and helping them understand that sites like Wikipedia are created by people and are one of the main sources for AI. This exercise—rather than banning tools—is what truly helps them think for themselves.

It might seem like a small contribution, but to me it isn’t. These are three schools where the entire teaching staff now has a better understanding of how Wikipedia works and recognizes its potential. Above all, this opens up the possibility that Wikipedia will no longer be seen solely as that website we consult “on the sly” to do homework, but will also begin to be recognized as a tool that democratizes access to knowledge and provides mechanisms for consulting and verifying sources.

This experience also reminded me that often the most interesting collaborations arise from connecting what we do in our projects with our own communities and volunteer networks. In this case, a concern that arose within a project aimed at preventing digital violence ended up becoming an opportunity to introduce Wikipedia to teachers in Achachicala and, from there, to explore new ways of engaging with technology and free knowledge in education.