Grants:IdeaLab/New normal: Strengthening remote learning through Wikimedia-based projects/Report

Report accepted

This report for a Rapid Grant approved in FY 2020-21 has been reviewed and accepted by the Wikimedia Foundation.

• To read the approved grant submission describing the plan for this project, please visit Grants:IdeaLab/New normal: Strengthening remote learning through Wikimedia-based projects.
• You may still comment on this report on its discussion page, or visit the discussion page to read the discussion about this report.
• You are welcome to Email rapidgrants at wikimedia dot org at any time if you have questions or concerns about this report.

Goals

Did you meet your goals? Are you happy with how the project went?

Yes. The primary goal of this project is to equip teachers with the knowledge of free and open access teaching resources using the different Wikimedia projects and Philippine-based Wikipedia languages. This project have been a very great response to changes in the education set-up here in the Philippines. The transition from face-to-face classes to remote / distance learning have been difficult for teachers because of inadequate learning resources. Although there have been some changes in the flow and the result of the program, I am confident to say that this project went well and has serve its purpose for the Filipino community, especially in Bicol Region.

Outcome

Please report on your original project targets. Please be sure to review and provide metrics required for Rapid Grants.

Target outcome	Achieved outcome	Explanation
Four online webinars	4 online training, 1 in-person, 1 public presentation	Through this project I was able to conduct 4 online presentations, 1 in person discussion and 1 public presentation. Three of them were conducted within the closed social media group that was formed inline with this project, two were conducted as part of in-service training for teachers (1 online, 1 in-person) and one public presentation to promote the use of offline Wikipedia in the local community.
80 participants	197 participants	For the three closed group online presentations there were 53 online viewers for the 1st session, 31 viewers for the 2nd, 21 viewers for the third. For the in-service training for teachers, there were 40 Social Science teachers from the Division of Camarines Sur and 60 teachers from Division of Naga. For the public presentation introducing Wikipedia projects and offline Wikipedia, no definite record of attendees because I was not able to document the event.
Online Support Group	1 Facebook Group  ; 1 Facebook Page	Initially, the group was intended to be private and exclusive. Potential members only get invite from the group administrator to ensure the safety of other members especially that there are some cases of online bullying to individuals conducting events related to Wikimedia projects. However, as the days passed it seems that the target is hard to achieve using this strategy. In the later part of doing this project, I opted to create a Facebook Page to advertise upcoming events and to invite possible members. The group is still private but is now visible to the public. Currently, it has 63 members, and is still growing by the day. Updates on the campaigns and activities within the Movement is being shared both within the group and on the page. Contents of the private group includes mini tutorials like how to create user accounts, set-up offline Wikipedia, EduWiki lesson plans, etc.
1 Evaluation Report	1 Compilation of Evaluation Results	Evaluation forms are being disseminated for every online and offline presentations. However, the participants during in-person events seem to be more engaging to answer the forms compared to online participants.
75% evaluation report	33 out of 197	Only 33 evaluation reports out of 197 participants were returned with complete answers. There are only 12 responses to all the online presentations and 21 for the in-person events.
Photos and edits of participants	Unable to tracked	Teachers and education enthusiasts are very willing to learn about Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects and on how are they going to include this in their teaching. However, many of them are not yet ready to be a contributor. It is burdensome for them to actually create an account and make simple edits during the sessions. To further provide some additional metric on how to evaluate the impact of this project, I will use the pageviews statistics instead.

Learning

Projects do not always go according to plan. Sharing what you learned can help you and others plan similar projects in the future. Help the movement learn from your experience by answering the following questions:

• What worked well?

Webinars. The primary goal of this project to promote Wikimedia-based projects and Philippine Language Wikipedia to teachers was a successfully achieved. There is an overwhelming interest from teachers to learn more about Wikipedia and how can they effectively use it in the classroom. All of the topics and the expected number of webinars were also delivered successfully with active online audiences.

Online Promotion. There is also a significant raise in the number of views of the Bikol Sentral Wikipedia during the implementation of this project.

Live-Streaming. Even though the team only used the unlicensed version of the streaming platform, the live sessions were a success. Also, some of the teachers who failed to attend the scheduled lecture still learn from the recorded videos on the Facebook Closed Group.

Online Support. Through the social learning group, the team was able to provide online real-time support to teachers who want to use Wikipedia. Most of their queries involve Wikipedia's reliability, editing and account creation.

• What did not work so well?

Although the purpose of this project was achieved, there are also a lot of things that did not work well that could have resulted to a better outcome for this project.

Conflicts on Schedule. The initial planning for this project was adjusted several times that caused too much expenses in terms of computer rental and internet connectivity fees. First, this was moved to a later date because of the conflict with my contract and overlapping responsibilities with the Reading Wikipedia project. Then, with the series of typhoons that entered our country last November 2020, I needed to change some of the target participants and community because most of them will no longer able to join the program because of power outages in the province.

Evaluation Responses. There are very minimal returns on the post-training survey. Most of the teachers failed to respond to the post-training evaluation because of poor internet connectivity.

Post-training activities tracking. I failed to track the activities of the teachers with regards to their contribution to Wikipedia and other Wikiprojects. Almost all of the teachers included in the EduWiki Facebook Group does not have yet a Wikipedia Account. During this time, it is impossible for most of them to create an account both in English and Tagalog Wikipedia because of IP Blocked. The teachers from Bikol had difficulty understanding the terms used in the Bikol Wikipedia interface.

Similar FB Groups and Pages. In the Philippines there are a lot of similar pages and groups with regards to Wikimedia Projects and events. I don't know where this stems from and what the purpose is. For example, I recently found out that I am part of this group which was created on June 2016, and recently named as such. As far as I can remember this group was about Bikol language or about writing in Bikol (that's why I joined) and never about Wikipedia and Education in the Philippines. That's why I came up with this project in the very first place. However, during the start of this project, that group also started recruiting for the same purpose. I also noticed that the people administering this page are from a recognized UG, in which they also have their own group and page (as I can recall). I don't see the need of creating another one just for the purpose of introducing Wikipedia in the education sector. Also, recently, it again started recruiting Wikimedians from outside the Philippines. Maybe just to impose their legitimacy. I don't have a problem about them creating a lot of groups, I am more concerned about the teachers asking me about the legitimacy of the projects we are running. I hope we can have someone to check on this too. EduWiki Community Philippines only exists because of this rapid project grant , it is really up to the recommendations of the Community Resources Team if it will be deleted, or continue to support the teachers and schools already involved in this group.

• What would you do differently next time?

Data Connection. A big chunk of the budget was again spent on the data connectivity. In my previous project, I noted that I will be mindful of the expenses on the data. However, the project took longer than it should be, so as the expenses. I will do my best to find more effective ways to be able to spend less on this item next time.

IP Blocked. I think volunteers here in the Philippines need to do something about this issue because it limits the contributions of new volunteers. Most of the teachers were not able to create their account and was not able make contributions during the actual workshops online.

Survey Responses. The number of survey responses should be increased. Next time, if a project requires a response from the participants, I will make sure to include it on my lectures to inform them ahead of time.

Training materials & Skills. I think there is a need to improve the training materials I am using and add more skills especially in speaking in public to conduct projects like these effectively.

Activities

September

First Session: Creative Commons and Wikimedia-Based Projects as Open Education Resources

Participants: +40 teachers

Date: September 8-10, 2020

Topics included: Creative Commons, Wikiprojects with a more focus on Wikipedia and Wkimedia Commons, Philippine-language Wikipedia

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December

In-person: Open Access Learning Portals

Participants: Unknown (this is a public presentation)

Date: December 14, 2020

Topic: Community discussion on how to effectively distribute offline Wikipedia to schools and barangays

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  Presentation of Open Access Learning Portal - a version of Offline Wikipedia
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  Sherlock808 discussed the scope of users of Wikipedia
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  Open forum with Imelda Brazal

January

Second Session: Wikipedia and Wikimedia-Based Projects

Participants: 20 online participants, 53 online views

Date: January 30, 2021

Topics included: Wikipedia Wikiprojects with a more focus on Philippine-language Wikipedia and User Account Creation

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February

Third Session: Wikipedia in Education and Offline Wikipedia

Participants: 15 online participants, 31 online views

Date: February 6, 2021

Topics included: Using Wikipedia in Education, Offline Wikipedia, Brief overview of Reading Wikipedia in the Classroom

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  Caption1
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  Caption2

In-person: Using Wikipedia and Bridging the Gender Gap: In-Service training for Teachers in Philippines

Participants: 60 teachers

Date: February 17, 2021

Topics included: Wikipedia in global education, EduWiki Community (as a support group for teachers using Wikipedia), Brief overview of Reading Wikipedia in the Classroom, Philippine-language Wikipedia

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  Imelda Brazal discussing EduWiki Community PH to teachers
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  The participants

March

Fourth Session: Offline Wikipedia and Installation

Participants: 10 online participants, 21 online viewers

Date: March 22, 2021

Topics included: Wikipedia, Kiwix on desktop and mobile, Minor contributions to Wikipedia

Finances

Grant funds spent

Please describe how much grant money you spent for approved expenses, and tell us what you spent it on.

Detailed Expenses

September

Item	Amount	Quantity	Total	Description
PC Rental Rental Fee (1 week)	500.00	2	₱1,000.00	Rented units to work on the presentation for training for teachers
PLDT WIFI Top-Up 1999	1999.00	3	₱5,997.00	Data Allowance for 3 persons
Communication (Mobile Top-Up)	500.00	3	₱1,500.00	Communication allowance for 3 persons
Food / Drinks Expenses 1 Day	850.00	3	₱2,550.00	Food allowance of 3 persons for assistance offered during the in-service training for teachers

December

Item	Amount	Quantity	Total	Description
PC Rental Rental Fee (1 month)	1500.00	3	₱4,500.00	Three computer units rented in preparation for the upcoming webinars
PLDT WIFI Top-Up 1999	1999.00	3	₱5,997.00	Data Allowance for three persons (1 organizer, 2 volunteers)
Communication (Mobile Top-Up)	500.00	3	₱1,500.00	Communication allowance for three persons (1 organizer, 2 volunteers)
Food (In-person meeting (4 pax))	3395.00	1	₱3,395.00	In - person meeting for planning
Food (In-person meeting (3 pax))	₱2,850.00	1	₱2,850.00	In - person meeting for planning

January

Item	Amount	Quantity	Total	Description
PC Rental Rental Fee (1 month)	1500.00	3	₱4,500.00	Three computer units rented for the two scheduled webinars
PLDT WIFI Top-Up 1999	1999.00	3	₱5,997.00	Data Allowance for three persons (1 organizer, 2 volunteers)
Communication (Mobile Top-Up)	500.00	3	₱1,500.00	Communication allowance for three persons (1 organizer, 2 volunteers)
Food allowance (2nd session)	850.00	3	₱2,550.00	Food allowance of 3 persons for assistance offered during the webinar session
Food allowance (3rd session)	850.00	3	₱2,550.00	Food allowance of 3 persons for the planning of the third live webinar

February

Item	Amount	Quantity	Total	Description
PC Rental Rental Fee (1 month)	1500.00	3	₱4,500.00	Three computer units rented for the last two scheduled webinars
PLDT WIFI Top-Up 1999	1999.00	3	₱5,997.00	Data Allowance for three persons (1 organizer, 2 volunteers)
Communication (Mobile Top-Up)	500.00	3	₱1,500.00	Communication allowance for three persons (1 organizer, 2 volunteers)
Food allowance (3rd session)	850.00	3	₱2,550.00	Food allowance of 3 persons for assistance offered during the webinar session

March

Item	Amount	Quantity	Total	Description
PC Rental Rental Fee (1 month)	1500.00	2	₱3,000.00	Two computer units rented for Facebook Group Moderation
PLDT WIFI Top-Up 1999	1999.00	2	₱3,998.00	Data Allowance for three persons (1 organizer, 1 volunteer)
Communication (Mobile Top-Up)	500.00	3	₱1,000.00	Communication allowance for three persons (1 organizer, 1 volunteer)
Food allowance (4th session)	850.00	3	₱2,550.00	Food allowance of 3 persons for assistance offered during the webinar session

April

Item	Amount	Quantity	Total	Description
PC Rental Rental Fee (1 month)	1500.00	2	₱3,000.00	Two computer units rented for Facebook Group Moderation
PLDT WIFI Top-Up 1999	1999.00	2	₱3,998.00	Data Allowance for three persons (1 organizer, 1 volunteer)
Communication (Mobile Top-Up)	500.00	3	₱1,000.00	Communication allowance for three persons (1 organizer, 1 volunteer)
Giveaways	8,725.00	1	₱8,725.00	Ordered a personalized bags, keychains and decals for giveaways to teachers
Shipping expenses	250.00	18	₱4,500.00	Shipping expenses to 18 EduWiki Participants

Summary

Item	Amount Requested	Amount Spent	Difference	Description
PC Rental	₱18,000.00	₱20,500.00	-2,500.00	Rental fee of computer units for volunteers for a period of 5 months and 1 week
Data Connection	₱30,000.00	₱31,984.00	-1,984	Data allowance of volunteers while working for the project
Communication Expenses	₱9,000.00	₱8,000.00	1,000.00	Communication allowance of volunteers for collaboration and responding to participants concerns via mobile phones
Food / Drinks Expenses	₱12,000.00	₱18,995.00	-6,995.00	Food allowance of volunteers during the webinar sessions
Small Prizes	₱14,000.00	₱13,225.00	₱ 775.00	Cost and shipping of small prizes for the project participants
Contingency	₱10,000.00			Covered the expenses of other items that exceeded the amount requested
Total	₱ 93,000.00	₱ 92,704.00	₱296.00

Remaining funds

Do you have any remaining grant funds?

Remaining funds have been used or will be used for other approved mission-aligned activities. This use has been requested in writing and approved by WMF.

Yes. ₱296.00. I would like to use this fund to send the remaining bags and decals to the other participants of this project.

Anything else

Anything else you want to share about your project?