Hi all,
12.05 pm 13th Jan 2012 ,Principal's Cabin at Abasaheb Prashala Day School near
15August Square Rastapeth Pune ; A visibly anoyed mother with her middle school son visits
principal to discuss her sons school absentism the mother informs sons father is expired
five years ago , She is working as home maid at some middle class families and making a
living; Principal does her job very well ; seems such situations are quite regular and
routin to the principal madam.
12.15-12.30 School prayer And at 12.30 bell Wikipedia Academy -Sans any projector or
laptop only help available is the black board , a chalk and a duster- begins in Standard
8A aprox 35-40 students (An equal mix of girls and boys)
Students are asked to show their hands to find out what do they know about internet only
one hand comes up and rest of the faces are blank and now the Wikipedian knows the
challenge at hand. Mind the fact that the day before School teacher informs that Wikipedia
is part of School syllabus in english language for 8th standard since 1999 usually he
teaches the first page of the lesson the rest of the pages can not be given justice
without internet support (for aprox 20,00,000 every year ) students across Maharashtra
.The class goes ahead the wikipedians requests to make stack of all their books on a table
and request for a Home Work note book with a promis that it will not be opened, one girl
gets convinced and provides the same .
Childern smartly give different different answers when asked what is their in their bunch
of school books , Most of them say "study" one Student answers as Mahiti
ie.information and a shy girl answers as Knowldge.The students know that knowledge
available in bunch of school is limited and there on concept of encyclopedia is explained
the word they never heared before, they answer smartly the wikipedian explains By now
children are getting in interactive mode discussion goes about curiosity information and
knowldge . Without any teaching aid demo laptop how do one explains what is internet ?
Luckily children knew about computers So with crude examples a book was a web portal and
pages ther in were web pages and then rest of internet story without internet at hand
.(May be few schools in rural areas still wont have computers too and wont know how a
teacher explains what is Computer)
Now the student who provided Home Work note book is asked What will be her reaction if not
herself but other students from the class write her home work note book turn by turn ,The
entire class of students smiles freely and a smile comes even on the face of the class
teacher , who was very patiantly sitting in last row of the class for wikipedia academy.
Wikipedia home page is drawn on black-board and The black board itself is edit window .
When asked any doubts faces blank, about a thing they never saw what doubts they will ask
? But when asked what is Wikipedia ? a girl student Laxmi stands up and answers what she
understood to her best about wikipedia in learned in Wiki academy Students are requested
to clap for her correct answer and a chorus of clapps begins !!
Later Principal agrees to importance of introduction to internet and informs about their
schools steps to upgradation of computer lab infrastructure , After a cup of tea with the
class teacher,the Wikipedia leaves school premises for next meeting.
Before one day that is on 12th Jan we receive info that a pilot project in some of
Maharashtra schools will be extended from coming academic year to all schools mandatorily
along with practical unicode Marathi typing and internet , with a chance to explore
further collaboration for marathi language wikisource and school board .
Rgds
-Mahitgar from Marathi Wikipedia
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