Isaac,
Over the past few days, I haven't been closely following the mailing list so closely: I am still acclimatising from jet-lag and the time-difference. My apologies.
Oscar has already mentioned most of the points that I would have stated, so just to add on:
-What we can and will do is contact Kiwix and give them our report. It is up to them to create a later version that might be more compatible to our curriculum.
-And most importantly -- and I'm sure most of the members have heard me mention this is -- that when I came up with this idea of installing offline Wikipedia to our schools, I did not want the student users to be contented with it. I wanted it to be a tip of the iceberg which will make the curious students yearn for more knowledge and information thereby tempting them to go to the online Wikipedia that is broader and deeper. If they use the online Wikipedia, then they might as well end up being future editors.
I know that the kiwix version is shallow and I don't like that, but making it deeper may have the following drawbacks:
-The current version is 4GB. Therefore making one that will satisfy our students would probably need a capacity of 20GB. Bearing in mind that the computers that these schools use are usually refurbished and have relatively low memory, installing a 20GB offline Wikipedia would make the machines terribly slow.
-And as mentioned earlier, if the offline Wikipedia would is as broad as the online version, then people would be contented with it and most likely they would never access, edit nor "waste" their money browsing the online Wikipedia.
NB: These are my personal opinions.
--Abbas.
--------------------------------------
Feel free to contact me:
Abbas Mahmood
Tel: +254722215101
Skype: abbasjnr
Wikimedia Kenya Member
"Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's our commitment."
Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2011 09:05:48 +0300
From: oslimoke@gmail.com
To: wikimediake@lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia Kenya] Your reaction concerning recommendations by Nakuru Schools
Kosgei,
Let me try and respond to your issues:
- Wikipedia for schools is not specifically tailored for Kenya,its and International selection of articles
- we hope that the articles will find some relevance to local curricula though not exhaustively
- that students can use the selection to bridge the constraint of internet in researching for various issues
- it will also serve to broaden the students perspective of knowledge,i.e.they will appreciate what other international students go through and also let them learn new things.
- Swahili as a subject taught in schools is not yet included in the Wikipedian for schools,perhaps we hope or will rise the issue to have some Swahili articles be included in the next release.
I hope I have responded to some of your queries well.If not,feel free to get in touch.and we are still awaiting your plans and budget for Kakamega as Alex suggested.we will be discussing it in our Saturday meetup.
Cheers,
On Thu, Feb 24, 2011 at 8:15 AM, Grace Kariuki
<gkariuki99@gmail.com> wrote:
we are very much updated with whats going on Isaac.c u on sat.
On Thu, Feb 24, 2011 at 6:44 AM, Isaac K. Kosgei
<kips8505izo@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi guys,
Earlier this week I sent you a report about our trip to Nakuru
schools.I am concerned that I have not seen anybody react to the
recommendations put forward by the schools we went. There were major
points raised by teachers especially concerning sciences and also the
missing swahili. Whats your take and how do you plan to address that?
I wanna hear from abbas,oscar alex and the others. Btw way am I the
only one noticing an issue of gender imbalance? Or is it that the
ladies in our team are not active
--
Isaac K. Kosgei.
Bachelor of Agribusiness Management
Egerton University,
Njoro Kenya.
(+254727553981/+254733553981)
www.linkedin.com/in/kipsizoo
Skype:Kipsizoo
Twitter:@Kipsizoo
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--
Limoke Oscar,
Wikimedian in Kenya,
Freelance Academic Writer and Translator,
GeoInformatics and GIScience Student,
Jomo Kenyatta University.Cell:+254 717 845 316
Skype:oslimoke
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