#fototoon

It has been a very busy term with a struggle to create the foundation of OLPC project in different schools. I am encouraged by what has come out of those institutions in a such a very short period of time.

At schools like Ngarendare Secondary, Leparua Primary, Lewa Primary and Subuiga primary, this term has meant the introduction of OLPC projects,  while at Ntugi Secondary this term has been about developing their use of the XO laptops to a higher level.

The thing I feel has been achieved best is the curiosity that has arisen at these schools after realizing how much help the OLPC XO's can be in learning if they are introduced to the school curriculum. This idea has won acceptance at all the institutions I have worked with.

I have seen teachers, after an introduction of an activity in Sugar, enthusiastically suggest areas where it can assist in teaching. The Sugar activities that have been voted very useful in teaching are;

Record

Tuxmath

Fototoon

Distance

The most helpful ability of the XO laptop that has been highly voted is the inbuilt network enabling sharing of activities . But these are the only activities that I have been able to introduce to them this term. Still, we are developing the knowledge base well.

Next term at Ntugi and Leparua, I am planning to suggest an activity I will call  “silent discusions activity" where the students will, after researching about a topic on the Internet, use the Write activity (when shared) to discuss about the topic without using their text books. In the Write document they can correct each other and in the long run will have mastered the concept of the topic. I will explain to them that this is similar to the process by which Wikipedia is built - by many people collaborating, sharing and correcting information.

Lewa's  Conservation Education Centre is another institution that has easily picked up the concept of the OLPC project.The CEC has enhanced the experience of students from all over Kenya who visit Lewa. As part of their visit, those students to have a chance to use the OLPC laptops as part of their program. Since many come from a very remote areas where access to computers is still rare, using the XO laptops is very exciting for them. And, for the CEE it is a very helpful tool to teach about conservation and get the concepts well mastered by the students.

Personally, this has been a successful term. My position as an intern has improved me as a person, training me to handle multiple things at a time and deal with different institutions  which each have different levels of understanding and different interests. My goal has been to make them understand the main purpose of the OLPC project which is to boost education through use of technology. The position of intern has also provided me with the resources to research about computer science (XO laptop, Safaricom modem and data time) and I find it a great chance since this is an area I have always dreamt to venture in.

The only shortcomings have been:

Trouble with transport - some of the schools are very remote and the rains have been hard - which mostly make me very un-prompt.

Dealing with large classes using only a few laptops and a sitution where everybody needs my attention and this makes me to do very little advancement even in a longer period of time.

The most vital thing now is to try to connect all the institutions/schools involved in the project. We have so far connected Ntugi Secondary and Leparua Primary and we have established have a common time they can chat on IRC.

If Ngarendare Secondary could be developed with a permanent set of laptops, and connected to Ntugi Secondary, they could have lot to share since they are both secondary schools. For instance...

The Prefects at Ngarendare could IRC chat with the one at Ntugi and they can share the problems they encounter.

Students at each school can be posting very difficult questions on a blog for the other school to research and answer.This could be a very good way of learning .

Under development is a blog that will connect Lewa and all the schools in the project where they can ask questions about conservation education and Ephantus Mugo can answer them through the blog.

If all these connections succeed, even technical problems could be easily shared and locally solved!

Thanks to all who have participated to make this term such a successiful one. Schools have closed for holiday and am looking forwad for the next year to get these ideas in practise.

Thank You

Monday: Ntugi Secondary Ntugi School  is a site with OLPC experience, all the potential for running the program, and willing members from the Computer Club and, for this reason, I have decided to use it as a centre for testing any activity before presenting it to our other partner institutions.

The first activity that I have done this is FotoToon  where students can create a comic or illustrated story by use of both FotoToon and the Record activity. The Ntugi students practiced with it and were able to easily come up with different picture illustrated stories. Because of the success of this, I will try experimenting with it at Leparua with the younger, primary students.

The other activity I have yet to introduce is one that I will collaborate on with both Walter and the Computer Club members in the future.  I think it would be good to build a Memorize game that asks the students to match the photos of the lab equipment to their technical names as Walter told me that the Form Ones (Grade 9's) are having problems with identifying the different lab equipment. Tuesday: Ngarendare and Lewa Primary Ngarendare is a site that also has the potential involve the OLPC activities in their academic work and curriculum as it is a new school of only 50 students. So far, it has only the initial Form One (Grade 9) class and the student and teachers are still creating the school cultures.  If computer literacy and the use of student-centred learning  is one of the cultures they develop then it is assured to last forever.

I had a session with teachers at Ngarendare where we discussed this. I had them tell me the areas they found difficult in teaching and then suggested I could develop a way of teaching that unit by combining the activities in Sugar that could help them, and make the work more fun for both them and the students. They talked of field work and the English teacher said she had a problem with helping the students work well together collaboratively and also with minimizing their grammatical errors.

I am now  designing a combination of activities that can help with this:

Field Work: The students can use the OLPC in taking the photos during the field work and they can use the write activity to discuss them.

Collaboration and Grammar:  By use of FotoToon and the Record activity they can create picture-illustrated stories and this will help them work well together. They can reduce their grammatical errors by peer editing through sharing of the write activity and correcting each other in a different coloured font. I will test this with them and make it as suggestion to them.

At Lewa Primary I introduced the TuxMath activity and I suggested that if well monitored so the students compete with one another for the highest score, this game-based activity can be used even the advanced levels can improve their arithmetic  skills. They found it very useful. Wednesday: Subuiga Primary I went to Subuiga primary but they had a function on the same day. It has teachers that are readily accepting the ideal of using the laptops. I think with their support it is going to be at the front line our use the OLPC technology in the area.

Thursday: Conservation Education Centre

The game drives of the year have been completed and we are now designing new features for 2012. I am thinking of new activities that can suit the Conservation Education Centre as well as creating more games for the CEC to distribute to the OLPC schools in the area. Friday: Leparua Primary I went at Leparua primary and the teachers had already left and only Mr. Kitonga, the Principal,  was at school. I had a session with Class Six students where I divided them into groups and taught them about FotoToon and the work I had experimented with at Ntugi early in the week (see above).  Before I left, I assigned them work to create their own picture-illustrated stories (or comics) during the next week and, when I returned next Friday, we would see which group could produce the best. Doris phoned me when I was back home and we arranged how that could be done in my absence.