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Hi Bala<br>
<br>
Many thanks for this. There are some very interesting points you've
raised here and I'd second Gautam's questions. Would love to hear
from you on what material worked best and which part of the sessions
do you think were the most engaging for the audience. Also, would
be really useful if you could tell us how you addressed the points
on "not being upto editing" as well as "being shy."<br>
<br>
Many thanks.<br>
<div class="moz-signature"><font size="2" face="Times New Courier"><i>hisham</i><br>
<b>India Programs - Wikimedia Foundation</b></font>
<p>
<font size="2" face="Times New Courier">skype : hisham.wikimedia<br>
google talk: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:hmundol@wikimedia.org">hmundol@wikimedia.org</a><br>
</font></p>
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<br>
On 3/8/2011 10:30 AM, Bala Jeyaraman wrote:
<blockquote
cite="mid:AANLkTik-2HH+qUntOEh1PmoEdMb8C417MsCRMvY-+pBp@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite"><br clear="all">
<br>
Hi all,<br>
<br>
This is a brief report on the two Wiki workshops in Tamil Nadu in
the previous two weeks<br>
<br>
==<br>
<b>Coimbatore - 26 February 2011.</b><br>
<br>
This workshop was conducted in the PSG College of Technology,
Coimbatore, as part of their Technical festival Kriya 2011. I
arranged for this workshop through cold calling - I mailed a dozen
colleges in the Coimbatore area, proposing a wiki introduction
section and the students union head of PSG replied with a request
for a formal proposal to present to their dean. I did so and the
workshop was okayed. It was a closed workshop - only for students
attending Kriya 2011 and had a registration fee of Rs. 100 (for
which the attendees got a participation certificate from the
college).<br>
<br>
150 students had pre-registered for the workshop and about a 100
turned up on the day. The capacity of the computer lab was 50 and
we had arranged for three separate sessions. The sessions were
about 1.5 hours in length with 45 of minutes of me talking and
another 45 minutes of editing wikipedia live. All the computers in
the lab had internet connections and so it was easy to teach them
edit directly (and earned the lab's IP a couple of warning
templates in en wiki). The first two sessions had like 75 people
and the last one 10 people (post lunch only a few turned up). It
was a typical engineering college crowd - familiar with social
networking/file sharing/search the internet for assignment
"research", but nothing more than that. They all had used
wikipedia but were unsure about editing it - the most cited excuse
was they didnt think they were upto it. <br>
<br>
The sessions were a mixed success - half the crowd had turned up
for the participation certificate and it was difficult to retain
their attention. But the other half was eager to learn something
new and there were a few very enthusiastic people eager to
contribute<br>
<br>
(photos and report in Ta wiki - <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://ta.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%AE%B5%E0%AE%BF%E0%AE%95%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%95%E0%AE%BF%E0%AE%AA%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%AA%E0%AF%80%E0%AE%9F%E0%AE%BF%E0%AE%AF%E0%AE%BE:%E0%AE%AA%E0%AF%86%E0%AE%AA%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%B0%E0%AE%B5%E0%AE%B0%E0%AE%BF_26,_2011_%E0%AE%95%E0%AE%BF%E0%AE%B0%E0%AE%BF%E0%AE%AF%E0%AE%BE_%E0%AE%AA%E0%AE%9F%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%9F%E0%AE%B1%E0%AF%88_%E0%AE%95%E0%AF%8B%E0%AE%B5%E0%AF%88">http://ta.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%AE%B5%E0%AE%BF%E0%AE%95%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%95%E0%AE%BF%E0%AE%AA%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%AA%E0%AF%80%E0%AE%9F%E0%AE%BF%E0%AE%AF%E0%AE%BE:%E0%AE%AA%E0%AF%86%E0%AE%AA%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%B0%E0%AE%B5%E0%AE%B0%E0%AE%BF_26,_2011_%E0%AE%95%E0%AE%BF%E0%AE%B0%E0%AE%BF%E0%AE%AF%E0%AE%BE_%E0%AE%AA%E0%AE%9F%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%9F%E0%AE%B1%E0%AF%88_%E0%AE%95%E0%AF%8B%E0%AE%B5%E0%AF%88</a>)<br>
<br>
<br>
<b>March 5, Puthanampatti, Trichy<br>
<br>
</b>This was a completely different experience from the previous
week. While i had arranged the PSG workshop, this one came looking
for me. Two of the faculty members of Nehru memorial college at
Puthanampatti near Trichy had attended the NIT -Trichy workshop on
Feb 20 and had liked what they saw. They asked me if i could do a
workshop in their college. It is a rural arts and science college
sitting in the middle of nowhere. It has excellent infrastructure
- faculty that cares, good labs and a fantastic library but the
students are terminally shy.<br>
<br>
This workshop was organised under a UGC scheme for students
appearing for govt exams, so the theme was slightly different -
how to use wikipedia as a learning resource. There were the usual
two sessions - a couple of hours of me blabbing and an hour of
hands on editing. Nearly 100 students attended the first session
where i introduced wikipedia and taught them how to use it as a
learning resource (chasing the references, ref desk, commons,
wikiversity, wikibooks, wiktionary etc) and how editing an article
on the subject would require researching which leads to learning
on their part. There were a few IAS/competitive examinations
aspirants in the audience and i was to able to show how wikipedia
would help them learn faster than say competition success review
et al. The intro session went well, but when we reconvened for the
live session after lunch, the non-computer science students didn't
turn up at the lab. The organisers said they left because they are
unsure of using internet. But the compsci crowd remained and we
spent a good one hour editing Tamil wikipedia. We created an
article in Ta wiki for their college, added references, photos,
internal links, external links, categories etc and they got the
general idea of wiki editing very quickly (which led to a rash of
experimental articles and an increase in workload of ta wiki
admins :-)). Since this was the compsci crowd, teaching them wiki
markup was remarkably easy - they immediately grasped it and
started editing articles.<br>
<br>
The college paid me 2500 Rs allocated to the "resource person" by
UGC for such activities. It was an awkward situation accepting
money - but they had to present their accounts and show that the
money allocated by UGC was actually spent, so i couldnt say no. I
took the money and donated 2100 Rs (minus my travelling +
pamphlet expenses) to the foundation. Maybe the chapter can work
out some sort of guidelines for this whole getting paid in the
line of outreach thing. (The donation to foundation minus expenses
was an idea i got from the prevailing paid editing practice in en
wiki)<br>
<br>
Photos and tamil report here - <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://ta.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%AE%B5%E0%AE%BF%E0%AE%95%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%95%E0%AE%BF%E0%AE%AA%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%AA%E0%AF%80%E0%AE%9F%E0%AE%BF%E0%AE%AF%E0%AE%BE:%E0%AE%AE%E0%AE%BE%E0%AE%B0%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%9A%E0%AF%8D_5,_2011_%E0%AE%B5%E0%AE%BF%E0%AE%95%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%95%E0%AE%BF%E0%AE%AA%E0%AF%8D_%E0%AE%AA%E0%AE%9F%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%9F%E0%AE%B1%E0%AF%88_%E0%AE%AA%E0%AF%81%E0%AE%A4%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%A4%E0%AE%A9%E0%AE%BE%E0%AE%AE%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%AA%E0%AE%9F%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%9F%E0%AE%BF">http://ta.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%AE%B5%E0%AE%BF%E0%AE%95%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%95%E0%AE%BF%E0%AE%AA%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%AA%E0%AF%80%E0%AE%9F%E0%AE%BF%E0%AE%AF%E0%AE%BE:%E0%AE%AE%E0%AE%BE%E0%AE%B0%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%9A%E0%AF%8D_5,_2011_%E0%AE%B5%E0%AE%BF%E0%AE%95%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%95%E0%AE%BF%E0%AE%AA%E0%AF%8D_%E0%AE%AA%E0%AE%9F%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%9F%E0%AE%B1%E0%AF%88_%E0%AE%AA%E0%AF%81%E0%AE%A4%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%A4%E0%AE%A9%E0%AE%BE%E0%AE%AE%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%AA%E0%AE%9F%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%9F%E0%AE%BF</a><br>
<br>
What i took away from these two workshops is this - urban students
have more exposure to internet, but (as is the norm) distracts
them from doing anything productive. Rural students haven't been
"corrupted" yet by social media and other shiny things, but are
very very shy in coming forward to do new things. <br>
<br>
regards<br>
Bala Jeyaraman <br>
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