Building a Better Future with Intel Technology.

"You only use one, Mr. Randy??" Zipporah pointed at his one piece of toilet paper he had just ripped of the roll.

"Yes Ma’am" He smiled, showing his row of clean but uneven set of teeth.

The teachers had been instructed to tear off as much as they needed to "get the job done."

Once everyone had a chance to pick some tissue off the roll, Zipporah continued:

"Now everyone will have to say as many things about themselves as there are pieces of toilet paper…"

"Ahhh," the teachers realized. Aziz started as an example. "I’m forty-one years old….umm…  I’m really excited to be here…" "That doesn’t count, Aziz!!" scolded Zipporah. "We ALL know you are very excited to be here," she laughed.

We continued around the room, finding out the teachers’ number of kids, what they teach, and some even shared their relationship status:

"I am fifty," Sesa announced…

"And she is single," Catherine pointed to her, grinning as the rest of the class chuckled

"And looking," she continued in tease.

Oh stop it, Sesa gestured, merrily shrugging off the banter.

We then passed around papers for every teacher to write down what they want instruction on. The requests varied widely, including things like computer maintenance, spreadsheets, how to transfer photos from their phone to the computer, as well as programming.

"So, your computers had many flavors of antivirus running at the same time, like Panda Security, AVG, and Malware Protection Live," Wilbert explained using a melee of English and Tagalog.

"You only need one - it’s called Windows Defender…" he coached the class.

I continued the morning with an impromptu lesson on Events for programming from code.org’s unplugged activity, and we also introduced algorithms by asking the teachers to write us a procedure on how to walk around the room. In their first draft, they failed to specify some details causing Lucille Robot to interpret incorrectly, taking waltzing steps instead of straight steps.

"No, no, no," the whole class shouted, demonstrating live troubleshooting.

"Take regular steps!" They showed her.

Aziz finished the programming lesson with a note on malware: "Can programs be bad too? Who can give me an example of bad software"

Mr. Randy raised his hand. Aziz pointed to him. "A computer virus," he responded.

"Good, Yes" nodded Aziz.

The last slide showed an example of the Nigerian Money Scam.

"Who would respond to this?" Aziz enticed the class

"Three million pesos, to buy your dream house? Nobody?" he tempted them.

The class shook their heads no.

"How would they know they know my email? I just set it up yesterday!" Exclaimed Evelyn from the back of the class.

"No one would give away that much money," the rest of the class muttered suspiciously.

Even after we showed them a more obscure phishing example, no one took the bait.

This morning, we get a message from Damir: There is a puddle next to my bed; I woke up to dripping water, so I’m moving. Soon, he comes down, saying he got upgraded to the executive suite as consolation.

“The bathroom is so big, the whole Wandzil team could dance the Macarena in the shower,” he grinned, “…Seriously.” Must be nice… in my room, I have to sit on the toilet sideways so my knees don’t hit the wall.

It had rained all night; all the canals that were previously dry were filled with runoff. But the rain was a blessing, relieving us of the intense heat, but as soon as I pull out my camera, the lens fogged up! I didn’t know it could be more humid. Pretty soon we might be able to swim through the air, or at least the puddle in front of the Sto. Niño school.

“During breaks, the students use it as a playground, skin boarding,” the teachers laughed, pointing at the lake-sized puddle.

Today, our pupils were an assortment of teachers and parents.

To combat the gray sleepy weather, Lucille and Aziz introduced the chicken dance. "Yay!" One of them shouted in glee. The rest of the class laughed pointing to her preschool teacher, she must dance this with her class all the time.

The rest of the group caught on, and soon enough the room looked like a flock of clucking chickens.

Later once we put away our feathers and pulled out the laptops, I walked around the class, passing by Elena. She stared incredulously at the computer, then laughed as I kneeled down next to her.

“I can’t operate this thing,” she pointed at the screen.

“Don’t worry, you can learn!” I encouraged her. Lucille had just showed them the shortcuts Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V to copy and paste text. Elena and her lab partner bit their lips as they concentrated on the task, finally making the magic happen. Their eyes lit up in joy, clapping their hands like a child opening their Christmas present.

“The key difference between the adults and the children,” Lucille pointed out “…is that the children click everywhere - they learn by making many mistakes. But the adults are afraid of messing up, so they don’t like clicking.”

By the end of the day, it seemed like we made a good dent in their tech-fail-phobia: there were more and more keys being pressed, claps of success, smiles, and hi-fives.

We work for Intel, can you tell? 

Zipporah was a bit shy and had to hide behind Damir who is kneeling. Aziz is the floating “i”. Ildikó is contorting herself into the “e”, a decent distance away from Lucille hair-waving-in-the-wind “t”, and Wilbert I’m-too-lazy-to-put-both-arms-up “l” 

As we stepped into the classroom Tuesday morning, thirty-four large brown eyes peered shyly in our direction: thirty-four of over five hundred children of Sto. Niño elementary school in the village of Tanauan. Although they were technically on school break, these children were sitting in neat rows, curiously observing us whirl around the room setting up the projector, plugging in the speakers, short circuiting an extension cord (oops!), flipping through notes, and blowing up the beachball. It was finally happening. 

“All right everyone,” Lucille and Zipporah called out, “stand up now and move your chairs to the side of the room.” A minute later, all the children were standing in lines. 

“Now put one hand out, then the other one, now flip it over, and then the other one,” Zipporah said, demonstrating the steps of the Macarena. At this point the group was smiling...

“... and the last step is this...” Zipporah shook her hips around in a circle to a shower of giggles.

Through a little bit of craziness in the morning, Aziz’s introduction to the parts of the computer was a hit.

“So hey kids, this is the screen,” he pointed to the 2-in-1 classmate PC’s monitor.

“What do we use this for?” inquired Aziz, looking up at the class to see what they would respond. Filipinos are very quiet natured: most of them shrugged, or shook their heads I don’t know…

To help out, Aziz continued:

“Well, it’s very shiny. Maybe you can use it to put lipstick on?” he said, smiling.

Almost instantly, the class burst out in laughter, covering their mouths in modesty.

To help their direction for the week, each group of seven or eight student groups picked one project slip. Each had a topic, such as “Places you would like to visit” or “What do you like to do during school break?” For the next week, they will be using this subject to put together a presentation using all the software we will be teaching them.

Pretty soon after we handed out the 2-in-1s, the children had already figured out how to connect to the internet, go on YouTube, and start programs such as “The Magic School Bus Game”, and also to crash the computer with the “Tux Type” learn-to-type app.

To get their attention back, Lucille and Zipporah introduced them to the camera app.

“Guys, open the camera and take pictures of all your teammates!” Lucille instructed. Soon after, they had found the video button, and just like any child of the human race would do, made faces while giggling at each other, replaying the videos again and again.

By the end of the morning, the children were getting quite antsy. In one corner of the room, Jenny was poking Romeo, in the other corner, Randy Boy was slumping in his chair, placing his pink name tag on his forehead. He had quit paying attention for the moment, and was fixated on me. Every time I tried to raise my camera to snap a photo, he ripped the name tag off with the most mischievous grin, then placed the slip back on when I lowered the machine. This continued for a minute or so, until I covertly took an LCD instead of viewfinder shot and nailed this photograph. I suppose they still have one or two things to learn :)

On our last team call, we had a big problem: Lucille had received a bunch more Intel paraphernalia: speakers, keyboards, and more! It was basically enough to fill a whole other suitcase. “How am I going to fit all these things,” she sighed. #firstworldproblems. In the end, she did what she could and is the first one of the team who is on her way while the rest of us frantically pack and check things off our list…

Bug spray, Intel sunglasses, Hydration tablets, check, check, check. When it seems like we've thought of everything there's always one more thing we forget to pack.

Like any other trip, I’ll probably forget something, but hopefully it’ll be: "I forgot a hair tie," not "I forgot my passport!"

Shoot... did I pack enough underwear? Maybe one more, just in case...

At some point you just have to stop and look up, make sure you've got your wallet and passport. The rest is replaceable.

Like me, most of my team members have been packing in the past week, running around to stores to buy that last item for our IESC (Intel Education Service Corps) trip to the Philippines.

We've gotten our vaccines, rounded up equipment, gear, made lesson plans, and asked for tips from the past two teams who have gone before us. We're 100% ready, confident (right?), and excited to go. But also a little nervous, mostly about the little things. But what if my bag weighs 50.5 pounds, I hope I don't have to pay extra!

Over the next two and a half weeks, I will be covering the IESC project where six Intel employees including myself will be traveling to the Philippines to educate in digital literacy and inspire children whose whole world was literally uprooted 2.5 years ago by Typhoon Haiyan. Since then, Intel has sponsored to rebuild their school building in Tacloban, and we’re the third group going back to give them technological immersion and digital training.

Lately, Intel has received a lot of negative media with the layoffs affecting employees worldwide, but the company still finds it important to support this type of high social impact project. My team and I are ecstatic about being able to participate. While we’re on the ground, I will be publishing stories, pictures, and media via the following outlets:

Tumblr: http://iescphilippines.tumblr.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ihtoth

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ihtoth

Blog: http://www.ildikototh.com/index.php/category/iesc/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ihtoth/

Here are team Wandzil’s members:

Wilbert Go (Minnesota, USA): Technical expert

Aziz Bandeli (California, USA): Project Manager

Nora Moolenkamp (Oregon, USA): "Onboarding Project Manager" who will not be able to travel with us, but all her contributions to our project are very much appreciated by the team

Damir Bajramovic (California, USA): Technical expert

Zipporah Stephen (Swindon, United Kingdom): Trainer

Ildiko Toth (Oregon, USA): Social media expert and blogger

Lucille Held (Arizona, USA): Trainer

Why Wandzil?

Wandzil is a derivative of the word "Wand", a word this team coined in their first meeting, and is an accurate description of the team's chemistry, enthusiasm, passion and their commitment to make a difference to the global community.

Can you guess which set of gear belongs to which person?

A

B

C

Answers: A - Wilbert, B - Ildikó, C - Lucille

That’s a wrap! Two weeks…you blink and just like that - it’s over! What an unbelievable experience. It was a mix of volunteers/teachers/students all doing a little teaching, a little learning, and a whole lot of loving. The teachers and the students soaked up every day of training with wide-eyes and big smiles. And our team was a wonderful mix of skills & personalities, able to execute seamlessly and adjust plans on the fly! A huge thank you to Sherwin, our teammate who grew up in the Philippines and is fluent in their local language (Tagalog), for getting us through the many instances where English was not cutting it! While the bug bites will fade, the memories we made will most certainly not.

For a quick flashback to why we came to Sto. Nino and the Tacloban area...Typhoon Haiyan demolished the community in November of 2013, completely wiping out the expansive Sto. Nino Elementary school, leaving behind $2.86B in damages and taking away 6,300 lives. Unreal devastation. Intel saw the need and stepped in to aid the elementary school - giving it hope to, as I discussed in my last blog, rise once again. Our team was sent out to bring light to the recent IT-upgrades & technology they’ve received from Intel.

Pictured above: The school remains as Intel began efforts to rebuild. The newly constructed buildings were erected perpendicular to the beach line, unlike the prior structures which took the full hit of the incoming waves as they were parallel to the waterline. (Photo credit: lifeisinterestingbyjulz.blogspot.com)

During our time at Sto Nino, in the beautiful new school buildings, we held courses teaching critical computer skills and computer applications geared around enhanced learning & bringing a little fun into the classroom. We installed a classroom management tool on the teachers’ PCs and trained them on how to use it, enabling them to do a number of things like: project a virtual whiteboard up on the screen, automatically share any student’s 2in1 screen with the whole class, open up an application on every student’s 2in1 with one click, and even lock down a rowdy student’s computer to get their attention! It also gave them tools for easy test creation where the students can take quizzes and tests on their 2in1s and the results coming in real-time to the teacher’s PC. The team also hooked them up with a brand new printer which led, hilariously, to all of the teachers test printing full-bleed color photos. (*shrieks* thinking about all the ink it used!). With a lesson on grayscale and other printing settings, they’re thrilled to have a working printer and we (Reinhard & Dustin) even, without reliable wifi, got a print server up so they’re able to print wirelessly.

Working with the teachers was wonderful – they were so eager and had so much determination. Kasia pointed out a prime example of this determination during one of our first teach-the-teacher sessions. What many of us take for granted as a simple task, a teacher was following our instructions and working to move a file to a new folder location. First time – no luck, her finger lightened off the touchpad too early and the file jumped back. Second time - same thing. Third..fourth..fifth. But as a testament to their desire and dedication to learn, the teacher continued until she made the successful move on her eleventh try. I know I’m not alone when I say many of us would’ve thrown our hands up in despair before 10 failed attempts at something! Not these ladies!

The other remarkable thing was the excitement to notate and remember every skill and shortcut (Ctrl+C & Ctrl+V were huge hits!) we taught them. After a few days covering PC basics, a Windows 8 crash course, and some essential troubleshooting skills (i.e. “Is the battery dead?” and “Reboot.”), one of the teachers had typed up and distributed a 5-page guide from her notes on our classes. Not only helping current teachers as a reference guide, but for any new teacher that joins the school in the future to get up to speed.

Now to the little ones! What fun we had in those sessions. I never got sick of Kasia & Sherwin opening up the student trainings…Sherwin with his immediate connection to these children (given he is AMAZING with kids and can also speak their local language). And Kasia with her engaging introduction to the computers at the start of each new class, “What is this?” she would say, picking up an Intel Education 2in1 PC in her hand. “Is it a hat?”, opening the clamshell and holding it above her head. “Noooo!” the students giggled. “Is it…a suitcase?” Kasia asked walking away, holding the 2in1 by its handle as a piece of luggage. “Nooo!”, once again from the children laughing and squirming in their seats. After a quick interactive review of what these things are and why they might be excited to use them, we dove into the apps! We showed the students how to use the camera and even a special magnifying glass accessory. The already happy, bubbling classes just erupted with laughter when their images came up on the screen as the camera initiated. Then, dependent on grade level, we taught them how to access and use a mix of applications: an asteroid-blasting math game, a art studio for their creative side, one to enhance their typing skills and another full of fun games to get their minds thinking! Like the teachers, the students were excited to use the PC’s and were focused on getting the skills down themselves. The kids were very intuitive with the machines, after seeing something once – they mastered the skill and quickly adapted that learning to the next time a similar scenario presented itself with the computer.

We also spent two days at the Philippine Science High School. WOW! These are top-notch Filipino high school students who passed a rigorous placement exam to earn their admission. They are so bright – and what’s going to take them the furthest is their enthusiasm for the learning! Wandering around taking glamour shots of the Galileo board, I ran into a group of girls who instantly drew their attention to the small board in my hands and began asking a myriad of questions. The first day of training was for the teachers and after a quick presentation on “Here’s the “Internet of Things”, why it’s totally awesome, why Intel cares and why you should care!” from yours truly, I handed to mic over to Dustin and Reinhard to handle the Galileo Board & Grove Sensor Kit training. The same training was delivered the following week to the students and both days ended in a 3-4 hour contest to build the best IoT app they could using their newfound skills on the Galileo and the sensors in the Grove kit. Magic ensued! In a matter of hours, various projects consisted of: complex security systems developed, timing & heating systems (complete with the potential business models/usages for the app they built!), and even a lovely rendition of “Happy Birthday” using the kit’s buzzer sensor. We handed out Intel® Solid-State Drives (functions of a hard drive, but more kick-butt performance and no more moving parts inside that could mess up some of your data should you drop your PC) to the winning teams. It. Was. So. Cool. My little IoT-loving heart was overflowing with excitement.

As I head back to office this week, I go back with my heart so full of love. Full from the children’s smiling faces, full from the warm hugs & kind words of the teachers, and so full at the thought of the ultra bright future these kids ahead. What perspective they have given to the team and I. I’m eternally grateful for this experience and hope to return to Tacloban again to see the amazing progress this school has and will continue to make.

I’ll be compiling a final trip video and highlighting a special clip of each teammate with the one single word to best describe their experience here. My word was happiness. The overflowing, infectious happiness at this school is what stood out the most for me over these two weeks. They showed me that happiness is possible in the hardest of situations and they’re living proof that an optimistic outlook can do a whole lot of good – for your own heart, and your community. Happiness is a choice; we’re each given it every day. So the next time things get a little rocky in your life, what will you choose? I hope you choose happiness, like Sto. Nino has time & again.