Hi Ashwin
Many thanks for this note. It's extremely insightful.
I am particularly struck by your point on not having an easy-to-source
and effective-to-use wikipedia/wikimedia introduction. I'd like to
volunteer to help put something together.
Can I request whoever has a deck ready to email me a copy of that and
I'll try to create a deck that can be shared. ...because of file sizes,
if it's easier, could you email it to me on hmundol(a)wikimedia.org.
I'll also try and incorporate learnings from your mail below and from
community members on other aspects such as duration of sessions,
planning the editing during an outreach meet, etc.
Many thanks.
/hisham/
*India Programs - Wikimedia Foundation*
skype : hisham.wikimedia
google talk: hmundol(a)wikimedia.org
On 3/4/2011 4:42 PM, Ashwin Baindur wrote:
Dear friends,
A wikipedia introduction and editing session was held at SNDT Pune on
01 March 2011. Ádvance notice could not be given to other members of
the Pune wikipedian community due to short notice and yours truly
being extremely busy with academics - this is deeply regretted.
Warm regards,
Ashwin Baindur
------------------------------------------------------
*_WIKIPEDIA SESSION AT SNDT, PUNE (01 March 2011)_*
The Department of Communication Media for Children, SNDT College Of
Home Science, Pune, recently organised a film workshop called "Filmi
Chashma" in conjunction with the Comet Media Foundation on the College
premises. I came to know about it from an email from Bishakha Datta,
Trustee (Wikimedia Foundation) asking Pune wikipedians to please
respond to a request from Comet Media Foundation's Chandita Mukherjee
to conduct an editing session for the particpants. The aim apparently
was to get the participants, mostly students of the department and
locals of Pune, to edit in Marathi Wikipedia. The session was to last
one and a half hours and was scheduled for 01st March 2011, a Tuesday.
Since I am the only "unemployed" member of WikiPuneri, being on a
sabbatical, while my fellow friends are busy earning their living, I
agreed to take on the assignment. I was also happy to earn some
brownie points with my spouse, an SNDT alumnus, albeit from the Mumbai
college. So I happily went to SNDT following the accurate directions
given by Dr Radha Misra, HOD and landed up in time for a sumptious
mid-morning snack with the workshop participants. :-)
Mandar Kulkarni, our local Marathi Wikipedia enthusiast had promised
to try to make it in his lunch break but was unable to do so due to
the distance his office was from the location.
I was warmly greeted by Dr Misra and two members of Comet Media
Foundation - Lajpat Dhingra and Suresh Dhadave. We then moved to a
computer lab in the Education department. There a Ubuntu :-) laptop
was connected and my presentation materials were loaded. One of Dr
Misra's colleagues, Ms Payal Khombhadia, project officer for Filmy
Chashma, introduced me and we were off.
The presentation began with the three-minute W10 video created by
JESS3, followed by a short presentation made by me! Which reminds me
that we need some really good presentations for introduction to
newbies! Strangely, that doesn't seem to be around! We really need
improvement in this!
The presentation was followed by an editing session. We had to close
on time though people wanted to go on as another academic event was
scheduled in that lab.
One of the motifs put forth was the utility of Wikipedia in the sphere
of activities of the workshop participants - children. Few people
realise that how lacking the internet is in interactivity. Wikipedia
allows children, like it does all people, to edit and the difference
made to the encyclopedia is not only tangible and highly visible;
moreso, it is immediately reflected back to the editor. This
instantaneous response acts like a gratification - a primary reason
why wikipedia can be addictive. So editing in itself can be rewarding
for children, especially today when they have short attention spans.
The important point that one should make to children is that this is
one program where you can actually change the world; by making more
information available one edit at a time.
There was not much chance to mention schools and wikipedia, or the
relevant resources on the web, as the thread of discussion drifted
away to how editors got to learn new skills through editing on
Wikipedia. I was able to mention the skills I learnt, that a lifetime
of education including a B.Sc. (PCM), B.Tech. (Electrical), M.Sc.
(Defence Studies) and now an M.Phil. (Def Studies) had not or did not
teach me - namely, writing accurately, neutrally, skilfully; with
proper citation of all kinds of resources, to avoid copyright
violation; rewriting to avoid plagiarism; how to interact in online
communities; learning the niceties of English grammar, punctuation,
and issues pertaining to copy-editing and desktop publishing.
The editing session, I have found, is the most exciting for people new
to Wikipedia. People like to be shown how to edit. We looked at a
typical Wikipedia standard article, the left-hand panel links, the
tabs, navigation by links, categories and by using search. Featured
content and good content were discussed. We then edited an article
first anonymously, undid it and repeated the edit under my login. We
then created a stub about the Pune campus of the SNDT. Then we ran out
of time.
Though the session was scheduled for an hour and a half, activities
such as meeting people, introductions, moving to a classroom, etc
takes time and effectively the session had lasted just about an hour.
The lesson learnt is a session needs to be at least two hours long,
especially if its the only session to be scheduled.
We then moved to the tea-room where I addressed the audience for a few
minutes, mainly acquainting them with details of activities being
undertaken by the Puneri wikipedian community, exchanging contact
details and distributing W10 swag - I am pleased to tell you that I
was able to give away twenty tee-shirts to the participants, an
unlooked for treat which brought out happy smiles of all.
I would like to close with this note - that the participants were
mostly women; there was only one male particpant and we three
"faculty" guys were male. I mentioned the gender gap and how important
it was for the health of the community that we get more women
involved. After returning home, a thank you email was sent to each
participant with an invite to the Wikimedia-IN-PUN list and to
WikiPuneri group on Facebook.
My deep gratitude to Chandita Mukherjee of Comet Media Foundation and
Dr Radha Misra of SNDT College Of Home Science, Pune for giving this
opportunity to me and the WikiPuneri community.
Images at :
http://www.flickr.com/photos/81267486@N00/tags/sndt/
Ashwin Baindur
_
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