A Big Day at the School
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Sunyani,
Ghana
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Mitch, Marcie, and Cory started off for the school at a
little past 8 a.m. while the IBV team was getting ready to go to the hospital
to check out the ventilators.
After a short walk to the school, we were greeted by the
headmistress. She was very sorry that
she could not be there yesterday and asked if we were ready to start the
testing. She said that we would do it in
the computer lab.
The computer lab is a rather large building for the
school. It is about the size of a small
common area on a college campus. There
were four rows of desks with the first two rows having computers and the last
one only having one. The computers
worked to varying degrees. In total
there are only two computers desktop computers that work well enough to use.
Leaving a ratio of students to computer as over 100 to 1.
In the computer lab we met both of the computer
teachers. Andrew and Nasare both of
these men had just recently graduated with college degrees. Nasare graduated with a degree in mechanical
engineering but there is not a lot of work in this area currently.
With the headmistress and the computers teachers present we
then began to explain how we would like the testing to go today. We would like to start with having one of the
computer teachers on one of the computers and on the remaining three we would
like to have two students. Preferably
one that has some experience with computers and one that does not. The students would work with us for a short
period of time, between 10 and 15 minutes and another group of students would
come in.
During this 10 to 15 minute time period, we would be looking
for the ease that the students can use the computers. The computers are supposed to be very
intuitive and pretty easy to learn how to use.
We would also we asking them if they could see this helping them learn
and whether they liked using the laptop better/worse than using the desktop
PC. During this testing we also hooked
up two mice to two of the computers so see if students were better able to use
the computer. Lastly, during this time
we were just trying to get to know the students and learn as much as we could
about the school setting.
After we explained the procedure students were already
coming in. Some of these students Rose
and Augustine were both present in the first group during this time. Rose was in Marcie's group again with a new
girl Juliet. Having some of the students
from yesterday really helped in the learning process. It also helped us test to see if the students
remembered what they had learned yesterday.
With Rose in Marcie's group she asked Rose if she remembered
how to do certain programs and tasks that we did yesterday. During this time period, Rose and Juliet
learned together as they used the computer.
Rose was able to explain the computer a little differently than I could
ever do.
During this time, Cory was working explain how the computers
functioned to the computer teachers. He
went through a lot of the basic programs with the computer teacher a student
watching. After going through the
program, he told the student to go get a friend and start teaching his friend
how to use the computer. As the day
evolved that was how all the learning went of the computer. We were just there to answer questions as
well as to ask some questions of the students.
During the day, the headmistress also brought in her laptop
for the students to use. It was like any laptop that you would see in the US.
The laptop has many different educational games that the students can use but
it is very hard to try to share a laptop between using for educational purposes
and still getting work done with the computer.
As time passed more and more students started being around
the computer. There were no longer just
two students using the computer but around five or six. The students all took turns teaching how to
use the computer and the different programs that they enjoyed using. During this time period, the headmistress
brought in a teacher that has never used a computer. She sat down right next to Mitch and the
headmistress said show her how to use one of these. The teacher had no idea how to use the touch
pad or what most of the programs on the computer even meant. This was a very good test for us because we
will probably get more teachers like this when we go out into the more rural
villages. After spending some time
teaching her some of the basics of the computer. Mitch showed her the web cam and the
recording aspect of the computers. She
was so excited to see herself and the capabilities of the computers.
We had been taking pictures all day with the students using
the computers and us interacting with the students but by about 10 a.m. we
decided that we should print out a few of these pictures for the headmistress
and possibly some of the students. We
plugged in the photo printer (electricity was not a problem at all in the
building. There were more than enough
outlets as well as extension cords to plug the computers in). After plugging the computer in and putting
the memory card from the cameras in to print the first pictures students and teachers
alike where amazed at what could be printed out right in front of them. They were so excited to see their image. It was during this time that students wanted
to take pictures with all of us or at least one of us. They were also getting comfortable with us
and interacting a lot more. Some of them
even asked if they could take pictures with our cameras. At one point in the morning all three of our
cameras were in students hands. They were
able to capture everything that they were learning from their perspective.
During this time period two of the desktop computers where
being used by other students. At first
only one computer was able to work because the other one kept freezing up. After a while of the children trying to
refresh the computer they gave up and shut the computer down. They said that it often happens like that and
that we should fix the computers. We
tried to explain to the children that we don't really know how to fix computers. The one computer that was working looked like
something out of the 90s. It was big
bulky monitor that the children were practicing a typing game. When we asked them about the differences
using the desktops versus using the laptops the children explained that they
liked the desktop better because there are more fun games on the computers but
the laptops are much faster and they work better. They also said they really enjoyed being able
to chat with their friends.
After about two and a half hours of working on the
computers, we decided to take a group photo of all us and the students. There had to be at least 75 students who
already used the computer standing and laughing. We placed the XO laptop in front and I doubt
that we could have gotten a better group picture. Then one of the computer teachers offered to
take a picture of us in there with all the children.
After taking the group pictures the children rushed inside
to work on the computers while we stayed outside to talk with the computer
teachers and head mistress on how they felt that the testing was going. They said that everything was going really
well and that the students are just learning so much. We then wanted to know how we could improve
the program for next year. They said that
the new window's based version would work much better especially with the I.C.T
program because the program makes students open documents, save, copy and paste
and while this computer has the capability of doing these different options
they are not set up in same manner as on windows which could cause confusion
for children. They also said that mice
would also be very helpful improvement because the touch pads are so iffy and
part of I.C.T is learning how to use the mouse correctly. They also wanted more programs on the
computers that deal with math, science, and typing. Overall, they thought that it was a good
basic computer that students could learn about computers. They would be best used for a younger grade
once computers have been implemented but since there are still many children
who have never used a computer this will be a very helpful start. They would
love to have 30 of the new version of the XO laptops and one of the smaller
black laptop computers which we brought over for the teacher.
We began talking about other projects that could be useful
for future groups to do next year. The first thing that the head mistress said
was library books. The school has space
for a library but they do not have any books.
The children love to read but if there are no books they can't read very
much. They would love books having to
deal with science and easy to read books.
After finishing up the discussion we went back into the
computer classroom to see how the children were doing with the computers. All four of them we working and there were
about anywhere from seven to ten children around the computers. All we did was observe how they used the
computer and answer any questions.
Around 11:30 one of the computers started to die so we
showed them how to plug in and charge them.
They had plenty of extension cords and outlets for the computers to be
charged and continually used. Within the
next half hour to forty minutes the other three computers also began to need to
be charged. At this point we decided
that it would be time to pack up the computers to allow the children to go back
to class. Throughout the day, the
headmistress had to keep telling students to go to class. She said that the students were just so
excited that during their break time many of them came to look at the computers
instead of going outside to play. These
computers would allow for better use of free time.
As we began packing up the computer, there were many
children that wanted to become pen pals with us. We handed out our addresses and email
addresses to the students who had email addresses. This whole process took another half hour
because there were just so many students.
We then stopped by the headmistress's office to see how she
thought the testing went and for any other suggestions. She told us that we would need to leave some
of the computers at the school because we had wetted the child's appetite to
learn about computers. She made the suggestion
that we should leave two computers with them and two computers with another
school. This way, two schools would
benefit from the computers. She said
that if we did not leave computers the children will forget and the next group
will have to start from scratch. We
thank the headmistress and told her that we will be back sometime within the
next two weeks to tell her our final decision.
After leaving the school it was about 1 p.m. and headed back
to the dormitories. Just as we were
getting back to the dorms the IBV team (International Business Venture) were
returning from their day at the hospital.
They had the chance to tour the whole hospital and also talk to
different doctors about ventilators.
They had already eaten lunch.
Brooke and Sam decided that they would head down to the market area to
see what was going on.
Cory, Mitch, Marcie, and Nana still needed to get some lunch
so they decided that they would ask a taxi driver to take us to a
restaurant. After some brief explaining
we found a very nice restaurant that was a little different than the other
places that we have been eating at.
During that lunch we discussed how we would improve the computers and
also what program that we would want to download back in Kumasi.
After enjoying a nice lunch we took time to journal and
reflect on the day. We then tried another
new place called the Gold Coast which was walking distance from the
dormitories. The restaurant served the
many of the similar dishes that most Ghanaian restaurants serve like rices,
fufu, and banku.
After a good dinner we turned in for the night so that we
would be able to leave early the next morning for Kranka.
