How to write a script for a Spoken Tutorial - Workshop at IIT Bombay

How to write a script for a Spoken Tutorial - Workshop was held at IIT Bombay on the 1st of April, 2010.  Most of the participants were teachers and student-teachers from a B.Ed college in Mumbai.  6-8 members from the FOSSEE Team, IIT Bombay also attended.  Few of the participants had come from out of Mumbai as well!

Dr. J.Shah, the domain expert for Netlogo and Dr. Manojendu, the domain expert for Geogebra had kindly agreed to be present at the workshop.  Our own senior faculty member, Prof. Kannan Moudgalya, conducted the workshop, along with his team.  The morning session was held in the A1-A2 studio, CDEEP, Mathematics Bldg.

The day began with an introduction to Spoken Tutorials followed by a presentation on script-writing.  After the presentation, the participants were divided into teams of 3 each.  The hands-on script writing session was about to begin.  The participants had to choose a topic on which to write the script.  The domains given were Netlogo, Geogebra and Python.  Before lunch, most teams were ready with their scripts.

After a sumptuous lunch at Gulmohar, the teams proceeded to the KReSIT Seminar Hall for the recording session.  Teams were given time to finalise their scripts.  After this, the hands-session on recording, which involves screencasting and narration, began.  Each team was asked to record their spoken tutorial in front of the other participants.  Constructive feedback on the same was given immediately by the domain experts.  Tips on improvising the scripts and pedagogy were also given.  This exercise benefitted all the participants.

The participants were an enthusiastic lot, ready to learn a new technology.  Even though they were teachers themselves, they willingly "learnt" and participated enthusiastically in the process of creation of Spoken Tutorials.  The feedback from them was overwhelming.  All of them left with a feeling of achievement and empowerment.  The Spoken Tutorial Workshop was truly a success!!!