New subject: [Wikimediaindia-l] Experience of taking Wiki academy at lesser known site of digital devide

13 Jan 2012


      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