Grants talk:PEG/Manos Kefalas/Wikipedia School in Athens, Greece

Evaluation by the GAC

GAC members who support this request

1. Big thumbs up all the way! Alleycat80 (talk) 11:14, 22 August 2014 (UTC)
2. I ask only to compare the cost of the server with other suppliers and to check the warranty (in-house assistance). --Ilario (talk) 11:32, 22 August 2014 (UTC)
3. I support this proposal so far. Hopefully the school equipment could/would be used for several courses after this one, so the investment benefits more students making it more valuable.--3BRBS (talk) 20:21, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
4. --Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 09:50, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

Transfer from IdeaLab talk page [1]

Hi ManosHacker. Apologies for the delayed response. Yes, this idea is appropriate as a Project and Event Grant proposal. Thanks for writing up a draft. Once you have finished the draft and would like to open the submission for review, please email grants@wikimedia.org. Also, I did a quick read of the draft and would suggest re-thinking the advertising strategy/costs. In our experience, advertising to a general audience does not have much impact nor does it bring in the intended audience to workshops or trainings. Please consider using pre-exisiting networks (for example, schools) to target young, computer-literate people. All further discussion should be done on the discussion page of the request. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 22:54, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Hi Alex Wang (WMF), thank you for your response and advice. The radio ad was removed and in its place is a request for banner advertising on top of Greek Wikipedia. It will serve us better in time during the school year and it does not cost. The radio spot might also have a negative impact to those who would say we spend money like we have plenty. The banner is also very well targeted. What we lose is what you know works best when Wikimedia asks people to donate: the presence of Jimmy Wales asking that. The radio spot was meant to be from the same material that has made people open their arms to us so far, something we have done very well. So, what we feel and give will pass from mouth to mouth and this also has its special value.

Number	Category	Item description	Unit	Number of units	Cost per unit	Total cost	Currency	Notes
5	Advertising	Radio Broadcast for 3 weeks	1 30sec spot	10	180	1,800	EUR	RealFM (no 1 radio station), Nikos Chatzinikolaou (no 1 producer of the station) - morning zone

We do care more making more people obtain our neo-encyclopedic culture, than sustaining article writing with contests and prizes (at least we think this is more what Greek Wikipedia and society needs as a base).

From those who saw Wikipedia School on the internet and have declared interest, no one has attended any lesson so far. So we will use our poster, big sized, on bus stops near us. We will keep this ad.--ManosHacker (talk) 21:49, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

My question is, normally radio ads cater mostly to the commuting public or those driving on the road, are they the perfect audience for these project? What is the likelihood that the potential audience would be able to listen to that spot? Wouldn't a newspaper or magazine ad (on the day with the most readership) be more effective? -- Roel (talk) 02:37, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

If the target it to call people for the first time to participate in Wikipedia lessons, radio ad is not efficient. If the target is to let people know Wikipedia School is out there (for strategic reasons and when you are ready for more in a small country like Greece), it is. A banner in Greek Wikipedia is a lot more efficient as it targets computer-literate people who already use Wikipedia. -What about the rest of the people? Wikimedia Vision states that we should care for every human being.- We make a core first. We drop the radio ad idea and focus on the mission: Wikipedia School success.--ManosHacker (talk) 15:55, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Comment of Ilario

Hi, I would ask some detail about IT equipment. I have not understood why a computer, designed to be a workstation, is considered here as a server. What will be exactly the function? I have seen 20 UserCAL, but I don't understand the features of this server (would it be a web server? a print server? a domain controller? or anything else?). At the moment I consider the cost of the IT equipment too much expensive, there are several better opportunities having server with the same characteristics, but probably there should be some missed information helpful for me. --Ilario (talk) 21:41, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Hi Ilario, this is the server OS. With this, one can use one computer to host up to 20 keyboards, mouses and screens under one cpu. Old equipment can be used as dummy terminals that plug their screen, keyb and mouse on the multipoint server. Each user has his own environment, runs his own programs and the teacher can have a direct view of every terminal in his screen, chat, control it, show it on a projector to teach all the class, blank all screens to get attention, etc. If you want to be able to run 20 users concurrently on one cpu, you need a powerful and reliable machine. Basic hardware characteristics are firstly cpu and memory and secondly a decent graphics card and a solid state hard disk. Dell comes with 5 years warranty and they reassure us that Multipoint Server runs with full compatibility on it. We might get a better price for hardware if we build it part by part and a bit lower price for OS and CALs if we quit the software reassurance (free upgrade to next versions of the OS).--ManosHacker (talk) 22:25, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

What about this: http://www.userful.com/press/multiseat-linux-2011-beta-release ? http://www.userful.com/education#goto_view1- it could be much cheaper free software solution... or completely free: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MultiseatX Polimerek (talk) 22:51, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

It is firstly a matter of time. Me and the teacher of informatics of the school do not have experience on setting up Linux, we have to ask for immediate help and we are going to need that help in every step forward.--ManosHacker (talk) 23:06, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

I agree with ManosHacker - - it is good and worthy to aspire to use only open source materials, but if it adds risks to the project, I opt for letting them use their own choice of server. Alleycat80 (talk) 11:05, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Hi, I have understood the use, it seems to be an evolution of the hyper-v to create virtual desktops, so I agree you need a very powerful machine (a lot of RAM and multi-processor). Honestly I don't know it even if I manage Windows systems since 2000. In my opinion the cost of the DELL server is high, there are some good opportunities with the HP servers extending also the warranty. Do you know that DELL doesn't supply in-house assistance, frequently they come and send the equipment in their assistance centres? This is a secondary aspect but it can be important. --Ilario (talk) 11:31, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Hello all. As a member of this project and as headmaster of the 24th Athens Sec. School, I should suggest our team stays adherent to software procedures followed by public (state) schools, as it is extremely difficult (or even impossible) to alter these procedures, since the school's PCs are dedicated to students' education and we cannot intefere to. --Ttzavaras (talk) 18:17, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

• As Ttzavaras states, and we have to rely on his experience and be careful, it is extremely difficult to call HP, DELL, or any company inside a public school for a software tuning procedure. Any such task has to pass through the service that supports public schools officially, if the teacher of informatics cannot handle it by himself.
• It would also be practically impossible to make a donation through bureaucratic procedures. The headmaster of a school can be bold and bypass such procedures, and this is how we can do this happen. It seems though we do not have a way to be sure for the use of the equipment we donate, if the headmaster changes next year. This risk is one more motive for us to succeed and build strong relationships with the parents and teachers associations, too.
• I have requested a new price on Dell h/w and I am searching an HP solution. I know (have done this) I can buy a very cheap HP server, throw away and replace cpu and menory and have a machine with the power needed, saving money. But we need the warranty, so I have to dig some more on this.--ManosHacker (talk) 21:31, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

I have not understood completely. Is it a donation to the school? So I understand that someone of the school is not able to use a Linux system but a Windows one, it's a limitation but it can be acceptable to the donor. Concerning the hardware the school cannot say that the DELL or the HP are different, they don't have to program the drivers. In this case the donor has the absolute right to propose a cheaper hardware having the same performances. In addition I am saying that the assistance and the reliability of a HP is better than a DELL. I managed server factories and I am suggesting that using my experience. In 10 years I changed several DELL's hardware, but only a single hard disk of the HPs. --Ilario (talk) 21:52, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Of course, and we will find the cheapest and/or preferred by the donor hardware solution.--ManosHacker (talk) 22:03, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Ok, but my request to have several offers is connected with the concept to demonstrate that you have selected the best offer and you are proposing the right cost. It's a normal procedure in any setup of budget. --Ilario (talk) 22:06, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

I did avoid HP because they make my life difficult with their custom setups, whenever I plan for recovery from a disaster. But it is not a big deal for our project I hope. HP is welcome as an option.--ManosHacker (talk) 22:13, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Using the HP configurator the price is a lot higher. I have requested 2 offers where I should get a better price, in one asking to order without hard disk and graphics card and replace with custom ones.--ManosHacker (talk) 12:19, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Here it is: HP can be a real server and also cheaper, if we buy a server base, throw away its memory and replace it with the proper one, add the SSD drive and the graphics card, and stay with 3 years of warranty. We cannot order it as a whole and be cheaper than the Dell, but this way we drop to €1,821.58 from €2,207.16 the Dell costs, with exactly the same configuration plus an additional HDD (1T capacity) which we earn from the base configuration. The last we could do is stay with the 1T sata hdd (not buy the ssd = €137.99) and operate without a separate graphics card (= €174,99) accepting the performance penalty and leave these as optional for the school to buy if needed. This could bring us down to €1508,6.--ManosHacker (talk) 17:12, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Vendor's price for HP was not that low for no reason. The salesman has put 1333 memory instead of 1600. To have the correct operating memory and stay inside bugget, we are about to get an offer from two more vendors (asking a straight solution and not throw away unused memory and inherit a spare disk). If that fails, we remove the SolidStateDisk from the configuration. 2ndGymnasium could cover this I suppose. Apologies, we will stay inside bugdet either way.--ManosHacker (talk) 20:13, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Buying parts from different vendors, the price for the right equipment (on HP based hardware) is €1874.94. This is €53.36 more than what has been aprooved. Numbers have been updated, requesting approval.--ManosHacker (talk) 15:03, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Some questions for clarification

Hi,

I think it is amazing project. Just several questions helping you to improve the application:

1. Regarding "Measures of success" - you mentioned "Percent of participants that completed the lessons, who remain active as editors after the lessons are over" - this is too vague - I suggest to monitor their activity after certain period of time - for example - after one year. You should also put there minimum numbers you will determine as a success.
2. Later you stated that similar workshop/lessons was already organized in small scale - do you have any data regarding Wikipedia activity of attendants of these previous workshops? How many of them are still active editors?

Polimerek (talk) 22:25, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Hi Polimerek, thank you for your questions.

1. Ok, we will re-write it and put numbers. I have to consult Ttzavaras first, whose lessons have been for 3 years.
2. Ilia Ar was the ideal student of May-July Wikipedia School: Came to classes twice a week for two months (June&July), was a good learner, did need 2 months to learn and feel confident, has now the ability to write decent articles and is still active.

--ManosHacker (talk) 22:45, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

I have been studying for a while the contributions of Ttzavara's students over the three years period. The rough estimate of people who come back after their lessons are over is about 8.5% of the participants. About half the students do not seem to finish their learning circle, as seen from their contributions. We have also been very elastic on Wikipedia School for adults, because of the summer, and only one participant (11%) did finish the circle of lessons and did contribute after lessons were over for summer (also 11%). So these are the numbers we have to beat and we will, but success is, for now, to have Wikipedia School run in a number of schools. The special seed we are planting this school year (and your advice, like Alleycat80's,) should rise statistics, but it also might take some years to grow and show results in things we have in mind, and then we would have a new ground for things to do with Wikipedia School.--ManosHacker (talk) 10:51, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Comment from 3BRBS

Hi, It seems like a solid application to me, and I just have a couple of questions since I'm not savy in setting up networks and servers: Both schools do not have a network installed or a computer laboratory where the students can work at? The 'School Equipment' will be kept by the school after the development of the project? Thanks!--3BRBS (talk) 23:28, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Oh yes, the school equipment will be EUR 3,217 which is 42% of the budget requested, that is why I believe is important to review and understand this aspect of the submission.--3BRBS (talk) 23:31, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

• Computer lab of 2nd Gymnasium of Kaisariani may look like one but only from the outside. Server might be expensive as one personal computer, but equals to 20 new computers. You can divide its price by 20 to see what you get (plus the centralized architecture benifits).
• If you could only see the first offers that came from Dell itself when we asked for hardware to support the multipoint server for 20 cals. It was EUR6,418.97 for hardware only and that was what made us turn to a simple workstation instead of a server. The price is still high, I do hope for a change in prices or a better choice for hardware and I am going to try for it once again.
• 2nd Gymnasium of Kaisariani, that is about to host 2 schools (morning for students, afternoon for adults) is the one that does not have a lab in decent condition. We can have a written agreement I suppose for 2nd Gymnasium to host Wikipedia School for 2 years or more. Zografou facilities, intesested to host Wikipedia School for adults, have a very decent computer lab.--ManosHacker (talk) 23:57, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

ManosHacker, thank for your reply. I still want to confirm that the 'School Equipment' will be kept by the school after the development of the project, and also, just as an idea, there if there isn't a public library nearby the schools where you can set up the course, in the understanding that the library provide the network infraestructure?--3BRBS (talk) 22:32, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

• The license of the Operating System and the terminal licenses is academic. Non academic price = $817 for server and $139 for each terminal, academic = $115 for server and $29 for each terminal (+taxes + we have added software assurance which is a bit more expensive but keeps us up to date with operating systems). In order to get a price we had to provide the name of the real school that would use the academic license. I wish I could have a portable academic license as a virtual school (nice idea for WMF to look after) but I am afraid I cannot. So yes, the server stays at school. And we do wour best so Wikipedia School is hosted there for several years.
• Library of Kaisariani does not have internet and does not have computers at all, not even the librarian. I was collecting donations (towers, screens etc) to use it there but there is room for only 5 seats at most. Anyway, even if we had found a library that has the capacity, infrastructure and accepts our noisy classes 3 times a week, the real case here is that we are already inside a school, teaching students, not only adults in the afternoons, like we started. Ttzavaras has been teaching students as the Headmaster of his own school and I am not a teacher, so think of what we have accomplished here.--ManosHacker (talk) 07:55, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

ManosHacker, thank you for your time and prompt replies. Good luck with your project!--3BRBS (talk) 20:17, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Comments/questions from Alleycat80

• Are the lessons free? If so, at least in Israel we've found that people treat "free" stuff with less than the seriousness they would treat paid stuff. I would consider collecting a small fee at the first lesson, which may be given back to people that attended to 75% of the lessons in the plan.

• Will you publish the curriculum for the lessons? other people would love to learn from your plans. I know WMIL would. We are going to try a similar thing through a cooperation with the Israeli Ministry of Education, and we will be creating our curriculum, and also translating it to English. Which brings me to the 3rd point...

• I would ask User:AWang (WMF) to provide an additional small amount for you to translate the curriculum to English, so it doesn't stay in Greek only and can be shared with the larger community, unless you plan that already. What do you say?

Cheers, this seems an awesome proposal and I'm all for it. Alleycat80 (talk) 11:12, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

• Yes, the lessons are free and people also treat free for less here in Greece. But "For Life Learning" program for adults is also for free and the lessons have been completed by almost everyone because of the strictness in participation commitment. Even if we were promised to begin Wikipedia School along with other classes for adults at the beginning of new year, we were left for the summer and we could not benifit. We can have both systems put into practice: those who come through the municipality will have to follow the commitments that apply and those who come through Wikepedia School's web page will have to give, let's say, €5 that would stay to our host school in case they do not complete their lessons.

Sounds like a good plan to me. Alleycat80 (talk) 13:51, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

• Even if it was not our first priority, we would definitely have to publish the process along with the results. We are now encouraged to do it with more detail, like writing down every detail in our approach from the very first date, like the questions that help us recruit students. There is no detail that is insignificant.

Yes, but I think you misunderstood me. I was interested that you might publish your plans for the lessons (not even the lessons themselves) before beginning, so other people could borrow ideas. But yes, eventuall publishing everything is great too, I just prefer to have 10% sooner than 100% much much later. This is just an opinion, you don't have to agree with me on this. Alleycat80 (talk) 13:51, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I misunderstood. But yes, by all means we will publish our plans for the lessons, in english, just give us the first days of September for this.--ManosHacker (talk) 14:04, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

• We will happily accept any additional help for doing this. Of course we will translate it, everyone should benifit.

What do you say, User:AWang (WMF)? it might be a good idea to speed translation (of the curriculum a and we t least) along. Alleycat80 (talk) 13:51, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

--ManosHacker (talk) 10:48, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the question Alleycat80. Generally, translation is done as a volunteer effort. We can provide guidance on how to push the materials out for translation in the most efficient way and can provide funds for printing once the translation work is finished, but the actual translation work should be done by volunteers. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 21:13, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Gotcha, Alex, thanks. Alleycat80 (talk) 05:04, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

And it will be done voluntarily. It is a simple task to translate the plan of the lessons, once it is ready.--ManosHacker (talk) 11:45, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

A link to an idea in Idealab

I though this idea very similar to one I had in mind, so I can only support it in order to check the results of this implementation. --Ilario (talk) 11:35, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Comments from FocalPoint

I find excellent the idea of Alleycat80, for the project to provide a curriculum in English (obviously and in Greek), so that this experience can be easily transferred to other Wikipedia schools in the world and to build on the knowledge that will be generated.

Another idea is to include as part of the cost of this project, a trip from a member of either Wikimedia Foundation or of the GAC, to visit the school. This will accomplish two goals:

1. Wikimedia or GAC will have a first hand experience of the school, to see people who will be eventually interested, to meet the people who run the premises and head of school / schoolteachers, but most importantly
2. to demonstrate to participants that this is really part of an international effort
3. Last, such an arrival will give the opportunity to call the press and generally publicize the work done, which is also important

--FocalPoint (talk) 08:24, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

Tony1 comments and questions

This is a situation where I'm unable to determine whether reviewing is ongoing—a most unsatisfactory thing. I'll assume this is ongoing.

Yes, re Polimerek's point above, numbers for "Measures of success" are most important. Your best guesses, please, even if they turn out to be wrong. What can you reasonably expect if things go well?

Reading through the application, I found it hard to know (1) who has been doing the training, and who will do the training if this is funded; and (2) the fundamental design of the sessions—How long? Broken into what shorter segements? Alternation/variety of activities? Focus on improving or creating articles? Focus on what specific skills? How will the adult vs schoolkid sessions differ? Will you supply URLs and hard-copy sources for exercises on using source material?

Bus shelter ads look very expensive for the generalised audience (a point Alex alludes to). Even temporary Facebook ads might be better then this—at least they'd be seen by online-oriented people. If you want prior review of the text of ads (even via google translate), please ask me.

Will the equipment infrastructure be used for non-WMF-related purposes, and who will own it in the longer term? Tony (talk) 04:06, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

• Target clearing: we are not after the number of articles nor we are in an urge to improve them during our classes, primarily. This will happen as a result of our education and pedagogical activities.
• We will educate 100 adults and 50 students through the school year. 20 of them all will remain active after one year. 450 articles will be produced. 3 more schools for adults will be created next year. Rough estimate.
• Wikipedia schools can work either osmotic or with 3 cycles of 2.5 month each. An osmotic school might be tiring and demanding for teachers, for adults it needs continius advertising (ie banner in Greek Wikipedia) and can potentially teach more people. Learning cycles homogenize the lessons and lose learners that cannot be replaced, but make most people feel safer. We begin with 3 learning cycles this year.
• Teaching students is a serious task. We have to be extremely careful because the lessons could be considered pedagoigic, as they have to learn how to deal with biting from old users or how to apply critique. We have to ask for permission even for our presence to be legal. We still have find out what we cannot do, not being the education staff of the school.
• Ttzavaras has been training students so far and ManosHacker has been teaching adults, under different roofs. Funded or not we will continiue this with the additional teaching help from Sotkil and with whatever equipment available. If more Wikipedia Schools pop up we will ask for human resources from the community, for teaching.
• Fractal training: Major things are teached to all, but we focus on the needs and skills of each participant. Plus that some exercises are not for all. The plan of the lessons will be given during September and will be revised on each of the next 2 learning cycles of the year. If asked, we can supply more detail on the special exercises.
• We care for all people to come close. Semi-computer-literate people have good potential. People were motivated and learned Facebook, having zero computer education.
• Classes will full up as they already had for other lessons for adults in the municipalities' programs, even without radio, bus stop or FB advertising. Wikipedia School just has to be announced and start in parallel with the other lessons so people choose it between the others in the forms. This was not done and we ended up doing our classes a little before summer all alone, hanging posters on the streets. We do have a presence and a result now and this should help us.
• Generalized audience ads are mostly like opening events for us, for people to know this is happening. (I still think the specific radio ad is a great idea for Wikipedia School in Athens, Greece and we might save it for next year, having the experience and resources to run perhaps 10-15 Wikipedia Shools.) If you wish for a stream of editors you have to turn on sensitivity of main stream consciousness. Least and maybe last, donations to keep Wikipedia up and running come from everyone and it might be better to know value is produced inside people of the society to decide to help it than an all alone message that asks help for the extension of Wikipedia being up and running for one more year. Cut bus stop ads in half but do not erase them.
• The equipment will be donated to the school. I have tried to lower the cost, see above. If you think it as a loss because it will be used for other school activities too, well, you have another way to solve equations for your things to make them work and please help us with your ideas. If it has to be put in a way, it extends reach of people to content, serving the WM mission towards its vision.

--ManosHacker (talk) 10:05, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

• Manos, thanks for your response. What I'm really trying to get is a sense of the structure of the cycles (by "circles", are you referring to groups of sessions that make a complete unit for a student?). It would help to know what you have in mind in terms of timing/duration, the variations of activities during a day, the amount of teacher-centred explanation, whether students will break into groups to work in teams for specific exercises, what kind of printed materials you'll use, and more than anything, what type of skills you hope they'll acquire. Being a Wikipedian can involve so many different skills—to name a few, copy-editing existing text, turning stubs into fuller articles, providing references to verify "facts", adding images, creating new articles—the list goes on.

  Will the proposed School be very different from the precursors, and if not, perhaps there are descriptions of curriculum, teaching materials, outcomes from those previous years?

  Concerning the question raised above of translating the curriculum for the proposed courses into English, may I suggest that this be considered as part of a one of our new sets of learning patterns—I don't see any that deal with this type of training experience, but we probably need to think of creating one. Tony (talk) 14:03, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

• Sorry for my english, I did mean cycles. There usually is a time frame for lessons, with a beginning and an end, after which the learner feels confident to engage all by himself with Wikipedia as an editor. This defines a cycle for the learner if it is also approved as one by the mentor. This time frame might be continius or not. It is similar to "groups of sessions that make a complete unit for a student". My personal opinion is that the most efficient way to cultivate people is to follow their learning pace and respect their interests and choices while we teach them. This seems like a dead end for people who have only experienced the normal education system that works as a line of production, where everyone must learn the same the others do, inside the same time frame. So we have given you a virtual estimate of a cycle to feel safe. But since you ask for more..
• What we have done so far is work in an osmotic way: people come, learn and go, and maybe come back for more. This is proven to have disadvantages: a) freedom of choice and summer vacations eliminate participation in lessons, b) measures of success cannot be estimated that easily, if not at all at the very beginning and c) it is harder for the teacher to track down what has been tought to everyone and be sure everyone has been tought everything he should know.
• In order to be productive we have to have written down everything that has to be (and can be) tought to the learners, as bullets, and tick how many times and when each one has heared them, by whom of the instructors, and of course check when someone has reached each learning point or lost it. There is almost no starting point (except the question "what is Wikipedia?") in this kind of lessons. It is more like a cloud that gets thicker on time and would probably form different shapes for everyone (might also remind a tree's network of branches and leaves in the end, giving ideas what each person's needs were, more than major things that should be referenced again and again). The catch here is that the teacher/mentor has to have self-order and the ability to focus while teaching, or he might prove incapable of teaching this way and he should better go linear, by the book and a series of lessons, not follow this "cheat sheet (for the teachers) teaching" technique.
• You need numbers and numbers are linear. So we have to estimate for you a learning period of someone watching 2 lessons per week, in order to learn as much as needed to feel confident to write an article by himself. This can be squeezed in a 2.5 month period and allow us to tell you we will teach 3 persons in every learning seat we have, during the year. This time period (2.5 months) could be a "first learning cycle" of a learner, but in reality it should be either more or less.
• We are 3 instructors to cover the lessons and the learners are not tought by the same person each time. Adults have to be able to follow the lessons 2 times per week, so we have to do lessons 3 times per week. Our technique provides an efficient way to track things down, despite the change of persons, and know what has been tought, how many times, to whom, by whom, when, and if and when learned or forgotten. One more day per week for lessons provides the additional time frame for learners who completed their "first learning cycle" to come back for advanced (or more advanced) sessions.
• Grouping of learners will occur on occasion and talk subject naturally, for plain (technical) lessons, and help us save time and effort.
• We would most probably need additional human resources for teaching. We should be able to cover this through the community tank.

What I have answered so far is what the plan is for plain lessons, before studying the link you give, which I will do asap. I also have to talk about special lessons. Please hold.--ManosHacker (talk) 20:48, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

... continiuing with special lessons

• A special way to teach is theatrical. People learn better when they have presence of mind, senses, emotion, and focus of fantasy on what we teach them. An extreme paradigm that could be considered a lesson is this presentation that took place last year, at Ttzavaras' school. The simplest paradigm of the success of such a teaching can be this: when you instruct that during an argue someone should take time and keep a distance for a while to see more clearly, you take a step back, physically, from where you stand. It is written down in more memory layers and the evaluation is more complete: those wathching you, see that when you take the step back, you can see more.
• People have to learn the balance between being objective and subjective chen they criticize, in order to get positive results. Critique and how to apply it or receive it (in good faith) is a special lesson and a very delicate one. It can only be tought with safety when bonds have been developed between the members of the learning group.
• People have to learn how to clear their emotions when they argue inside Wikipedia, while they are arguing, or we lose editors.
• People have to be bold, or we lose articles. Clearing your emotions and being bold at the same time is a difficult task to handle.

These lessons cannot be learned in front of a keyboard, with the eyes on the screen's text, frames and buttons. They are considered special.--ManosHacker (talk) 12:39, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Tony, your questions have been a real push forward, thank you. We do not know if Wikipedia School is any different from what has been done before, we feel and hope it is indeed something new. Its purpose is to spread and we will definitely produce papers. There are many parts that should be sets of learning patterns. Some are already proposed above. In the previous years our efforts were not coordinated, we did what we did mostly by heart and on occasion, except for Ttzavaras' school that will help us as a past reference. Now we put our new ideas to work. The recorded detail will let us make deep evaluations on human learning patterns. We will learn a lot ourselves.--ManosHacker (talk) 12:07, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

Concerns

In principle it might be a good investment per outcomes, although I can't tell. But our experience thus far is that these types of activities don't yield much in the way of long-term editors. I would feel much more positive if you had some stats from the precursor projects concerning editor retention (not to mention survey feedback from those doing the course).

You write above: "Major things are teached to all, but we focus on the needs and skills of each participant. Plus that some exercises are not for all."

• I'm uncomfortable with the lack of planned structure. I'd be expecting at least a draft curriculum, an idea of the kinds of exercises they'll do, the specific objectives of each stage, and how the outcomes will be determined.
• I'm still not clear about how you'll focus on individuals during a class situation; nor how the special requirements of teaching children will differ from those that are appropriate to adult learning patterns.

Manos is clearly a skilled and experienced trainer, so I'd be surprised if setting out more planning/curriculum details, including skill-acquisition goals at critical points—would be difficult for him. It would at least let us come to grips with the nature of the program, and would be very useful both for the program itself and the assessment of the report, if this is funded.

On "Measures of success:

• I'm not thrilled about "Number of people who start the lessons" – does it matter? Number who finish is getting closer; perhaps even proportion of those who start who also finish (that would show whether you need to filter people out before starting, for better allocation of resources).
• "Percent of participants who state (in questionaries at the end of the lessons) that learning to be a wikipedian inside the school changed them for the better as a person and/or in their lives" – I'm unsure why personal improvement is relevant: we want results for the WMF's sites and in terms of WMF and PEG priorities. Becoming a better person isn't part of either.
• How do you define "not stubs"?
• How will you define "exress their will to reproduce" the WS? If a clerk says "yeah", is that good enough?

"A decision of Ministry of Education that Wikipedia School can be a standard lesson inside "For Life Learning" education program for adults" – What exactly does that mean, and would it need to be in writing? And from what year? I think that to be a userful measure of success it needs to be spelled out so we know where the boundary lies between succeeded/failed.

• I'm not comfortable with what is effectively a donation of computer equipment to a school—this will be used for non-WMF purposes, too, right? Perhaps you and grantmaking staff might discuss how this could be framed as useful in terms of Criterion 8 for the PEG scheme.

Tony (talk) 07:52, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Hi Tony. You are asking for stats and stats do not exist because Wikipeda School is something new. There have been lessons for 3 years in Ttzavara's school only, but Ttzavaras did not follow the process we are building now and we can only use these stats as a reference to compare to. It is not decided yet if Ttzavaras is going to follow the new methodology in his school too or not, so that we have (or not) 2 ways of teaching at the same period to compare them. Ttzavaras can now devote full time on his school and results should be different from the past, so he might choose a different learning approach (from Kaisariani) there. You can find the stats in the answer to Polimerek (24 August). If you wish stats from past activities that were hold on occasion and only one of them was once every month for a year, the answer is very small, I think we only have 2 active editors that we know of.

Please go here to have a look and come in contact with the idea of Wikipedia School. You seem to be uncomfortable with the project because you do not understand yet that we are also going to learn from it. There is a planned structure but you do not see it perhaps because it is not square like you are used to. I can only hope that you will. We are about to get help from specialists during the year and you want us to tell you about the exercises from the beginning, only to tell us that this or that particular exercise will not produce articles. How would you know? How can someone not understand that we cannot have the same approach to children and adults? I say 10% of our editors who are going to be inactive for the next 2 years will remember their password or create a new account and find in Wikipedia a familiar way to get over their difficult personal situation and upraise their self-esteem. You can stick to numbers, we plan ahead.

Measures of success:

• We have had very low participation during the 3 months of teaching, this summer. This has been dissapointing and has to change. It is a measure of success. In another country or time period we might have to filter.
• Becoming a better and more effective person through Wikipedia School courses: in my way of thinking it connects in a million ways positively with Wikimedia Movement. I suppose for some people it only means editors are not (or do not feel like) bitten and do not bite other editors.
• A stub is an article that is (or could be) marked with the stub template. We should not measure these articles in our stats as a success.
• "Express their will to reproduce Wikipedia School in their own ground" mistake has been corrected.
• A decision form the Ministry of Education for Wikipedia School to be a standard lesson would occur after more than a few (3?) municipalities express their will to host Wikipedia School. We have to wait as much as needed to see how many of our editors remain active (like one or two years ahead).
• Yes, computer equipment will be used for teaching adult Wikipedia learners in addition to student Wikipedia learners, and the other students of the school. It will also be used next year for Wikipedia School lessons. And the year after. We do it for one school only, our base.--ManosHacker (talk) 20:56, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

I forgot to ask: will this be Visual Editor–based? That seems to be the default tab on the Greek WP. The kind of thing I'm after is, perhaps, one for kids/teenagers and one for adults. A table, perhaps, with Week number / Activities / Goals. Like, for adults:

• Week 1 / Introduction; go around the class asking for their main thematic interests/knowledge; onwiki anecdotes to familiarise, interest them; powerpoint demonstration of a few points of editing; try themselves in a narrow, structured exercise; where we'll take you in subsequent lessons / Students more familiar with wiki, each other, the course goals; their interests explored.
• Week 2 / Focus on Visual Editor, .... /
• Week 3 / Introduction to finding sources, paraphrasing/plagiarism; introduction to adding references; compare good and bad examples; individual exercises using photocopied "source" materials /
• Week 4 / 20-minute student competition in who can do the best job in improving their own (common) sandbox mock-up article by adding mising info from a photocopied source. ...

I'd really like some kind of sequence mapped out, expecting you to change it as you go—but a plan is necessary, I think. Tony (talk) 22:28, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

• We are using both the VisualEditor and WikiMarkupEditor. Most of the technical teaching is on WikiEditor and it is considered the base as the VE cannot be used in talk pages. We use Visualeditor mainly for clear text edits, as it is very very helping when someone tries to rephrase the content: achieving the neutrality touch, creating a better introduction, giving a finer definition etc is diffucult with references all around. Most people like it this way but it is always a matter of choice, after they know both. In special cases we might only teach the VE, what is easier for someone should not be neglected.
• Kids - Day 1 / We find students who i.e. have spark inside them but hide it, who "cannot be understood/appreciated by their teachers" etc, before even telling them by mouth that we are there for Wikipedia. This is a deep first contact evaluation that helps us group students and form targets in a few directions. Then we talk only a few things for Wikipedia, like if they know what it is, and stop. After that we put them to play fun physical or mental games, somehow related to Wikipedia. There are already bonds between students and we need to evaluate them and begin enhancing them. They have to develop teaming, spontaneous grouping (and ungrouping) and helping each other with things they know. Their bonds have to be enhanced also in order to be able to be taught (in groups) how to properly apply critique. It starts from day one. Then we show them Wikipedia and a few basic things like the article page, its history, the talk page, etc. Everyone might like to play but we have to see who is really interested in Wikipedia. -Those who are not as good at playing social games may be these who are going to write the most articles.- We have to balance and also select students with potential, not only will or a tend for addiction to interact with knowledge. Knowing that contributing can become an addiction, and because we have to do with students here, we have to be very responsible. All these and many many more are what is working in the back of our head, filtering our words and actions the first day and all days, and it is what defines and adapts the course of lessons. What we receive, processed, determines our next teaching steps. We will try to talk about neutrality, verifyability, no original research, and notability first, but we cannot guarantee it. We cannot even guarantee we will do what we described above, it all has to do with the particular people we come in contact with at the particular time.
• The plan is that we do not apply a geometric teaching plan. We would destroy learning and disrupt delicate balances. Someone cannot be happy with this answer because we make you feel insecure and it is obvious. Fractal learning techniques are more difficult to teach and to give a teacher who is unfamiliar with the concept, to understand. What we will provide is the DNA of our thinking and our techniques that we develop, adapt and adjust during the classes. The teacher is always a learner here and if he is not, he fails. If you see it as a risk for the project, then consider it one. We will try to draw a hierarchy model of learning points so our goals are more obvious, and put time values only where needed or can be put.

We have to design a leaflet for Wikipedia School as we are still not mentioned as part of the other lessons for adults. People do not get information at all that we exist, so they join all other classes except ours. They are not even told verbally. That design is what I was supposed to do today. Please consider our time. --ManosHacker (talk) 01:15, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Manos, thanks for your answer. Yep, I am a bit insecure about this one. It's a very psychological, subjective model for structuring a teaching approach. Over to Alex on that (she's on leave till next week). Tony (talk) 04:24, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

• We need a few days to complete the curriculum and the teaching tool. It is really a grounded one, no matter what things sound like, and as simple as it gets to follow (it just is not linear). Tony, thanks for your push, we feel for sure more responsible after your concerns.--ManosHacker (talk) 15:27, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

I can add that I have had the opportunity to hear Manos give a talk about Wikipedia, and can confirm that his approach is indeed unusual and psychological, but can also attest that his audience was spellbound! :) Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 17:49, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Comments from Kiril Simeonovski

Thanks for the submission. The planned activities in the whole educational programme seem very reasonable for me and I, generally, support this request. My only questions are the following:

1. Could you give us more details about the specific expenses that are included in the item for the closing ceremony? The amount of €1,476 probably includes different items, but in the next line I see there is a separate item for soft drinks and light snacks.
2. Could you introduce numerical information about all measures of success? I see that some of them have been already quantified in a good manner.

Best regards.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 08:16, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Kiril Simeonovski, thanks for your questions

1. These are the offers we had from hotels, for 2 hours presentation for 100 persons, with coffee & cookies break, and the last one is the all day event offer details. Of course we can change our closing event from what we chose. The ceremonies of each school are going to be hold in each municipality's or school's room. Here we are:
   • Athens Hilton Hotel: €700 for room, €700 for coffee break, €184.5 for projector, €24.6 for laptop sound cord, €18.45 for panel microphone, €24.6 for each podium microphone, €20 per person for internet
   • Divani Caravel Hotel: €800 for room, €850 for coffee break, microphones & projector screen included, projector not included
   • Titania Hotel: €200 for room, €400 for coffee break, €50 for projector, internet free for speed up to 2Mbps download
   • Technopolis for all day event (room is about 300m², charges for chairs, tables, projector, microphones, internet are included) has an original price of €2214 and we got a special offer for €1476 as volunteers. This price is still negotiable as the person in charge was on vacations at the time of the offer. We are allowed to bring our own soft drinks and cookies/cakes (but not sell them).
2. Despite the pendencies that occured from the questions above (everything plays a role) all measures of success have now numerical information.--ManosHacker (talk) 00:40, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

Great! Thank you.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 09:50, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

School is starting

School is starting in a few days. We prepare to start anyway with all means we have and hope for the best here for help.--ManosHacker (talk) 18:26, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

WMF Comments

Thank you for this proposal and your engagement with the GAC on the grant discussion. We are excited about the potential for this project and building the community in Greece. Here are our remaining comments/questions:

• As mentioned above, we are not supportive of general audience outreach or advertisement, such as the bus stop ads. Running a banner on the Greek Wikipedia is great and we encourage you to utilize more focused networks to reach potential participants, like university mailing lists, etc.
• We are unclear on the differences between the "presentation and ceremony events" and the "closing event". Why is there training on simple editing at the closing event (as mentioned above)?
• A draft curriculum would be useful, as discussed with Tony above.

We look forward to your response. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 20:15, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Apologies for not including one more comment above:

• Generally we are supportive of purchasing equipment if there is a clear plan for ownership by a Wikimedia affiliate organization. However, since the equipment will stay with the school, we expect a written agreement (not necessarily a formal contract) that demonstrates unilateral commitment by the school to provide a space for Wikimedia activities in exchange for the hardware for a reasonable number of years (3-5). Basically, want want assurance that if the principal (or whomever is the main supporter of the project) changes tomorrow, you (and other Wikimedians) will still have access to the space and hardware. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 02:27, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

I arrange for a meeting tomorrow. We cannot have a formal contract on this, such a commitment cannot be done typically. We can expect the principal to propose to the Ministry of Education a three year plan for Wikipedia School, and have written a recommendation for the use of the facilities and equipment to the next principal of 2nd Gymnasium, in case she is not there a year after. The key here would be Wikipedia School success, so that the Union of Teachers and Parents also backs us up.--ManosHacker (talk) 08:48, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Hi Alex Wang (WMF), thank you for your comments.

• It is now more clear to us that bus stop ads are out of the question. We remove it. A banner in Greek Wikipedia is more than enough for our present need for publicity. I am also close to finsh the leaflet of Wikipedia School. It will be handed out from the municipalities to the people who sign to participate in the free learning programs for adults, along with the leaflet that contains all the other programs together. We are about to have Wikipedia School for adults run in two municipalities, each with over 600 people trained during the last season, so we should have enough participation already. For students we do not have to go out there.
• "Presentation and Ceremony events" will be held in each municipality's or school's event rooms, where the work and feelings of the learnres for the whole year will be presented and celebrated and learners will be honoured. These events are open but considered local. The "closing event" will be a full day workshop in a big place open to everyone, the learners will be present to help and show other people their experience, and the press will be present.
• Here and here (or here translated in Greek) is what we already use as a base for the lessons and what we are building our teaching&learning database tool on. Our practice, for adults, is: Day one is the welcome, the core, creating an account and maybe a simple edit. Day two is editing and preparing for interaction with the community. From day three to the end of lessons we teach (and repeat) on demand and on occasion, and from time to time we interrupt and get group or everyone's attention to cover topics we know should be heared. The process is not linear, new learners may come to class and many forget what they are tought. Participants are encouraged to help each other. The goal is to build a symmetric learning leafage for everyone, having all topics covered more than once. Every topic speaked and heared will be recorded for instructors and learners. Each day there is a different instructor, so all schools are covered by 4 instructors, given the time each volunteer can offer. It is chaotic but ordered well. Special classes tought by ManosHacker, will be designed with the help and supervision of the Headmaster of 2nd Gymnasium of Kaisariani, and with help from experts. The curriculum, in a more ordered form, will be ready by the end of next week.

--ManosHacker (talk) 23:34, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Update on the use of equipment

1. Manos will own the equipment and as part of the project page on meta, will provide information on how others in the community can use the equipment (as appropriate). After school lessons are over for the summer, the hardware of the server will be kept outside the school and it will be available to the community.
2. Manos will work with the principal to sign a non-formal agreement regarding the use of the equipment and venue for this school year. If the project is a success and continues next year, agreements should be signed every year to provide security and continuity for the project.

--ManosHacker (talk) 09:20, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Update on equipment cost

On a recheck we did on the offer for the equipment we noticed that the price given was for different memory model than the one we had asked for. Specifications were altered significantly so we had to ask for more offers from many vendors to get a better price and cover the price of the more expensive memory. We get the best price by buying the server hardware partially from 4 different vendors. It will still cost another €53.36 more. Prices have been updated in the front page of the grant[2].--ManosHacker (talk) 22:38, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for the update. This budget increase is approved. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 22:40, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Update on budget usage

• From May 2014 to July 2014 we had poor internet connectivity in Kaisariani, the line was down half the time, so we planned for mobile internet as a backup plan. There was no problem from October till now so it seems we will not have to buy/use the mobile internet.
• Wikipedia School for adults has been running in Kaisariani only, so far. As we had planned to operate a second school for adults and only Kaisariani school (adults and students) has accepted printed material so far, it seems we will not have to spend the full budget and this might be true for the local ceremony events too. We will see how it goes.
• We have saved 200 euros (plus taxes) form the main event as we got a better price for hiring the room. We will use these money to hire laptops for the full day event in oder to have an all day Wikipedia lab open to the public during the celebration of May 12.
• We now build a new Wikipedia School in the center of Athens, which is more accessible to people than Kaisariani area. We have donations on chairs and desks and support from Protnet (wikipedian, adult educator, uses wikipedia as a teaching tool for his students, we build the proposal for Wikipedia School to the Ministry of Education[3][4] together) to build the computer lab. We might have expenses to truck the donated furniture to the new school, might be around 25-30 euros.

--ManosHacker (talk) 05:45, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Provided we had no response (because of the elections of WMF we suppose) for the memorabilia needed for the events, we decided to print wikipedia logo on 100 t-shirts as part of the printing expenses and expenses for the school ceremonies for the students, as gifts. The cost for the 100 t-shirts is 479,70 euros--ManosHacker (talk) 09:30, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Hi ManosHacker . Apologies for the delayed response. We would not have been able to send the merchandise in time for the event. It is fine to use the some of the underspent funds to print t-shirts. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 03:17, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Progress

We have printed the first leaflets and posters and proposed in Agora (Village Pump of Greek Wikipedia) to put the advertising banner for two weeks and call for participation, as the first school starts in a few days. After that, the banner would be used only a few days per month, for participation replacements or new school startups.--ManosHacker (talk) 18:39, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

We do have a positive decision for the banner, even though four people disagreed with it.--ManosHacker (talk) 21:20, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

The banner stayed up from Thursday till Monday. The message was with small letters and hesitating quotes were injected the first two days (first impression, Thu-Fri)[5]. It was corrected from another administrator (Sat-Mon) and removed from the first one on Tuesday morning (today, by his judgement). Bold have not been used yet. About 950000 pages of Greek Wikipedia are viewed per day. Banner was clicked about 280 times per day and had a rise above 300 on Monday (the last day left). Interest for watching the lessons came from exactly 1 person per day. Starting date of lessons was immediately (first day results) posponed for two weeks, community was informed of the statistics, and we were right, nothing changed on the statistics during the next days. We already use different promoting channels and will come back on the banner later on.--ManosHacker (talk) 08:51, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

• Grant money have arrived since Monday, October 6.
• We did get a better offer for the whole day closing event for the same facilities, as volunteers, two days ago. It is €1,230 in place of €1,476, we save €246.
• We have ordered the equipment and the licences for the server.
• We do have enough declarations for participation for our first school for adults (more than 20). Our experience is that less than half show up but we can only see for real when we start.
• School teachers and a principal are to attend our lessons.
• Lessons for adults in Kaisariani begin on October 20.
• We have had a meeting at the Ministry of Education for Wikipedia School to be included officially between the other lessons for adults. The meeting was about 20 minutes long and they were at all positive and willing to help our act. They asked us to provide the series of lessons in order to go on. This is serious as we want our specific prerequisites for teachers to be set and accepted.

--ManosHacker (talk) 08:06, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

• On Thursday morning (Oct 16, 11:45) there was a live interview national broadcast, 5 minutes long, for Wikipedia School (Ttzavaras, ManosHacker).[6]
• On Monday, Oct 20 (today), we started the school for adults in Kaisariani, with 19 participants. Most of the lesson was lecture and talk.
• Server and licenses are just in place, on Wednesday (our next lesson) all seats will be fully functional (still waiting for the cpu upgrade kit but we will manage with the lesser cpu for start, too).
• During this week schools are about to submit officially, to the Ministry of Education, their Wikipedia learning program for their students.

--ManosHacker (talk) 20:52, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

• It's been 6 weeks since the program started for adults in Kaisariani and 4 weeks since the beginning of the lessons for students of the 2nd Gymnasium of Kaisariani. For the students we can have lessons only once a week and it will be harder to teach them as fast as the adults, plus participation is not steady yet. For the adults it is about to be confirmed that the average learning period for someone to be ready to participate in Wikipedia on a strong basis is two months of lessons, two times per week. Ttzavaras has also started Wikipedia lessons for students of 24th Gymnasium of Athens, 3 weeks ago.
• There are people who did not need the full set of lessons to go on by their own, people who just came to see and stopped, and people who did not miss a lesson, three times per week. 15 people stayed on the lessons at the end of 1st week and the classrooom were 6-10 participants per lesson, up to now.
• The server has really helped the lessons, it works incredibly well for our project.
• We have used the meta sources for education but we had to follow the learning pace of the people, too. The curriculum was fluid and experimental as we could not have a schedule of when to properly inject the topics. There were times, in lessons, when participants just were not ready for a step. Also at the very beginning, the theory of the core discouraged some of them and we lost participants.
• After the first month, when participants had known each other better, we started the special exercises and tied them to Wikipedia. Still experimental, the curriculum will be filled properly by the end of December, even if we almost know now what works and what does not.
• By Christmas holidays the two month learning period for adults will have been filled and we have to have new blood come in. Wikipedia School will be supporting a number of activities (we have had a lot of meetings and presentations), teaching their participants how to properly engage with Wikipedia and Commons contributing. We will still have to call for participation using the banner of Greek Wikipedia once more.

--ManosHacker (talk) 17:51, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

• It's been several months since Wikipedia School has been running successfully.
• Between October and December period we did have a core of students that permitted us to do special training and develop teaching material.
• A subcore of those students came from a company that gave them work permit 2 times per week for 2 months to attend our classes in order to educate them.
• Winter was not ideal period for participation. Cold weather to move around the city, combined with long Greek holidays for Christmas and national elections in Greece gave us low participation till February. We did have the opportunity to hold more private lessons and some long distant lessons were held over the phone on weekends.
• 20 October - 15 December: 50 people
• 15 December - 27 February: 26 people
• 2 March - 11 March (now): 31 people
• Wikipedia School is an active supporter of a Wikipedia editing marathon for school students (http://www.25marcheditathon.gr) that is held under the aegis of Ministry of Education. (4 schools supported)
• Wikipedia School for school students might not have succeeded without the editing marathon as me and Ttzavaras could only come in touch with the students inside the schools once a week and interest was easily lost. What we could do by our own is very different from what Ttzavaras had been practicing during the previous years, being inside the school, always available to his students, giving them the live example of being an active editor.
• Some of the students of Wikipedia School for adults are active teachers of schools for students. Beginning with 25marcheditathon this year, they will be ready for having a regular class for Wikipedia during the next school year.
• Teaching material is being put together [7][8] or being developed[9] for use by everyone (in Greek, still). We will finalize it and hopefully make it an official national program for the education of adults in Greece, under the Ministry of Education.
• Volunteer4greece.gr had interest in including Wikipedia School action in their site and we agreed. As an outcome, kariera.gr (job searching site) did like it and copied their form to their site, so now there is a steady flow of people who are unemployed or seeking for more skills and qualifications who send us their will to learn how to be editors. Half our students now come from there.
• Using the local Wikipedia banner to advertise and collect participants for Wikipeda School, more women than men have declared interest, about 55%.
• From kariera.gr, for each 5 people who declare interest in participating, 4 are women. The difference is quite notable.
• March is a good month for Wikipedia School. We have great participation and are able to play learning games and talk on real subjects of discussions and events in Wikipedia.
• Many of those who declare interest would prefer Wikipedia School to be at the center of Athens. We try on this.
• Many people are interested in Webinars for Wikipedia, as it comes from the feedback.
• For every 1000 people who click the banner, 100 follow the link to Kaisariani Wikipedia School, 10 declare interest and one or two participate at least once in the lessons.
• Wikipedia School is for some time now a live example in lectures we give, trying to connect Wikipedia and Education. It is very inspiring, we will have to be a bit patient on the results.

--ManosHacker (talk) 07:11, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia Festival on May 12 in Athens

On May 12 Wikipedia School organizes a celebrating event for Wikipedia in Athens. Here is the page of the event in Greek Wikipedia. The event is honoured with participation from all spectrum of activities. We are going to need a welcome video message from WMF, maybe from Alex Wang (WMF). We will also need Wikipedia memorabilia like medal stars, pens/pencils/notebooks, globe buttons, stickers etc.--ManosHacker (talk) 02:18, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Aggregated feedback from the GAC

Key:

• 1 = very weak or no alignment
• 3 = weak alignment
• 5 = passable alignment; room for significant improvement
• 7 = reasonably good alignment
• 10 = excellent alignment

Scoring rubric	Score
(A) Impact potential Does it focus on one (not all) of Wikimedia's strategic priorities? Does it have potential for impact on Wikimedia projects through new or improved content? Can it be sustained, scaled, or adapted elsewhere after the grant ends?	8.7
(B) Measures of success Are there both quantitative and qualitative measures of success? Are they realistic? Can they be measured?	9
(C) Ability to execute Can the scope be accomplished in the proposed timeframe? Do the participants have the necessary skills/experience? Are there any external factors that may promote success?	8.3
(D) Budget quality Does the budget match the program scope? Is there strategic justification for material costs (printing, merchandise, etc.)? Does the budget reflect responsible growth for repeat grantees or a reasonable first investment for new grantees?	7
(E) Community engagement Does it have a specific target community and plan to engage it often? Does it have community support? Does it support diversity?	6
Comments from the GAC: The proposal represents a replicable model for creating engagement with new editors. Documenting and translating the materials developed and sharing them across the movement will be key in ensuring the project has wider impact. Appreciate the entrepreneurial spirit of its organizers. There is a risk of some technical difficulties, but these seem to be mitigated well. There needs to be a plan to ensure the equipment and venue is available to future students (not just for this academic year).