Simon's Report 3: Ngarendare OLPC 'Backpack' Program
Monday: Ntugi Secondary
I went to Ntugi Secondary and met the 18 Computer Club members. Having used the computers for so long, they know quite a lot and had to go to more advanced levels of computer basics. We started by defining computer terminology like the understanding and definitions of the following:
Data
Information
Program
Computer
Classification of computers according to:
Function
Purpose
Type of data they process
We also studied the parts of a computer, starting with the peripheral devices of the hardware and CPU. They had a high curiosity to this knowledge.
Tuesday: Ngarendare Secondary/Lewa Primary
Went to Ngarendare Secondary and had a meeting with the school head, Mr. Haron Muthamia. He chose me three other teachers to work with, and gave me a chance to introduce the program to the students. The four laptops I carried there in my backpack were shared in each group of five, each group having one computer. It is a brand new school and only has the Form One class of 50 students. After the strike of teachers had ended, very few students had reported, so I only showed them how to boot up and shut down the computers. It was the first time to use a computer for all of them. We will be now working with the three teachers whom I will be training on this coming Tuesday. I will also open email accounts for them on the same day. The power from the mains is in the process of being installed and might be done in three months time. I proceeded to Lewa Primary where I had a session with teachers and we covered the following:
Booting up and shutting down a computer
Parts and functions of XO laptops
Activities and their importance to students
Wednesday: Subuiga Primary
I went to Subuiga Primary and the Head Teacher Mr Muriithi postponed me to the next Wednesday since they had a function on that day which was to be attended by by political leaders. He promised me that on the coming Wednesday, I would meet everything in order. He said he would select the teachers to be trained by me.
Thursday: Conservation Education Centre
Today was a day for the Education Centre. We had students from Subuiga and they played the games I had developed successfully. It seemed easier to them than any other group and they were the first group to have completed the highest level of the game within a very short time. This impressed Ephantus Mugo.
Friday: Leparua Primary
Today was a day for Leparua. I did not meet Kitonga, the Principal, but I met Doris Kanyua, the Head Teacher, who planned for a session for teachers from 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM. They were curious on spreadsheets in Gnumeric and the AbiWord for word processing. We started with preparing a spreadsheet for processing students' marks and we came up with a way where each teacher would use the XO laptop to process marks for their class, and then save in the flash disk with MS DOC and then they can all use the HP laptop to print out their work.
Post by Simon Mwangangi