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
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*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.