Grants talk:PEG/Abbas Mahmood/Wikipedia for Schools Project/Report

Reallocation of remaining 84 USD

Hi, Abbas. It sounds very reasonable to allocate the 84 USD to the other proposal (Wikipedia for Schools Launch) on which you overspent. However, please do submit a request for approval to asaf at wikimedia dot org as soon as possible so that we can formalize that arrangement and update both grant pages and our records to reflect it. Wolliff 20:20, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Sure. will do so. Abbasjnr (talk) 09:06, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

This reallocation has been approved and the discussion pages of both grant proposals have been updated.Wolliff (talk) 18:25, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Previsits

Since you mentioned that the previsits were critical to the project's success, would you mind elaborating on that point by describing these visits and their benefits in detail? I would be interested to hear about exactly what the benefits were. Thanks! Wolliff 20:20, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

First of all, there's no substitute for Face to Face conversations. Secondly, most of these schools that we went to were ether located in rather parts of Kenya or were public schools. Therefore, they did not have an official school website or an easily available point of contact. We therefore had to go there physically. The people who undertook the pre-visit were people who were quite conversant with the region: David did the Mombasa pre-visit since he was working in Mombasa, Oscar did the Kakamega previsit since that's his hometown and Steve did the Nyeri pre-visit since it was his hometown as well. Also note that the selected regions with which we had undertook this pilot depended on whether we had someone on our team that was quite conversant with that region, so that he could act as a chaperone when the whole team was going to go to a certain place to do the project. Also, we found that F2F meetings with the school principals were much more effective (in clearing any misconceptions about Wikipedia, since some of them didn't even know what Wikipedia is in the 1st place (Yes!)) and also quicker in "sealing the deal" (as compared to other channels of communication). Also, the people who undertook the pre-visit had carried the offline WIkipedia with them, so as to show the school what it is we were going to do. I therefore believe that if we are to roll this project countrywide, we would still have to undertake a pre-visit for the above-mentioned reasons.

Measures of success

Would you mind following up on a few measures of success that you listed in your original grant submission here?

• Did you reach your goals of 30 schools and 60 hours of talks to teachers and students?

We went to 25 schools, and approximately 50 hours doing installation and tutorials. Details on the exact number of computers and students using them can be found on our website

• Did you receive any feedback from teachers about exploring the use of Wikipedia in the classroom, as you expected you would? Could you summarize some of the feedback here in your report?

After the project had ended, we contacted the schools to request for feedback. These were the most common responses we got:

Challenges

1. The content of the offline Wikipedia was created by SOS UK, based on the British curriculum, therefore not fully appropriate for Kenyan students.
2. Some of the computers were obsolete and/or old, making the installation painfully slow.
3. One school complained about the technical difficulty in re-installing the offline Wikipedia.

Successes

1. Free and readily available to students and teachers, as opposed to textbooks that were quite expensive for some students to afford.
2. We noticed that it was more frequently used in computers that were located in a library setting as compared to those that were in a computer laboratory.
3. Some students really liked the coloured, illustrative images. Apparently, this was more appealling to the eye and brain, as compared to a similar black and white image drawn on a textbook or blackboard. Abbasjnr (talk) 06:15, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

• Did you follow up with any of the teachers to find out if they were using online Wikipedia to access more content?

It depends. Some private schools like Oshwal Academy who had internet access in their computer labs were really interested in open educational resources that were available on the internet, such as Wikipedia and Khan Academy and most teachers used them.

• Since more than 2 months have passed since your project, have you yet performed the audit you planned? Please provide the details here.

I called some of the schools and got some feedback from the teachers. We have not performed physical visits since we had not budgeted for it.

Wolliff 20:20, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Lessons learned

Since this project was a "pilot", I think we should include more details in the "lessons learned" section of this report, so that others who may want to replicate your efforts might be able to learn from your experiences. Besides elaborating on previsits, was there anything else that you would do differently if you were to expand this project or implement it in other regions? I'm sure that you overcame a lot of challenges along the way that we can learn from.

Also, would you consider this pilot a success? Why or why not?

Wolliff 20:20, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Response is on the project page. Abbasjnr (talk) 07:13, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for the response! Wolliff (talk) 18:30, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Marking this grant report as "Incomplete"

We are marking this grant report as Incomplete, as the grantee still has not responded to request for information on 12 January 2012 (see, "Measures of Success" above).

Grant reports may be marked incomplete when a grantee does not provide information requested by WMF for 30 days or more. Once the grantee provides WMF with the requested information, the grant may be marked Under Review or Accepted.

Wolliff (talk) 23:55, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Dear Winifred, I am surprised by this. I responded to your Measures of Success a long time ago. Please re-read the "Measures of Success" section again. Abbasjnr (talk) 06:57, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Plus, the information that you have given is incorrect. I responded on the Measures of Success on 8th March 2012. Abbasjnr (talk) 07:00, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Hi, Abbas: I am referring specifically to my question "Did you receive any feedback from teachers about exploring the use of Wikipedia in the classroom, as you expected you would? Could you summarize some of the feedback here in your report?" I couldn't find your response on the talk page or in this report, but it is possible I have missed it: please do point me to it so I can promptly move the report to accepted. Thanks! Wolliff (talk) 17:50, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Dear Winifred, the feedback is more or less the same as the Lessons learnt in the main page. I have pasted the feedback above, nonetheless. Abbasjnr (talk) 06:22, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the response, Abbas. WMF has accepted this report. Wolliff (talk) 16:28, 16 August 2012 (UTC)