My experiments with Wikipedia Education Program: The Meeting of Life

Session two: Faculty

So, after receiving a bunch of positive responses from my previous blog post (check here), I freed my time to write the so-called sequel to my previous blog post.

As I previously mentioned, this post will share my experience with the faculty of SSPM College of Engineering with respect to Wikipedia Education Program.

The following day after my talk show, I was invited by the registrar of college to address the faculty and coordinators of college. The students shared positive feedbacks of WEP to their professors and after getting so many positive feedbacks, they were keen to know more about WEP, Open-Source and MediaWiki. In front of me, I had 8 coordinators, faculty of Department of Computer Science and the registrar of college. I started with Wikipedia Education Program. I explained them the benefits of the program and what students will gain if your college implements it. Some benefits included:

• Knowledge of students won't be limited to a sheet of paper.
• No more wastage of paper for assignments.
• They will learn to work collaboratively.
• Writing skills will be greatly enhanced.

Their reaction conveyed it all. They asked what can be the contribution of college towards its implementation. The question really made me happy. The college was interested in WEP. I elucidated the terms of program. Beginning from teaching the students the basics of Wiki editing, encouraging them to create their user page and help them with their first article. And ended it using the journals given by Vahid Masrour (WMF) at Wikimania 2016, to give them a better insight of WEP. And I must say, they were impressed. They agreed to implement it for the sake of better future of their students, and also for increasing the reputation of their college. WEP will be implemented but my mission wasn't over. After the thorough discussion on WEP, I introduced MediaWiki to them. Told them what it is, how it works etc. They were still quite unsure why I was talking about MediaWiki unless I introduced it as a part of Wikipedia Education Program. I stated,

"Even after 4 years of programming, the computer science graduates fail to get a job. The main reason behind this is lack of practical knowledge. If MediaWiki will be present in the syllabus, the students will be able to know more about Open-Source technologies, get themselves engaged with one of the best Open-Source communities, understand how big projects are undertaken, earn themselves a chance to crack GSoC and much more opportunities. The students fail to get involved in such activities on their own because they are already pre-occupied with assignments, college projects and other stuff. Lack of awareness is another major issue. Integrating MediaWiki in syllabus will provide every individual with the opportunity to contribute to Open-Source and they will do it at least for the marks and there will be no chance of cheating since no two students can complete the same task. And hence the chances of development on part of students will increase manifolds. MediaWiki can easily replace the weekly assignments that professors give to their students."

After listening to it, all the people were hit with curiosity since they never heard of any such program before. I also mentioned that their college will be the first one in India to implement it. After some time, the registrar of college said by himself that the college readily agrees to proposal and they wish to integrate MediaWiki in computer science syllabus and Wikipedia Education Program will be implemented uniformly. I congratulated them, but they thanked me for coming to their college and bringing revolutionary change in the education system. I gave them some additional tips such as:

• formation of FOSS club in the college,
• encouraging students to contribute to Open-Source,
• having regular workshops and meetings on Wikipedia and Open-Source and
• help the students to spread the message of free knowledge across the university.

The meeting was over. I experienced a moment of euphoria once again. I succeeded in my mission. After this, I had a small talk with the coordinators to help them get started with everything.

What's next?

I have been invited again in June to have a meeting with one of their trustee and help them with integrating WEP and MediaWiki from the new session as well. Thank you everyone who motivated and supported me all this while. It wouldn't have been possible without them. Looking forward to implement the program and spreading the message of free knowledge in different colleges across the country. Cheers!

My experiments with Wikipedia Education Program

Session one: Students

So, I just finished my talk show. To those who have no idea, I went to SSPM College of Engineering to present a session on Open-Source and Wikipedia Education Program. This blog post shares my experience for the same.

Expectations

Before going to present the session, I expected few things. I took them for granted. Some of them include:

• Students should already have an idea of Open-Source.
• Must have contributed to Wikipedia at least once.
• Students and faculty will be interested in Wikipedia Education Program.
• The idea of involving MediaWiki in WEP will be too difficult.
• The outcome of the program will be satisfactory since the college is in remote area.

These expectations were normal. I presented my previous WEP sessions at schools. This was my first time in a college. I had this fear, "What if I failed? What if the college didn't understand my concept? What if the faculty resisted to WEP?". These What if? questions occupied every part of my brain. What happened next was totally unexpected. Keep reading, sir/ma'am.

The content and audience

My session majorly involved Open-Source and its tools and Wikipedia Education Program. To look into more deeper insight, it involved:

• The dilemma of first year
• Open-Source, What and Why?
• Tools like Git, GitHub, Phabricator, Gerrit
• Programs like GSoC, GCI and Outreachy
• MediaWiki
• Wikipedia Education Program
• MediaWiki + Wikipedia Education Program
• Internships

The audience of my talk show involved a majority of first year students. I requested the college to do this. There is a specific reason behind this. The final year or 3rd year students, they will be leaving the college soon. The opportunities that first and second year students have, the former doesn't. After three years, when these first year students will be passing out, they will have more practical knowledge, more chances of placements, and a bright future ahead (only if they take the initiative). The audience had 60:40 (M:F) ratio.

The session

The session was very enjoyable, both for the students and me. I saw them in me and they saw me in them. We were of the same age, same course and first time I realised, "Before you present something, make sure you make the audience believe that you are worth listening." That happens when you don't give a lecture, but a friendly session, when you don't wear formals, act like their age, grab their attention and provide them the initiative to do something. Starting with Open-Source, I guided them through the basics of Open-Source, Git, GitHub, Phabricator, Gerrit etc. I made them familiar about the various programs like GSoC, GCI and Outreachy.

After Open-Source, I started with MediaWiki and basics of MediaWiki development. I explained them the structure of MediaWiki, what languages it consists of and how to submit their first patch. After MediaWiki, the session was followed by Wikipedia Education Program and Internships.

Initiative: A major issue

I asked a lot of questions in the session. Picked up random students to answer them. Some of them were so nervous that they could not even say a word on microphone. I would like to mention something here. The girls in the college were so reluctant to answer, ask questions or to take the initiative. The boys were comparatively more active and seemed more curious than the girls. This is one of the big reasons of gender gap in the community. The girls especially in the remote areas are less aware of the opportunities and they hesitate to take the initiative.

WEP and the students

WEP got huge success in college. The students realised, in all these years, they have been wasting their writing skills and the opportunity to share their knowledge with the world. I asked some of them during the session, "What do you think of integrating Wikipedia in your education?" Their reply was in favour of it. After the session was over, many of them approached me personally on how to get started with your first edit. I lead them through the basics of Wiki editing such as Wiki editor, Wiki markups etc. I suggested them to create account on Wikipedia, create your user page and create your first article (probably write about your school). With Wikipedia Education Program running in the college, I made them realise how their knowledge will expand and won't be limited to a sheet of paper. To students, it was totally new and they found WEP very interesting. They never thought that contributing to Wikipedia can ever get them not only marks but the knowledge as well.

And the main part...

Integrating MediaWiki with WEP

One of the main reasons, I came to college was to discuss my recent idea of integrating MediaWiki in Wikipedia Education Program (click here to know more). After making the students familiar with Open-Source, MediaWiki and Wikipedia Education Program, I discussed with the students, especially from the Computer Science department, what if solving simple tasks on Phabricator could earn you marks. This idea was proposed in result of a recent survey done by All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), where the survey stated that 60% of engineering graduates in India are unemployed and the Ministry of Human Resource Development is planning a major revamp of India's technical education. The article was published on Times of India, Indian Express, India Today and on many other sites. I asked the students, even after being one of the biggest names in the field of engineering, more than half of the population of engineers in India remain unemployed. The answer is obvious. Practical knowledge is missing. Despite scoring good marks in theory, they fail to implement these concepts practically.

I explained the students, how bringing MediaWiki in education will help them gain practical knowledge about their subject and at the same time they will learn some other essential skills as well. I explained using the following example:

"Suppose, you are given your weekly assignment to do 10 programs. One of the students in the class will copy them from the internet, and then the whole class will copy from that assignment. Yes, you gained 10 marks. But did you gain any knowledge? Did you implement the education and the concepts practically? No! Not only the students are at the fault, but the whole education system is. And what if we revamp it as:
You get your weekly assignment to solve 2 tasks marked as easy on Phabricator. Now, there is no chance the student can cheat. Every one will complete the tasks on their own. No two students can complete the same task and everyone will have the opportunity to learn practical knowledge. Yes, they can seek help from the community and this is essential as well. If the students start contributing from the second year, by the end of final year, they can easily crack GSoC. Not only this, the employment rate in the field of engineering will eventually grow."

After I finished it, I ended my session with a small talk on internships. To specifically mention, I received a lot of admiration for Wikipedia Education Program, especially for the MediaWiki part. The big applaud was a moment of euphoria for me. The feedback of the students (which you can check here) made me even happier.

So, this was my first session. My interaction with students came to an end. It was one of the best talk shows I ever gave.

What's next?

Wait for the second blog post in which I will write about my meeting with the faculty of SSPM College of Engineering and how things took a turn and dreams turned to reality. <3

Wikipedia Education Program: Crossing the line

Evolving WEP

Everything in the world requires evolution. Whether it's human being, technology, medicine, education etc. In my previous blog series on Wikipedia Education Program, I wrote on how Wikipedia can help in school education. I hope the readers liked it. If you remember the series, I wrote about creating articles, editing articles and probably everything that involved articles. On 14/02/2017, when most people were celebrating Valentine's Day (which involved me as well), I was brainstorming on WEP. I thought of me, my Google Code-In moments with Wikimedia Foundation, my first contribution, my first reverted edit, those endless hours to solve bugs on Phabricator etc. Yes, these moments were my Valentine. However, the word 'Phabricator' gave me intuition. To all who don't know about Phabricator, it is a bug tracker developed by Facebook. Wikimedia Foundation uses Phabricator to track the bugs found on all the Wikipedias powered by MediaWiki. (To read more about Phabricator, click here.)

Most of you might be wondering, what the heck I am talking about. This guy said he was brainstorming on WEP, but he is talking about bug tracker, phabricator, MediaWiki and these terms do not relate to WEP at all. Yes, this is the motto of today's article, "To include these words in WEP". With the increase in trend of contests like Google Code-In, Google Summer of Code, the students in open-source organisations are increasing. So, this is what came into my mind. What if we include MediaWiki in WEP? So, I brainstormed on this idea and came up with the few pointers which I would like to share with you:

• The course will be primarily focused for college students.
• It will be an optional course and students who wish to learn more about open-source and MediaWiki can take the course and gain themselves some extra credits.
• There will be some tasks in Phabricator specifically reserved for those students.
• This course will not only help students to gain credits but also improve their GitHub profile. Their knowledge in open-source development will increase which will be beneficial in future for their career.
• Their chances to win Google Summer of Code internship will be relatively high.
• The community will get new talented contributors.
• They will learn practical skills. Their practical approach to coding will be enhanced.

Why this needs to be done?

Most of the coders that become coders by theoretical approach realise the need of practical aspect of coding when they start to code for an organisation or when they code for a big project. I agree theoretical aspect is must in coding. You should have in-depth knowledge of language you code in. But with the theoretical aspect, practical approach is must. The best way to start practical aspect of coding is to start contributing to open-source. When you code for open-source, you get to

• code for an organisation,
• code for a big project,
• most importantly, become a real coder.

With MediaWiki in the course, the students will gain so much experience in open-source development and coding in a collaborative environment.

Why I chose to integrate MediaWiki in WEP instead of a hackathon?

Hackathons are a great way to introduce coders to open-source world. But very few of them stay associated with the community after the completion of hackathon. The main reason behind this is their course syllabus which is too large and therefore the time management becomes a major obstacle to their development. That is why I chose to integrate it as a part of Wikipedia Education Program.

So many queries can arise on this issue. Even I have a couple of them. Let us discuss on this issue. Do leave your queries below. I would love to answer them. Thanks a lot for reading this article. See you again!

Change in Modern Schooling Education with Wikipedia: Part Three

In my previous article in this series, I explained in detail on how Wikipedia can work in school education. (Have no idea about what am I talking about? Please click here and then here.)

This is the last article in the series, and I expect myself to:

• explain the benefits of editing Wikipedia
• guide you on starting Wikipedia Education Program in your school
• clear all the doubts that arose in your mind.

However, if I fail to do so, please do not hesitate to leave your query in the comments section below.

Benefits of editing Wikipedia

(Don't expect me to elaborate them unless you specify a particular point in the comments.)

• Enhances reading skills and information evaluation strategies.
• Helps in gaining digital literacy.
• Improves interdisciplinary thinking.
• Helps in improving learning, study and writing skills.
• Students learn how to work collaboratively.
• Wikipedia helps in getting you involved with active communities all around the globe.
• And the biggest of all, you become Wikipedian.

There are few advantages that I skipped intentionally. Read my first two articles and you will get them. Consider it as a treasure hunt game with no reward.

Starting Wikipedia Education Program in your school

(You can be a Wikipedia Education Program leader, yes you can!)

Suppose you are someone who wish for a change in the society. How many times did it happen that whenever you try to initiate a change, you fail. You fail because of the stereotypes prevailing in the society. You fail because people resist change. I am telling you this, because I have been through this. When I started the WEP in the schools, I faced so many challenges. Very few faculty members were in favour. You have to not only convince them, but also teach them every basic of Wikipedia. But, that's how this works. So, to be a Wikipedia Education Leader, you have to keep these things in mind:
(A Wikipedia Education Leader has pre-requisite knowledge of Wikipedia editing, so make sure you have it before you start any kind of this program).

• Convince teachers and parents, because students will do as directed.
• Keep in mind the motive, i.e, "FREE KNOWLEDGE" and share it among everyone.
• Familiarize yourself with bots and gadgets such as WikiComment, Program and Events Dashboard, CopyPatrol etc.
• Last and the most important of all, never give up.

F.A.Q

Q1. Can I solve math problems on Wikipedia?

ANS. To be precise, you are not allowed to solve questions on Wikipedia. That's against the rules. However, you can contribute to Wikiversity, a sister project of Wikimedia, if you want to contribute more towards academics.

Q2. What is the difference between Wikipedia and Wikimedia?

ANS. Wikimedia Foundation is an organisation, and Wikipedia is it's project. Just like Wikipedia, we have Wikiversity, Wikisource etc. You can check the whole list of Wikimedia sister projects here.

Q3. How can I stay in touch with Wikipedia related news and other Wikipedians?

ANS. You can join the Wikipedia IRC channel. Just go to Freenode and under the Channels field, type #wikipedia. You can drop your query there, but please sound professional and keep patience. You can also join the Wikipedia mailing list and stay updated on Wikipedia related news.

Q4. I have started WEP. How can I tell other WEP leaders and seek advice?

ANS. Just like Wikipedia mailing list, we have Wikipedia Education mailing list as well. You can join the mailing list here. Here, you may wish to share the month's update, some new idea, or any problem that you are facing. The leaders all around the globe will be happy to serve you. :)

So, here it ends. If you thought that the article ended, you are wrong. This article will be continued and updated every time a new question arises. And it's you (the reader, and the future WEP leader) who can keep this article alive.

I bid adieu to this series from my side. Thank you for spending your precious time on this article series. See you soon with the next series. Till then, brainstorm and implement the WEP in schools. Don't sit idle. The article is over, go now. Good luck!

Change in Modern Schooling Education with Wikipedia: Part Two

In my previous article, I (hopefully) made the readers believe that there is a need of change in the modern education that is provided in schools across the globe. If you haven't already read that yet, and landed on this blog post by mistake, please do read that first. Link for the same: Previous blog post in this series .

While writing this blog post, I promised myself to stay to the point, but if I don't or make you think out-of-the-box, forgive me already because I am going to do that. Never mind, but in this post, I will tell you exactly how Wikipedia works in school education.

Suppose, you are a teacher. You are not just any teacher, you are a teacher to whom Prince EA mentioned,

"You are a great teacher who can reach the heart of a kid and allow him to truly live."

You want to change this 150-year old education system. You want to introduce something new, something that will allow the students to showcase their skills. Congrats! You just got Wikipedia for your students. Say goodbye to pens, papers and ink and say hello to electronic media and Wikipedia. Enough of sayings, let's see some action:

1. Prepare an assignment

You may ask your students to create an article, or expand an existing article, or add media to an existing article. You can also give them assignments related to translation, copyediting etc.

2. Choosing an article

After preparing the assignment, students must choose the article they wish to work on. Look for articles that are rated as "start" or "stub" since they can be a good start to encourage the students to edit Wikipedia.

Things that should be kept in mind while choosing an article

• Always look for an article that is weakly represented in Wikipedia and can be expanded easily.
• While creating a new article, always search for its existence. Often, you may encounter that the article with same/similar name and content already exists.
• Don't edit articles which are highly controversial or rated as "High Quality" on Wikipedia. Your edit might be reverted. (Trust me, it hurts when your edit is reverted, it really does.)
• While choosing the title for your article, always keep it short and informative. Do not make it look like an essay. For example, "Effect of Inflation in the Economic condition of India", will certainly be wrong in encyclopedic point of view.

3. Teach Wiki basics to students

With good writing skills, students must have basic knowledge of Wiki markup. They must learn how to create links, references, adding edit summary, adding media, creating different level of headings etc. Along with markup, students must learn about licensing, how licensing works in Wikipedia, especially in Commons while uploading any media. Students should be encouraged to upload their own content to Commons.

Read till here? Really? Don't forget you are reading them as a teacher. Because you are the one who can initiate a change. Nevertheless, keep reading!

4. Collaboration and interaction

First rule of Wikipedia, there is no such thing as "Competition", we believe in collaboration. Students must realise that no editor competes with other. They work collaboratively. Students should learn how to interact with others as well. Every article has its own talk page where editors discuss about that article. Just like any other community, Wikipedia has its own etiquette. Here are some guidelines that might help the students to get along with fellow Wikipedians:

• Be polite, try to understand them. Discuss and negotiate.
• Always sign your posts on talk pages or wherever you comment by using (~~~~).
• Never discuss anything that is not related to article on talk pages.

5. Assessing student's work

As a teacher, you have to grade the student's article. You have to tell him/her, where he/she is wrong or where he/she wrote great. Thanks to the awesome tools such as WikiComment and Program and Events Dashboard which can help you achieve that. Go through these tools and learn how to use them.

So, this is where I put this blog post to halt. I know there are so many questions unanswered, I haven't even explained you the benefits of editing Wikipedia (which I suppose you should know by now, but as a blogger it's my duty to enlighten you with them). I will soon come up with the third and final blog post in this series.

If you found this article even a little bit interesting, I have something for you. It's a PDF by Wikipedia Education Program to help you in detail on how to get started. The link to the same: Wikipedia as a Teaching Tool.

Change in Modern Schooling Education with Wikipedia

Anyone who has used the internet must know about Wikipedia. We all have been using it since childhood. Wikipedia has helped us in our school projects, college reports, or whenever we wanted to know about any other random topic. In this article, I am not going to tell how Wikipedia can help in schooling education, because firstly I want to make the readers believe in my motto, in Wikipedia's motto, and also make them feel that there is a need for change in education that is currently bestowed in schools. We educate ourselves to gain knowledge in any field of study. So, in a simpler context, education is about imparting knowledge. If you all agree to the previous statement, then you must agree that Wikipedia has something to do with Education. Yes! Wikipedia has been into education officially for more than six years. Now, you must be thinking Wikipedia is all about writing articles, how can it help in school education? Well, I would suggest you to keep reading and keep patience. :)

NEED OF WIKIPEDIA IN SCHOOL

I just passed my 10+2. I know how much I relate myself to school education. I have experienced it for 12 years. Let me take you back to your schooling days, or if you are studying in school, that's great. In school, while writing a stupid article, or a 1-2 page long answer, the first thing that always struck my mind was, "Why the heck are they making me write this? No matter how much good I write, it will never be read by anyone except my teacher, and even the teacher is not interested." What happened 150 years ago in Education, the same procedure is still followed. While the world has evolved into the 21st century, the education still being of the 19th century. 

The school education can be described as in:

But, what if we modify it as follows:

An absolute and significant change in the pre-existing procedure, right? If you are a student or if you have suffered from the same, you will readily agree to this. I am putting this to halt. I wish to know what you think of change in modern schooling education. In the next article, I will explain in detail how Wikipedia can be used as a tool for education. Till then, brainstorm on this idea and let me know your views in comments.

Wikimania 2016

Wikimania 2016, the event that marked the beginning of a new era in my life. To all those who are not aware, Wikimania is an annual event where all Wikimedians across the globe meet each other. This blog post is nothing but a memory to be shared. 

I came in interaction with Wikimedia during Google Code-In 2015. I worked for the foundation and completed various tasks. Meanwhile, I came to know about Wikimania, and applied for scholarship. 

The day I received the E-Mail that I am one of the scholarship recipients for Wikimania 2016, my reaction was similar to this:

I was so overwhelmed and cried out in joy. I was so happy, because I haven't even completed my high school yet, and I got the opportunity to attend Wikimania. I had my exam the next day, but I was so pre-occupied with the excitement, that I could not concentrate. :P Well, I'd like to share the immortal memories I captured at Wikimania 2016.
Before going to Wikimania, I had some things in my mind and I vowed to myself that I will fulfil it.

• Learn everything, even if you know it. 
• Meet other Wikimedians and listen to their stories and how they came in interact with Wikimedia. 
• Discussions with Wikipedia Education Program leaders and how it can be implemented in high schools.
• Learn to make your own MediaWiki extension/skin.
• Migrating the pages in translate extension.

On June 21, 2016, along with some other Indic Wikimedians, I arrived at Esino Lario. The next two days were the learning days (pre-conference). I attended both the sessions at the collaborative space.

Me with Vahid Masrour during learning days. License: CC BY-SA 4.0

Clicked by Ezarate. License: CC BY-SA 4.0

It was really helpful for me. I learnt the use of Phabricator, though I knew it already, but I always created a very bad bug report, which was then rectified. The next thing I learnt during pre-conference days was IdeaLab. IdeaLab motivated me a lot. No matter how big or small the idea is, IdeaLab can really turn the idea into reality. Along with Reem Al-Kashif and few others, we even posted an idea to IdeaLab.
Wikipedia Education Program was something I wanted to know everything about. I have always believed that,

"High School is the most important phase of one's life". 

And introducing the high school students to Wikipedia is one of the great ideas to grow the community. Since, I already did some campaigns in my school, I knew there's a lot of work to do. So, I attended as many sessions as I could on Wikipedia Education Program.
Belonging from a coder background is full of fantasy, and I experienced it at Wikimania. I was attending a session on SVG, and a really talented guy who built the Parliament Diagram Tool, showed us the tool. And me being an immense tester, and error-handler geek, found a bug in the tool while using it. I showed the bug to him and he asked me to add it under the "Issues" on GitHub. I did it, and he fixed it in a couple of hours. MediaWiki drove me towards PHP. And I have always wondered how people created tools and extension or the skins for the MediaWiki. However, with some research and people like Rohit and Tony, I got to know about Google Summer of Code, and they told me to participate in it next year.

I always wanted to learn Python and I got the opportunity at Wikimania when I attended a session on how can we develop SVG's using Python. The beauty of Python is amazing.

At the last day of conference, I was doomed with happiness and sadness. Happiness because I made so many friends, fulfilled my mission, and learnt so much. Sadness because, I was leaving the family behind, the beauty of Esino Lario, and the moments I wanted to live every day.

Thank you WMF for providing me with the trip of my life.