Grants talk:IdeaLab/Wikipedia School (Athens, Greece)

This is not just an idea, it has been working already. If this funding can help the person who teaches in the lab to be more productive, it is worth supporting. I will try my best to support it from this page with ideas:

• Make part of the project the promotion of the Wikipedia school. It is necessary to attract people and also to publicize the results.
  • put up posters for local promotion (some money needed, small amount, but put it in)
  • send information to sites / newspapers / blogs who can promote the idea
  • set up a Facebook page
  • organize interviews - even TV maybe interested, especially local channels
• Incorporate to the project advice / training for others who want to make Wikipedia schools in their schools or municipalities

These are some ideas to start. --FocalPoint (talk) 18:27, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

It has been working because participation is low and we can borrow a pc with windows 7 for the edits, for now. The vision is indeed a number of Wikipedia Schools, not one (two when we count Ttzavaras' school), but we have to make this one work on September. It is our base, as it accepts to host us for adult training too, after school hours. I do not wish to develop an idea that will take valuable time to conclude. Of course it would help if I did not have to pay for the posters myself. Any good and on time move from our side will also earn priority for us in using the school facilities the right hours for two years and not let being pushed aside from others interested.--ManosHacker (talk) 00:01, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Interesting idea. Could you add on the idea page some information and links to describe the results of the current work? Are you collecting usernames for evaluation purposes? Do you have a draft budget in mind? Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 17:53, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

• The results have been put on the main page. We do have a presense and we try to build on it. September is a key month although summer lessons will continiue until the end of July.
• In the project page, active usernames can be seen along with their major contribution. Some people come to lesson 1 or 2 times, experiment a bit, but do not create an account during the lab. I will contact them to have feedback on how and if they are already engaged as editors, in case the only thing they needed was the first push to it. Active users are fully evaluated.
• A budget, for Wikipedia School in Kaisariani, contains: (VAT included)

1. Hardware and OS to work on (mandatory):
   • 2.207,16 € for server hardware
   • 214,97 € for Multipoint Server OS
   • 795,07 € for 20 terminal client licenses
2. Optional (to be changed in time or as they break down)
   • Screens trembling, flashing (1 flat square screen 19" = 65,55€)
   • Thin clients to replace old PCs (1 thin client with remoteFX = 55,64€)
   • Mice that click spontaneously (1 usb mouse = 2,80 €)
   • Usb keyboards for thin clients (1 usb keyboard = 2,94€)
3. Posters and other printed material: 20 € / month
4. Human time resources (voluntary, free):
   • 6 hours/week ManosHacker (but only 4 hours during working hours), lives in Kaisariani
   • 4 hours/week Sotkil, lives in Kaisariani
   • 4-12 hours/week Ttzavaras, lives some km away from Kaisariani

• A budget for more Wikipedia Schools cannot be estimated right now. We have to try to find schools that are willing to provide their facilities for free and already have a computer lab in decent condition, if we are also interested in teaching school teachers and adults there too (as we do in Kaisariani). We have to find more volunteer wikipedians that match criteria to participate (i.e. behavioral). There might be expenses for transportation, it all depends on human resource availabiity. We might have to consider promotion expenses, like interviews, media presence or advertising, too. It could scale up (but with humbleness).

--ManosHacker (talk) 09:12, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

I completed the amount of hours per week above. Given that I'm retired from School I can spend from four to ten hours per week to help the project. I live about 5 km from Kessariani and I can use my car to go there (it's enough for me to have a parking place, nothing more!). Fyi, my (ex-my, sniff...) School will continue to have the Wikipedia project, as done since three years and I'll support it as an external partner. For my participation consider no expenses please. --Ttzavaras (talk) 20:16, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

I support this excellent idea. I can offer up to 4, maybe 6, hours per week. I live near the school and I already have experience doing wipipedia presentations and lessons. Sotkil (talk) 07:48, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

I noticed that there is a sum of 795,07 € for 20 terminal client licenses. Are these licenses for proprietary software? Please clarify. --Γλαύκος (talk) 08:17, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Turning this idea into a grant proposal

Hi ManosHacker, thanks for starting this idea! If funding is needed for this idea, I can see potential for funding your project via 2 different grant programs (Project & Event Grants and Individual Engagement Grants). To help us see which program might be able to help best, I have a few questions for you:

• When would you need the funds for this project to begin? (September? January?)
• Would 6 months of funding to help you setup a Wikipedia Schools framework be useful, or would you really need to know you had 1 or 2 years of funding in order to start this project?
• From the budget ideas you've posted above, I think I understand that you expect you and others involved would donate their time to the project. Would anyone working on the project need a stipend or other payment in order to help them devote enough time to make the project a success?

Looking forward to seeing this idea develop! Cheers, Siko (WMF) (talk) 23:40, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Hello! Before ManosHacker responds, I would like to clarify that, as I stated above, I have NO need for stipend or any form of payment in order to get involved to the project. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to make myself clear. --Ttzavaras (talk) 11:36, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

Hi Siko (WMF), I am glad you like the idea. I personally already have an opinion but it will be better to have a meeting here in Athens on this, along with the other wikipedians that support the project, before we can give you an answer. We will meet on Sunday, so you will have your answer pretty soon. Thank you for your response. Regards, --ManosHacker (talk) 20:20, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

Ok, sounds good! We're in no rush, just here to help - hope your meeting goes well :) Siko (WMF) (talk) 20:51, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

Hi all. Lessons are officially over for this summer Wikipedia School and we have come to our decision for the project. We will begin on September and the project will be run for a full school year (9 months). We are going to teach three times per week for adults and 2 times per week for school students, in Kaisariani. In September we will advertise Wikipedia School and try to clone it in one more municipality. Zografou Municipality are interested in the afternoon lessons for adults (difficulty is that the new mayor will take over at that time) and it seems that we can cover this with lessons twice a week. In June we will present the results to the public, with open events.

We are still collecting offers for the events and for advertising. The budget is still a draft because of this and we hope this is not a problem yet. In any case we need the equipment for 2nd Gymnasium of Kaisariani (Zografou computer lab is fine). We will use advertising for 2 weeks in September in 3 bus stops (one or two in the center of Athens) and in some radio stations. We will need to print material for smaller posters and for teaching purposes. We will also need Wikipedia material gifts (pens, antistress squeeze foam wikipedia puzzle balls -anaglyph or printed, 3 colours- if available, etc). We might have to re-advertise in the middle of the project, it will depend on participation. Finally we will organize three open events to present our results, call people for participation in the next season and make more municipalities engage on this.

We will be back with numbers pretty soon.ManosHacker (talk) 08:40, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Hi Siko (WMF) and all, we can finally talk with bullets and numbers:

• The project begins on September, and funds (not all) are needed at that time.
• Server for Wikipedia School in Kaisariani: 3217,2 € (provides us 20 learning seats, we will use old equipment as thin clients on it)
• Advertising - Radio Broadcast for three weeks period on September: 10 spots (30 seconds/spot) x 180€ each = 1800€ in the most heared radio station in Athens, during the broadcast of no 1 newspaperman of the station. Target is not only people, but also newsmen and politicians.
• Advertising - Bus Stop Big Posters for 2 weeks, in September: Two in the Center of Athens = 2 x 356,7€, one in Kaisariani = 233€ and one in Zografou = 233€ (hopefully). Total: 1179,4€
• Printed material (presentation posters, monthly ad. posters, cheat sheets, wikipedia leaflets, attendance registers, questionaries, certificates etc) 650€
• Wikipedia School presentation events at the end of school year: 3 events - 2100€. One event will be a whole day event in June, with workshop for a whole day, open to the public, and the presentation will be held in the afternoon.
• Accountant services = 184,5€

VAT (23%) is included, for all above.

• Human resources for teaching: A teaching hour costs 40€ before tax. In order for the project to be volunteer in basis, whoever is willing to participate has to donate at least 3 hours of teaching per week. In a volunteer project, someone who gets paid should also charge less, for example half the price. If volunteers are not enough for lessons, each hour beyond a person's declared donation time per week, should be charged 25€ (VAT included).

• Program and body of lessons, evaluation of lessons, students, teachers and school, design of posters, design of presentations, designing, directing, performing and recording of the radio spot, meetings with people interested in hosting/promoting wikipedia schools are also resource consuming, especially because they all are delicately targeted. Setting up the new server will be done by us. All these are donated and we consider them as pieces of art in our approach. Hanging posters once a month on the streets is also a give to the project. There was a series of "unnumbered" visits at the Municipality of Kaisariani for more than two years in order to start the School.

• Schools open their arms to us when we help them. There is more than what meets the eye on this. One thing is teaching our lessons after school hours, under the Municipality's umbrella, and another is teaching wikipedia to students inside schools. We have been helping our first school's computer lab with donations of computers, screens, networking stuff, formatting pcs, building pcs from computer parts, setting security, network, backup practices etc. It did cost a lot of time and effort, easily comparable to the time spent for teaching Wikipedia lessons. Headmasters of schools really appreciate our help and we are planning on extending our helping hand to nearby schools, for free.

We can be more specific presenting all data from the offers and how and why we choose this or that. But let's stop here for now, the idea is what you see above. We chose not to advertise in the middle of the school year (at the beginning of the new calendar year) and only use press releases then. If more Wikipedia Schools pop up, we will adjust.--ManosHacker (talk) 01:52, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for sharing this updated info. I'm paging Alex Wang. Since it seems like you'll be looking for largely reimbursements for expenses for events starting in September, I think a Project and Events Grant might be the best fit for funding. Alex, can you please have a closer look and advise ManosHacker and team? Cheers! Siko (WMF) (talk) 09:40, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Hi again. It's been a few days and Alex Wang has not responded yet. Should we go to Project and Events Grant and start a page there, first? Is Grants:PEG/Wikipedia School in Athens, Greece a proper title to begin with?--ManosHacker (talk) 13:37, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

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)