Free Software Workshop for Teachers:After Day 1 and 2

All together a new kind of an experience....

We,the FSMK volunteers cum trainers, along with members from few other organisations were training Government School teachers to use and get comfortable with Free Software,in a Pilot Program by the Karnataka Govt.

I was expecting reluctance,hesitation,mild levels of ego and confusion from the participants...But all that emerged out of these teachers was an extremely high level of enthusiasm, an equalling curiosity and tireless efforts for the first two days...

We were able to break the dogma of The Cyberphobia(Fear of working with computers) from these people the very first day....The joy they subsequently found working on the basics which we taught them,so that it would eventually reach the kids was just heart warming....

The second day was more about trying to make them feel more independent, which is being pursued and will go on to the third day as well....

The kind of awe they were in, while undergoing these sessions puts a big question about the IT revolution India is supposedly going through...In a city where all the major IT players of the world have an establishemnt is ridiculously unbalanced. Its own teachers are literally scared to work with computers...
Blaming the Government is something which is eternal...And we've got used to it...

The question is what each of us can do? I genuinely feel that we as a literate community have a lot to do with a sense of sincere concern towards the society we are a part of....