Wikipedia:WikiProject WikiAfrica Schools/Training and engagement

4 visits have been conducted with the African School for Excellence (South Africa). Engagement with the school includes the following:

Discussion with Headmaster, Berkia Banda: 26 April 2017

• Agreed on a letter of intent between the two organisations, and planned for the training during term 2. Then the programme was expected to begin in earnest in term 3.
• Berkia was especially excited about the options for a) outside of conventional history, b) African writers, and other subjects, and c) practicing translation into Zulu and other local languages.
• It was decided that the initial class to “test-drive” the project would be the Grade 10s, as they did not have huge exam stress looming at the end of the year, but were felt mature enough to work at this level. Both the teachers and the students were expected to feedback about what they wanted to work on.
• Berkia does not feel that the project should be tied to the curriculum, and wants the engagement to be both student and teacher led.
• He was given a demonstration of the WikiFundi and how it works.

Teacher introduction: 14 June 2017

• Introduction of the project to 23 excited teachers (the whole faculty) during an afternoon feedback session. There were a few icebreakers. They worked on the WikiFundi and explored several elements on the platform - especially the offline Wikipedia and the other sister projects. There was a lot of enthusiasm and ideas from the teachers.

The agenda:

• A display of m:WikiFundi

• resources
• using wikipedia; wikiquote; wikisource

• discussion of the following:

• subjects to be covered
• any possible cross-overs re: curriculums
• practical application, programme and resources
• next steps - who to tell, how to get the students involved, etc.

The group was split into 4. They were asked: “Can you see this as being practical? In what ways ..? How can it be applied, and what crossovers are there? They supplied their ideas about how they thought that the project could be applied by the school: Suggested subjects of focus:

• Literature
• Science
• Local history and people
• Sports people
• Change the ideas around plagiarism

Group 1

• read books / information for research.
• use wikinews as a template for a school magazine before being put up on their website
• use it to grade scholars work (by teachers and students)
• designing use for humanities subjects

Group 2

• For tool to use in history and as a final place for their journal (personal term projects due the end of each term)
• good journals could be transferred to Wikipedia
• work on putting up information from the neighbouring areas, suburbs and peoples.

Group 3

• can use by scholars journals - use it to publicize the exceptional ones, and get feedback
• use it for Kids to to do their SLIs - what they want to start as a business. showcase their skills, art, music, business
• use Wikipedia post their interviews in class

Group 4

• WikiFundi - help with research skills,
• ability to write a report and give appropriate feedback.
• Access to internet at home.
• research and write on the same tool.
• Science, literature, history
• isiZulu - do it in Grade 10 - work

• Email addresses were provided and the feedback survey was sent to all those who were at the meeting.
• WikiFundi stickers and some WIA swag (badges and stickers) were handed out at the meeting.

Teacher feedback survey: 19 June 2017

Of the 23 survey requests sent, only the 6 teachers involved in Grade 10 classes responded. This was mainly due to a feeling of responsibility and accountability as the school had decided to trial the project with the Grade 10 class - one teacher was from Grade 11 and another was part of the administration team.

Teacher training workshop: 26 June 2017 and afternoon of the 17th June 2017

Agenda and links: https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/WikiAfrica_Schools The teacher training was conducted with the grade 10 teachers.

Student workshop: 27 June 2017

A full day workshop was held with a selection of Grade 10 students. There are 75 Grade 10 students at ASE - split among 5 classes. It was decided that we would take three students from each class who would act as trainers. As you can see in the pictures, the kids were awesome!

The agenda and links are here: https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/WikiAfrica_Schools_Students

The morning session concentrated on working through the introduction to Wikipedia, to navigating WikiFundi, and introducing concepts that are associated with the Wikipedia World, including Creative Commons licencing.

The second half of the training was for the students to create the ASE article on the WikiFundi. All the kids registered on the box and decided what topics were important for the article. These topics were then divided into groups - the groups were created randomly. The kids went off and gathered the information - and then later spent time adding the text to the article on WikiFundi.

The African School for Excellence article has since been transferred to Wikipedia.

Kay Sibanda, a Grade 10 student took a whole load of photos with the school camera. Eugene Makulu arrived for the last 2 hours (there were transport problems for him from Soweto) and managed to take many amazing shots that captured the excitement of the children, how engaged and interested they were.

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