Reading/Mexico Readers Research/Classroom at Tec de Monterrey

We interviewed a classroom of university students taking Medical English at one of the Tec de Monterrey campuses in Mexico City. The transcript doesn't call out any particular students - each response could be from a different student. The classroom was composed of 5 men and 15 women.

Note: we will not be publishing raw video from this interview because some of the students requested to be kept anonymous.

Transcript
(video starts a little late as we were collecting releases)

Brief introduction of Wikimedia projects.

How many know Wikipedia? Everyone

Abbey: my role at the Foundation is a researcher, so I learn from people what they need to access and contribute to the sum of all human knowledge and there's lots and lots and lots and lots of humans. So, one of the things that we're doing here is coming to Mexico to learn about people who we don't know as much about. People in rural areas, people who have just a little internet, maybe intermittent internet, maybe people who are on the internet mostly on their phones. So we're here and we're going to do interviews with people in their homes and we're talking to experts here and in Puebla and what we're going to do is also go to other countries around the world and see what's in common, and what is different also. And then we bring this understanding, what we learn, from people who are the experts in how they learn. We're going to bring that back to our headquarters and see how teams at the Foundation can use that information to make it easier for people to share and learn from Wikipedia. And these are my colleagues, Anne and Joaquin. Anne's a product manager and Joaquin is an engineer. We're here with a team of 6 people, all different skillsets. 2 are design researchers, 1 is a prototyper and engineer and also design researcher, and these 2. So we're a crew going around to learn.

Anne: I have an idea - so, you have a question?

Student: No it's ok. I have a question about the forms. I'm curious what does it mean "you have complete access to my monitor screen, microphone, and webcam?"

Abbey: Oh, we don't have that. Thank you for asking! This is when we were possibly going to interview people and watch how they work online. But we have no way to connect to you online.

Student: Oh, I thought I would have to give you my information afterwards and then...

Abbey: No, we don't collect information. It's one of our principles. Any other questions? Some people are still reading, so we want to give them time. Basically it's a release form so that we can record. And on the back there's a box that you acn check if you only want us to share this recording inside the Wikimedia Foundation. It's about 2 or 3 hundred people who work there. And if you don't check it, Leigh is going to put her video on commons and everyone will be able to see it, and we would be able to share it widely.

[mumbling]

Anne: Who's done with your paper? We'll take the ones that are done.

[mumbling]

Abbey: Thank you for being patient with us, and our paperwork.

[mumbling, paper collection]

Abbey: Does anyone still have questions? How many people are done? How many people are still working on it?

Anne: I think we have everyone.

Abbey: Thank you for inviting us to your class. We really appreciate it. Ok. So one of the things we want to learn about is people's technology ecosystem. So that's how people use technology, what kind of technology you have, how you access the internet, when you do, when you don't. So how many people have a phone.

Anne: [counting raised hands] Everybody.

Abbey: Me too. How many people have a smartphone? [hands raised] Everybody. How many people have 2 phones?

[laughter, no hands raised]

(7 minutes)

Abbey: And does anyone have a laptop? Wow lots of technology! What about tablets? So everyone has a smartphone, everyone has a laptop, and most have a tablet. And what about how often you get online?

Various students: Daily, constantly, that's a hard one to ask, every 5 minutes. [laughter]

Abbey: Ok, so how many people have access to the internet, any time you want, 24/7.

[all hands raised]

Abbey: Really, even when you're going around. And is it if you're in a car, moving around?

Student: Well that depends on the signal.

Student: Sometimes it's bad when you're like, in a car, or in a place like the middle of nowhere.

Abbey: Are you on cell network? Are you on wifi? How are you getting connected when you're farther away?

Various students: cellular network.

Abbey: How often is it bad?

Various students: Pretty often. I don't even use it when I don't have to. I normally use wifi because the cell internet is really bad.

Anne: Even in the city?

Various students: In some places like here, it really sucks. And when there area lot of cell phones around it's bad.

Abbey: But the wifi is good?

Various students: Ehh. Well... It depends. How many devices connected to the wifi.

Abbey: Raise your hands and let's take turns.

Student: For example, the wifi at my home, it's ok because it's only like your family. But wifi, here in the school, it's like everybody is connected so it's horrible.

Abbey: How often is it like 50% of the time you can get online. Wait, that was a really weird question. Ok nevermind. So it's iffy for wifi.

Anne: So is it really good sometimes? When?

Student: No, it's not good. It's never good. It's just like, it works. But...

Abbey: And how often is it not good.

Student: 70% of the time

Abbey: and do you all agree with that?

Student: No, I think for example... I think that in case of the wifi here at school, yeah. It's not good. But in my cell phone in the plan that I have it's like.. If I'm going from Toluca to Mexico in that piste my internet is not working. I don't have signal and things like that. But if I'm in the city or in Toluca it works perfectly.

Abbey: Does everybody have a cellular connection? Do you pay per month?

Students (lots of them): Yes

Abbey: and what about your laptops? Are you here with your laptops or at home?

Students: Everywhere. Here and at home.

Abbey: and do you plug in? or use wifi?

Students: Wifi. Or sometimes hotspot.

Abbey: And do you make your own hotspot?

(10:20)

Students: yeah, from the cellular network.

Abbey: How many people do that?

[lots of hands raised]

Student: when I don't have wifi the best thing is to use the hotspot.

Student: When it's the worst case scenario I would use that, but sometimes the internet here is really really slow, so it's even better to use a hotspot.

Abbey: Do you pay the same amount every month?

Various students: the same amount, it depends, mumbling.

Student: I have a limited plan.

Student: In my plan I don't have limits. Actually my plan is you can use it whenever you want, forever.

Student: I have like 6 gigas, so it's like a lot.

Abbey: How often do you hit that ceiling? How do you know?

Carious students: No... never.

Student: At the end of the month, I hit that.

Abbey: How do you know when you hit it?

Same student: Oh my phone tells me. It records all the gigas I've been consuming and it tells me.

Student: and it offers you if you want to buy more

Abbey: they take the opportunity, in your time of need.

[laughter]

Student: yes

Abbey: yes

Anne: I have another question... How many people have Android phones?

[60% Androids]

Anne: and what about you, you have an iPhone? Who has iPhones?

[40% hands]

Anne: and what about any other kind of phone, like maybe a blackberry?

[laughter]

Anne: Windows phone..?

[laughter]

Abbey: so... what about... what about when you're in school, you're all students. And please raise your hands and we'll call on each of you. When you're learning, first tell me what device you use most? Is it your laptop or your phone? Where do you go? Ok... one more everybody question. How many people use books for learning?

[lots of hands]

Abbey: and when you're not using a book, when you're not learning from a professor or speaking to each other, which are all ways to learn, what do you do?

Student: I want to make a clarification. We all of us use books, but mostly we use electronic books.

Students: no, no, no.

Student (same): At least I know that everybody has an electronic version because med books are very expensive and some people don't have the possibility to buy them.

Abbey: And where do you get those?

[Students laugh, look around]

Abbey: if you don't want to tell us, that's ok

[Lots of laughter]

Abbey: Ok, that's really interesting. What are some of the other benefits of using an online book besides cost?

Student: You don't have to carry them. If you have all the books of all the topics, it's impossible.

(15:00)

Student: Also it's easier to find, like, one word. It's easier.

Abbey: Oh you mean search.

Student: Yeah

Abbey: Ok, what else? Were those the 2 main things? The benefits? That's 3 things.

Student: Also the photos. Sometimes in a book you don't have the right light. I prefer to read in my tablet because you can see all the photos, zoom in, zoom out.

Abbey: Ok, that made me have another question. So what if. How many people prefer reading a book to a tablet? Book?

[all hands]

Abbey: Tablet?

[no hands]

Abbey: But you just said you liked the tablet better?

Student: I prefer book when I have to read, but I prefer photos in the tablet.

Abbey: Thank you for the clarification. Ok, thank you, that helps me get a grounding in your resources for learning. What about other sources of information on the internet? Maybe raise your hand and tell me some of the places you guys learn?

Student: Especially for things that are really important, there's this national library... NHBI or something like that on the internet. It has a lot of articles that are really well done and they take you to other articles and journals. They take you to another journal.

Abbey: is that free or do you have to pay for it?

Student: some are - most free, but some you have to pay for.

Abbey: and what happens when you run into one you have to pay for?

Student: I actually don't pay because I don't work right now and it's my parents money and..

Abbey: so do you not go there and go somewhere else?

Student: Yeah, you can find something else.

Student: Actually, I look for articles in pubmed. And some of them have a price, say like $40. So I as the Tec, I mean the school, to buy the article for me and they do it. And they send you the file.

Abbey: Does everybody do that?

[most students don't know that you could do that]

Student: Since you asked about other sources, I think that nowadays we use apps. For example there is, in thec ase that we're studying anatomy and things like that, there's an app that has the skeleton in 3D. So it helps you have a better perspective. So I don't use them a lot, because I'm not good at searching good apps, but there are some apps that I use them and they're pretty cool and I use them to learn and oyu can have them in your cell phone and if you're bored...

(18:00)

Abbey: On your cellphone, right?