#leparua primary

[ntugigroup]

Judy's Report 7: Turtle Art at Leparua

Monday: Ntugi Secondary

Ntugi Secondary is a site with students who are very willing to learn a lot with the XO laptop. The students asked me to show them how to switch to the Gnome desktop and use the AbiWord and I helped them to do it. Then, we carried on with the business of day - some of the students had taken pictures of the events that happened on Monday evening in the school compound, and they used the Fototoon Activity to make interesting stories from them.

Tuesday: Ngarendare Secondary/Lewa Primary

Ngarendare Secondary and Lewa Primary are both sites that are really thrusting to learn computers. We used Typing Turtle with students at Ngarendare so as to improve their typing  speed and also help them to use two hands in typing .We were only able to practice the home row since time was limited .

This was the first time the Lewa Primary pupils had access to the laptops, and they had a lot of interest and willingness to learn more. We taught them how to use some of the XO laptop activities like the Write and Record Activities. In Record Activity they were able to take photos and do some recording while they sang and did other different things.

Wednesday: Ntugi Secondary

Form Two (Grade 10) is a group of students ready to use the laptops in learning. I helped them to create a game in Memorize Activity  after I realized that they had difficulties in their Geography class matching different minerals with the areas in which they are mined. I thought a Memorize game would make it a bit more fun for them to study. We were able to come up with a very nice game which can not only be used by the Form Two students who created it, but also by the other members of the school who are studying geography. The nice thing about Memorize is that the students learn both as they create the game, and as they play it.

Thursday: Ntugi Primary

The Grade Seven students from Ntugi Primary School are always eager to learn new ideas every time we meet with them for computer lesson. On this day, they wanted to learn how to both play the math games that come preloaded in the Memorize Activity, and how to create their own mathematics game using the 'create' tools. I worked with their two teachers Simon Mwangangi, Mark Battley, to help each group create one, save it to the Journal, and share it with the other groups using a USB key.

 Friday: Leparua Primary

At Leparua, I am working with the Grade Seven kids who are always ready to learn new ideas on the Turtle Art Activity. First, I asked the kids to remind me what we had covered in the previous lesson and they were able to remember. Then, I then taught them how to use twor new Turtle block commands: The Operation command that makes the Turtle draw a circle a circle, and the Repeat command that makes the Turtle repeat an action for more than one time.  By combining these they were able to draw a simple flower.

Post by Judy Kinya

[ntugigroup]

Simon's Report 34: Self-learning and Self-teaching

Monday: Ntugi Secondary

We witnessed students enjoying a new learning environment as English teacher Mrs Rosemary Mburugu held a class in the Computer Lab with Form Four students. We helped with the lesson preparation with the objective of enabling the students to understand how to write an email - or “electronic mail” - as per the syllabus. It helped the students by giving them hand-on skills on setting up and accessing an email account, and writing an email. 

Mrs Mburugu said, “it will not just help them to do well in their exams but will also help them in the rest of their lifetime’. 

The Computer Club members have adopted the self-driven philosophy we are trying to tech. They explored on Scratch by themselves, with little assistance from me, using the basics I had taught them earlier, and shared their work with the larger group at the end. 

Tuesday: Ngarendare Secondary/Lewa Primary

I was happy to see the ‘Departmental’ organization at Ngarendare where students are combining their efforts to perfect what they can do best. As facilitators, we simply went round the class helping out to those who were stuck on different issues - it was the best class I have ever held with the laptops! 

The Research department was investigating electrolysis and made new discoveries that they were willing to share to the rest of the school. They were given a set time to do a presentation of their findings to help the rest of the students know about this interesting topic. 

The Technical expert group were learning how to trouble-shoot a laptop losing Internet network access - the possibilities and their solutions in each case. 

The Networking department had some new recruits who have been away from school and had chosen to join in. For the first time, I witnessed the students from Ngarendare teach others about what they learned. I left them to teach their peers about what I had earlier helped them learn.

At Lewa Primary, the Class 6 kids had their chance to interact with the XO laptops. We showed them how to turn on the computer and start an Activity. We left them to explore the Maze game and try to learn how they could play it. I was amazed to find three students playing the game without being told what to do. I lastly taught them on how to shutdown and the day was successful.

Wednesday: Subuiga Primary

It’s fun to see kids enjoy what they are doing - especially when done in group work. The students at Subuiga are gradually grouping themselves according to their areas of interest. The method we are using at this school is to introduce an Activity - then pick the best of the students in it and group them to collaborate, challenging them to come up with something even better. 

I now have a Paint club and a club doing Scratch. I will next involve them in making Memorize games which they will be sharing with the rest of the students and will form a group of experts in this area. Once we get everybody settled we will be able to run different Activities at the same time, where we will just be facilitating learning.

Thursday: Lewa Conservation Education Centre

The Internet at the CEC has facilitated the learning of conservation education. It also links the kids visiting to the larger world and makes them understand the ability of the Internet to provide possible solutions to almost all problems. For many of the visiting students, it is their first time to use or interact with the computers, especially in browsing the Web.

 Friday: Leparua Primary

The Leparua kids have familiarized themselves with the Activities they had chosen to work with and by next Friday they will start to work on real projects. We find our teaching so much easier now that students work on Activities of their own interest.

Post by Simon Mwangangi

[ntugigroup]

Simon's Report 27: Back from Tanzania and back to work!

Monday: Ntugi Secondary At Ntugi Secondary school, I was eagerly awaited by students of the Computer Club who were eager to know about my experience in Tanzania where Judy, Godfrey and I had traveled to help start another pilot OLPC project. I shared my photos with them and it was a great motivation to them that we were expanding the OLPC project in East Africa - that will give them more even chances of working with the larger international OLPC movement. Everybody from the group was determined to work hard in the hopes of, one day, having the same opportunity that Judy, Godfrey and I did. Tuesday: Ngarendare Secondary/Lewa Primary I had Judy with me at Ngarendare Secondary where we resumed our activities after our trip to Tanzania. The students had missed our lessons and I was happy with the way they reported punctually to our class. I had a session of a theory class with the half of the club where we discussed  computer software and its classification. I used the XO's Sugar and Gnome software as an example as a teaching aid.

Once the school gets power, we have allocated enough laptops that we will be able to engage all the Computer Club members to our practical activities and creating projects. In the afternoon, we proceeded to Lewa Primary school where we met the Lewa Primary kids ready for our lesson and introduced them to the TuxMath Activity. They sharpened their minds by playing rounds where they competed to be the best scorer and we helped them advance to ever more abstract levels of the game. Wednesday: Subuiga Primary

An unlucky day since we had a blackout at Lewa and I was not able to charge the laptops to be used at Subuiga. So, instead I spent the whole day at the Education Center cleaning the XO's and and changing the old labels on the laptops. I also re-imaged the 12 1.5 XO machines at the CEC and they all worked flawlessly.

Thursday: Lewa Conservation Education Centre We had students from Ntumburi Secondary School and they had a chance to utilize the XO laptops in a collaborated Speak Activity where they discussed on the various issues related to conservation. Ephantus Mugo,  the Conservation Education Coordinator at the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy helped me to supervise the students and see to it that they were doing the correct thing. They had fun in this as well as they learned a lot about conservation.

Friday: Soccer Competition

On this day, all Lewa-sponsored schools had a girls soccer competition which brought all the kids from the different schools together and we spent the whole day with them at Lewa Social Center. It was but was a pleasure to meet all the schools I work with and see them in a different circumstance... I was confused as to which school I should cheer for!

Post by Simon Mwangangi

[ntugigroup]

Simon's Report 26: The Solution To Increasing Demand? Peer-To-Peer Teaching!

Monday: Ntugi Secondary

Incremental development is in action at Ntugi Secondary School. They have developed diverse methods of utilizing the little Scratch concepts they've already learned. This was an eagerly anticipated reaction that has really encouraged me as it is an step forward from the challenges the students had last term’s challenge of thinking too narrowly and just mimicking the example projects.

The Computer Club students have now included the pen blocks to make drawings as the Sprite moves along the stage. In their last assignment, in which they were to make an animation whose Sprite moved to and through the three comers of the stage, they had discovered, on their own, that they only had to change the values of X and Y either from negative to positive or positive to negative to make this happen.

Tuesday: Ngarendare Secondary/Lewa Primary

Our time seems shorter now, at Ngarendare Secondary, as the anxious Computer Club members learned to word-process word with the AbiWord application in Gnome.

The plan is to have Judy with me on Tuesdays we will be able to engage the Club more efficiently. Since, for now, Ngarendare is only being served by our carry-in 'backpack' program with only 8 laptops, Judy will be handling 10 students of the Club using the XO laptops and I shall engage the rest in a theory class. The groups shall be alternating every time we handle them. This will help us engage many students with only a few laptops. Hopefully this will change in June with the arrival of new laptops, a mains power connection, and the possibility of a permanent program here.

During my time at Lewa Primary, I formed a student’s group since, previously, I had mostly been working with teachers. Judy and I will divide the club into two, where each one of us will be handling a different group working on different activities.

Wednesday: Subuiga Primary

We could not help but have the whole Grade 6 class at Subuiga involved in the computer learning as they highly demanded it. I had to define a way out to solve this as the class has 40 kids and I only have 8 laptops for them! The twenty kids I started with were very willing to pass on the information learnt to other kids (see Heroes Create Other Heroes) and I found this an important tool to help solve the problem.

I had the 20 student that I had already taught teach the rest of their class members as I monitored them. This will help them develop teaching skills at such an early age and help them even better master the content they've learnt. The only problem is that on any particular day, I will have to work with one half of the class first - before they teach the rest - but I will make sure each portion has a chance to be taught by me so that no group feels neglected.

Thursday: Lewa Conservation Education Centre

At the CEC, we had students from Moi Equator Girl’s Secondary School and they had a chance to use the XO laptops. The local-area network enabled by the OLPC laptops' inbuilt Mesh network in the XO, served as a vital tool to ease the passing out of conservation information to the students as well as helping them learn typing skills. They also used the XO's to take environmental photos on their game drive that they discussed afterwards.

Friday: Leparua Primary

The progress of learning around the Scratch Activity at Leparua is amazing as kids are able to develop their own ideas from what they have already learned. I found them having already made an animation that drew a right angle and, then, a square. They presented their ideas as others tried them and this raised a competition that will encourage even more improvement.   

Post by Simon Mwangangi

[ntugigroup]

Judy's Report 6: Our Program Expands To Our Seventh Site: Ntugi Primary School

Monday: Ntugi Secondary

At Ntugi Secondary, I had a section with the Journalism Club.  I am still teaching them how to take photos using the XO, so we went into the field where they were able to take photos of different things and we named and saved them in the journal to be used for the next lesson in the Fototoon Activity.

Thursday: Lewa Conservation Education Centre

At Lewa, we hosted students from Sweetwaters Secondary School . They went for a game drive and, in the afternoon, came to the CEC where they sat for a  test which was to be done through typing. We introduced the student to the XO's, connected 12 laptops to each other via the Mesh Network, and we  showed them how to use the to the Chat Activity to see the questions and send their answers to Ephantus. The students were able to type the answers and the lesson was successful.

Wednesday: Ntugi Secondary

I was at Ntugi Secondary where I started a new program with student which I hope will help them cover the syllabus and to revise for their exams. I had Form Two (Grade 10) students, and I connected the OLPC laptops to the Mesh and used the Chat Activity to send them geography questions. They were able to type the answers back to me and I feel the lesson was successful.

Thursday: Ntugi Primary

We started a new program today - and a new site for the OLPC's. Ntugi Primary only is a few hundred meters from Ntugi Secondary but, up till now, those primary students have not had access to the XO laptops. Today, the Class 7 students, and their teacher Mrs. Kimonye, started coming for their weekly visit to the Ntugi Secondary Computer Lab. I introduced them to laptops and to some of the Sugar Activities and we began with some of the basic  Activities like Record and Maze among others.

Friday: Leparua Primary

At Leparua, I continued l teaching the Turtle Art Activity.  We revised last week’s work and I marked the homework I had given them. Then, I taught them how to change the screen colour and how to draw a leaf and a star still using Turtle Art, Pen and Colour commands.

Post by Judy Kinya

[ntugigroup]

Judy's Report 4: After the Holiday

Friday: Leparua Primary

I reported on Friday, last week, after the holiday.

Simon and I visited Leparua where we did a review of last term’s work with Scratch: We revisited the Motion and Control blocks. On this day, we continued with Motion and we taught the kids how to glide the sprite. We also had a chance to show the pupils how to import a stage xy-grid and they were able to do it.  They were able to move the mouse to a point on the grid and give the values of different points by reading the coordinate on the right side just bellow the xy-grid. Lastly, we gave them an assignment for them to complete in the coming week and the day was successful.

Post by Judy Kinya