This post is a long-winded account of why my initial disdain for Wikipedia has transformed into an enthusiastic endorsement. As you can see in the lower left column, I’ve added a “Donate to Wikipedia” button and encourage you to click on it. So why the change? Here’s the short answer: earlier this year my son helped install a computer lab at Ngaini Secondary School in Nyeri Town which is two hours north of Nairobi. The people of that town have a deep desire to learn, and Wikipedia provides a model for information-sharing which is easily accessible, and always current (a far cry from the cast off text books that students in East Africa usually have to rely on).
While I’ve always agreed that rights-based intellectual property regimes interfere with the natural dissemination of language, culture and knowledge, I’ve also looked to its antidotes, like the wiki model, as “race to the bottom” proposition. My contradictory responses are probably the consequence of a cloistered post-secondary education and a bias which favours the standards of the formal academy. I have to confess a lingering disdain for citations that reference Wikipedia because, in common with most academics, I have difficulty setting aside earlier perceptions of Wikipedia as a forum for quacks and axe-grinders. However, Wikipedia’s staff has gradually weeded out unreliable entries, posts warnings when entries lack external citations, and closes controversial entries that are susceptible to partisan flip-flop wars. In addition, its staff encourages a wiki culture that frowns on self-aggrandizing entries, and its founder, Jimmy Wales, has transfered Wikipedia to a not-for-profit foundation to ensure that it maintains neutrality, universal accessibility, and remains free of advertising. Notwithstanding Wikipedia’s rapid transformation into the internet’s dominant information resource, it took my son’s trip to Nyeri to win me over.
My son, Mitchell, is a grade 12 student who took part in the International Computer Aid Project, a program founded by his computer science teacher, Shannon Volman. Shannon’s husband, Dave, is VP of Technology for Kensington Tours and also serves on the board of the non-profit, Kensington Cares. Last year, while in Kenya, Shannon connected with a Kensington safari guide, Godfrey Mariyuki, and they began discussions about the possibility of a computer lab. You can read more about this on Kensington Care’s web site.
One of the challenges of a project like this is that you can’t donate a computer lab, drop it in a school, and expect it to transform the learning environment. First, there has to be an infrastructure to support a computer lab. That means a reliable power supply, internet access, and enough stability that the computers won’t be stolen. It also means that you must be prepared to provide training to teachers who, in some cases, have never seen a computer before.
Shannon secured a donation from BMO of forty new computers then, through the students, raised additional funds for peripherals, software, cabling, etc. The hardware itself is remarkable because most donations to developing countries are first-world cast-offs. The recipients know the difference and, in this case, they made a point of commenting on it. Once the students from Canada had set everything up, the lessons began. Here is the first entry by one of the teachers at Ngaini school:
“Michael Kariuki is my name. This is my first computer lesson. We are greatful [sic] to or friends from Canada. May Almighty GOD bless them greatly. We are going to use them for the betterment of our standards in education We are now going to [sic] computer literate. Thanks to God.”
Below is a photo of Mitchell introducing Michael to the new computer.
The teachers, students and parents (and Kenya’s minister of education who arrived by helicopter) had a ribbon cutting ceremony. One father said to Shannon: “When I think of what you have done for my son … I have shed so many happy tears … I have no tears left to cry …” My impression is that it was the Canadians who were most overwhelmed. They hadn’t anticipated the response they would receive to what, for them, is a given: all schools have computer labs. I include another photo below of the kids taking a lunch break. Note the school motto over the entrance: liberty in knowledge.
Six months have passed since Mitchell and his classmates went to the town of Nyeri and we heard that they’ve implemented a sustainability model for the computer lab. After school is done for the day, adults from the town come for lessons. They pay a small fee and that contribution helps to offset the costs of running the lab for the children. In the long run, it may also make possible the purchase of upgrades.
Liberty in knowledge. By making knowledge easily accessible to all, we help facilitate the single most liberating force in developing countries. But what is striking about the wiki model is that, as those in developing countries gain confidence, they will begin to make wiki entries as well. For now, Wikipedia is overwhelmingly a Western tool, so we read its entries blind to the assumptions which ground them. However, there is the possiblity that users from other cultures will post entries that reveal to us our points of blindness and, in doing so, will liberate us too.
No related posts.
Wed, Dec 31, 2008
Half-filtered