The second Day of the Web 2.0 Training in Mauritius started with a recap of Day 1, whereby participants were exposed to Introduction to web 2.0, advanced search on Google and RSS. By the end of Day 1, they were asked to practice some exercises on RSS feeds (for example adding RSS widgets to iGoogle). 

Most of the participants had done their "homework" and there were many questions from the floor. Some even went a step further and tried feed burner to combine RSS feeds from different sources. Since they wanted to know about how to combine feeds, a very brief explanation was given to them by Mr. C.Sembhoo, one of the trainers. 

Before starting the training for Day 2, the trainers went though the comments on the democracy wall together with the participants and discussed on the different sections (I learnt, I discovered, I suggest, I felt, I noticed). The democracy wall proved to be very efficient since it was a way for the trainers to get feedbacks from participants on how they are finding the sessions, how much they have grasped, what are their concerns etc. and their suggestions have been taken into consideration while conducting the training on Day 2.

Trainer with the participants at the Democracy wall

Before starting with Day 2, a Group Photo of the participants with the Facilitators was taken.

Group Photo

On Day 2, training was delivered on GoogleDocs and Wiki. Each session started with a Power-Point Presentation and video to introduce the topic. For GoogleDocs, practical examples on how different types of Gdocs (word, spreadsheet, powerpoint, forms etc. are being used for various purposes (team working on research paper, organising an event, survey, sharing presentations etc.).

Once they got an idea on how these tools can be used, the facilitator demonstrated to the participants on how to create a GoogleDoc, insert content, share the document, download it in the format they want it to be (word, pdf etc.). Participants were also shown about how to upload an existing document (which can be in any format: word, excel, powerpoint, image etc.) as a GoogleDoc, edit and share it. The participants were fascinated with that they could do with GoogleDoc to simplify their work and save time. They practised different exercises on creating and sharing GoogleDocs and were assisted by the facilitators. There was a lot of question and confusion coming from the participants, who required assistance from the trainers and were gradually were getting used to the concept of GoogleDocs with practice.

It was also shown to participants that a form can be created by using GoogleDoc. An existing form that was created using GoogleDoc was used as example and together with the facilitator, they created a form, select the type of question they want to add (open-ended, multiple choice, check-box etc.), select a template and share it with other participants. After getting a response they were also shown how to view their form in different formats and see the responses in a spreadsheet or as summary. After this session on GoogleDocs, participants wrote on how they would use the tool meta-cards, which they pinned on the wall and the facilitator went through them and commented before moving to the next topic, which was on wiki.

The session on wiki started with an energising activity that was proposed to the participants, which brought back some energy in the room. The concept of a wiki was explained through a presentation and video. Then a concrete example of how a wiki is being used in Mauritius was shown to the participants. Also, the difference between GoogleDocs and a wiki was highlighted by the facilitator. Each participant had to create an account on pbworks.com, create a workspace and invite people to collaborate. All participants learnt how to edit the front page, insert text, image, Links (internal and extertal) and creating pages and link them to the front page. They were assisted by the facilitators during this process.

Day 2 was full of new discoveries for the participants and they had been very enthusiastic in learning the tools which were new to most of them. It was also realised that to master these tools, a lot of practice is needed!

Please find in the Slideshow below the pictures of Day 2: