I've created a video showing what we have been up to at Kasiisi.....
Hope you like it,
Jeff
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Friday, February 26, 2010
78 more Laptops come to Kasiisi!
We are happy to announce that we have acquired 78 more laptops. This brings our total to a level that we can now fully saturate our Primary 6 class (one student per computer, up to now we have had to suffer with 2 students to one computer).
At this point, each P6 and P5 student will “own” one computer but will be sharing with a student from the opposite class. We have worked out the sharing problem by alternating days for laptop use for each class.
Primary 5 students waiting in line to pick up their laptop for FIRST XO laptop lesson.
Primary 5 Students retrieve XO's from the charging station for the first time....
At this point, each P6 and P5 student will “own” one computer but will be sharing with a student from the opposite class. We have worked out the sharing problem by alternating days for laptop use for each class.
Primary 5 students waiting in line to pick up their laptop for FIRST XO laptop lesson.
Primary 5 Students retrieve XO's from the charging station for the first time....
Sunday, February 14, 2010
XO Laptop teachers get Computer Certificate
Over the holiday, Patrick, Richard, Tom, Moses and Joyce attended the Basic Computer Course at Mountains of the Moon University in Fort Portal, Uganda. The course covered computer theory, the MS Office suite, and the Internet.
These 6 teachers have put in substantial extra time and effort to be our XO Laptop teachers, often giving up lunch time and coming in on the weekends, and this opportunity was given to them, in part, to say “Thank You” for all the hard work. We were also hoping that attending such a course would improve how they teach the XO computer to their students. By being students themselves in a University taught course about computers, we were hoping that they would “borrow” the instructors teaching techniques to help them in their own classrooms.
The results were immediately noticeable. This year we have expanded our Laptop Program into a new grade level so there was a whole batch, 160 to be exact, of brand new students to introduce to the XO. At first I couldn’t place what was different about how they were teaching, but then it hit me. They had more confidence and presence as computer teachers than they did in the previous term. They had new knowledge of computers in general, not just the XO, and they had the Certificate to prove it……
The teachers were using the chalk board more effectively , explaining things more clearly, moving at a better pace through topics, and had a better idea of what they were trying to get the students to understand. It is an exciting improvement!
These 6 teachers have put in substantial extra time and effort to be our XO Laptop teachers, often giving up lunch time and coming in on the weekends, and this opportunity was given to them, in part, to say “Thank You” for all the hard work. We were also hoping that attending such a course would improve how they teach the XO computer to their students. By being students themselves in a University taught course about computers, we were hoping that they would “borrow” the instructors teaching techniques to help them in their own classrooms.
The results were immediately noticeable. This year we have expanded our Laptop Program into a new grade level so there was a whole batch, 160 to be exact, of brand new students to introduce to the XO. At first I couldn’t place what was different about how they were teaching, but then it hit me. They had more confidence and presence as computer teachers than they did in the previous term. They had new knowledge of computers in general, not just the XO, and they had the Certificate to prove it……
(Left to right Patrick, Richard, Tom, Moses)
And Joyce
The teachers were using the chalk board more effectively , explaining things more clearly, moving at a better pace through topics, and had a better idea of what they were trying to get the students to understand. It is an exciting improvement!
Sunday, January 10, 2010
What did you do for Christmas?
Here are some pictures and one video of our first class back after 2 holiday weekends. Our turnout was our highest yet over break.
We started with an easy concept - draw what you did for Christmas Celebrations.
This video is shot using the Record activity on the XO.
We started with an easy concept - draw what you did for Christmas Celebrations.
This video is shot using the Record activity on the XO. Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Holiday Lessons
We are currently running classes every Saturday morning over the long holiday break. So far, the turn out has been very low. We think there are multiple reasons for this. As the term came to an end, attendance at schools drops substantially (because final exams for each grade are finished before the term really ends), so the announcement of holiday classes didn't quite reach all the students . Secondly, during this holiday, some of the students travel to different parts of Uganda to visit family. Also, students have established commitments at home during this long holiday.We are always hoping for a high turnout, but in the meantime we have been taking advantage of the unusually large teacher to student ratio and the fact that each student can have their own laptop to work with.
The XO laptop has an useful ability to "link" up with other XO laptops to create a mesh network. This creates a virtual space where students can collaborate on projects in real time, share photos, chat, and share completed projects.
We asked to students to work on a collaborative Write (similar to MS Word) project together. The idea is that they will write a story together with no predetermined plan. The first student writes the first sentence, the second student writes the second sentence, the third student writes the third sentence, and so on.........until we come back to the first student and we continue until we finish the story.Here is what they came up with:
"A long time ago there was a boy named Margu. He was a hunter. One day he went into the forest. Up above, the clouds began to gather and it started to rain."
(It took a bit to get the concept across and they are still slow at typing, so we didn't get too far but they got the idea....)
On another week we designed a Wiki scavenger hunt. The XO laptops have a build in Wikipedia activity. We wanted a way to allow the students to practice their research skills on the laptops using this activity. The teachers and I came up with 5 questions, using the Wikipedia on the laptops as a guide, and posted them to the server as an assignment.
After reviewing how to log on to the server, we let them loose on Wikipedia.They had fun using the Wikipedia activity as a tool. Up till now they have been just clicking around and exploring with no real goal or mission. We all know how having a problem to solve changes the way we use and appreciate technology. For example, Power Point isn't very interesting to use until you have a presentation to make - OR - the Internet isn't very much fun until you have an email to send or something you want to research.
I think they also had fun with the idea that they were competing against the other students. This is something we would like to continue using as a warm up activity to get them started each day. It doesn't take too long and it gets them focused on a task as class is beginning. It also is a review of some basic tasks like opening an activity, logging on to the server, navigating within the servers Moodle application, typing, using the mouse pad, and scrolling on the screen.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
XO's still going strong at Kasiisi
Hello from Kasiisi! The OLPC Corp deployment is still going well. Because we have not kept up the blog since our project really got under way, I thought I would provide a quick recap in pictures…
Unpacking the laptops at
We found a nice shady spot to work for the day. We had to unpack and manually update the software on each computer. We also took the time to attempt to work out generator and server issues before we really got going with the students.
Weekend-long teacher training
Our team of two
Installing the charging station
Because 
Each computer was numbered and given an accompanying numbered charging slot at our station. Each student was assigned a computer and a list of the students name and computer were posted at the charging station for reference.
Students in Class with the XO.
Laptop Grand Ceremony
Hundreds of people, including local political leaders, parents, students, visiting donors and volunteers, and teachers attended the Kasiisi OLPC celebration. Students performed singing and dancing routines, speeches were given by many important people, and the laptops were shown off to the community.
Great Primate Handshake Comes to Kasiisi
Thanks again for coming to see our school and making an excellent video for us! Here is the video that has recently been posted on the OLPC youtube site:
An article http://www.primatehandshake.org/latest/how-to-do-it-the-xo-project/
And a link to learn more about the Great Primate Handshake group: http://www.primatehandshake.org/
Family Day at Kasiisi
In order to really show the community and families of Kasiisi what the XO Laptop is all about, we decided to have a family day at Kasiisi. All families and friends were invited into the classroom to see the projects the students have been working on. Because of the large turn out, we had to spread the students over 3 classrooms!
Thanks!
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Well we've started training the students this week, and it's going very well. They are outrageously excited with the computers even though it's moving very slowly.
Day one: We introduced the computer to them. We showed them how to turn the computers on and how to open them. (the ears on the XO provide quite a challenge to the uninformed opener) We continued on to tell them about how you can't wash the computers like clothes, and how in general getting them wet is a bad idea, although the computers were designed to be water proof in rain. Finally we talked to them about keeping them clean and generally how these XOs need to be taken care of as they are very precious and will (hopefully) play a large part in improving their education in the future.
Day two: The girls were having a lesson on how to avoid rape and general lady's hygiene and safety, so we took the day off. It's hard for girls in public education anyway, so we thought it important to avoid them getting behind the rest of the class.
Day three: We began with teaching the program Write which is a basic Microsoft Wordesque program. Once we told them about how a key corresponds with a letter on the screen and that the blinking cursor is where the letter will appear, we told them to type a sentence. They all typed the tried and true expression, "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog." Introducing a capital letter for the opening T was difficult and in general the shift key is a tough one for them to get used to. The space bar was a quick pick up but most words had somewhere between 2 and 10 spaces separating them. We ended by centering "THE UGANDAN NATIONAL ANTHEM" and then had them write the first verse using punctuation like exclamation marks, commas, periods, and using the return key to separate each line. Some are learning faster than others, but having multiple teachers in the rooms helps a lot because with out a projector, and with 80 kids in each of the two classes that are taught simultaneously, personal aid is often necessary.
Day four: We taught them how to use the calculator and all in all this went well and they caught on quite quickly although learning the symbols on the keyboard, combined with further lessons in the ever difficult shift key brought some problems to the table. Regardless this lesson went well, although by the end of the day the kids had learned how to open up other programs and this led to a whole mess of questions about the camera, the music programs, one program where a man on the computer speaks what you type, and a few kids who found the computer programming applications were very insistent that I teach it to them immediately. There was no way to even begin with that especially the Terminal program, and Pippy, which are two of the more complex programs. They were disappointed that I was unable to teach them programs that are over my head in the last 5 minutes of class, but it shows curiosity, and desire to learn. Hopefully we'll be arriving there in the future.
Today (Day 5): We will teach them Record which is the camera program. We will have to talk to kids about the importance of not making pornography which may seem obvious, especially with them being in Primary 5 (Fourth Grade), but the parents when we talked to them were concerned about this, and with fair reason as girls start to drop out from pregnancy starting at about this age. I have high hopes for today although I predict they will overload the computer with the mass of photographs and video they will take, so necessary precautions will be told to them before we begin. Unfortunately I, Ian Wrangham, am sick today so I will be taking a day off and trying to recover quickly so I can be back at school on monday with ample energy and vigor. At least it gave me time to update my faithful readers.
(Please post any questions you have in the future)
Day one: We introduced the computer to them. We showed them how to turn the computers on and how to open them. (the ears on the XO provide quite a challenge to the uninformed opener) We continued on to tell them about how you can't wash the computers like clothes, and how in general getting them wet is a bad idea, although the computers were designed to be water proof in rain. Finally we talked to them about keeping them clean and generally how these XOs need to be taken care of as they are very precious and will (hopefully) play a large part in improving their education in the future.
Day two: The girls were having a lesson on how to avoid rape and general lady's hygiene and safety, so we took the day off. It's hard for girls in public education anyway, so we thought it important to avoid them getting behind the rest of the class.
Day three: We began with teaching the program Write which is a basic Microsoft Wordesque program. Once we told them about how a key corresponds with a letter on the screen and that the blinking cursor is where the letter will appear, we told them to type a sentence. They all typed the tried and true expression, "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog." Introducing a capital letter for the opening T was difficult and in general the shift key is a tough one for them to get used to. The space bar was a quick pick up but most words had somewhere between 2 and 10 spaces separating them. We ended by centering "THE UGANDAN NATIONAL ANTHEM" and then had them write the first verse using punctuation like exclamation marks, commas, periods, and using the return key to separate each line. Some are learning faster than others, but having multiple teachers in the rooms helps a lot because with out a projector, and with 80 kids in each of the two classes that are taught simultaneously, personal aid is often necessary.
Day four: We taught them how to use the calculator and all in all this went well and they caught on quite quickly although learning the symbols on the keyboard, combined with further lessons in the ever difficult shift key brought some problems to the table. Regardless this lesson went well, although by the end of the day the kids had learned how to open up other programs and this led to a whole mess of questions about the camera, the music programs, one program where a man on the computer speaks what you type, and a few kids who found the computer programming applications were very insistent that I teach it to them immediately. There was no way to even begin with that especially the Terminal program, and Pippy, which are two of the more complex programs. They were disappointed that I was unable to teach them programs that are over my head in the last 5 minutes of class, but it shows curiosity, and desire to learn. Hopefully we'll be arriving there in the future.
Today (Day 5): We will teach them Record which is the camera program. We will have to talk to kids about the importance of not making pornography which may seem obvious, especially with them being in Primary 5 (Fourth Grade), but the parents when we talked to them were concerned about this, and with fair reason as girls start to drop out from pregnancy starting at about this age. I have high hopes for today although I predict they will overload the computer with the mass of photographs and video they will take, so necessary precautions will be told to them before we begin. Unfortunately I, Ian Wrangham, am sick today so I will be taking a day off and trying to recover quickly so I can be back at school on monday with ample energy and vigor. At least it gave me time to update my faithful readers.
(Please post any questions you have in the future)
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