SIMON’S REPORT 15: The Power of Computer clubs
Monday: Ntugi Secondary
Ntugi is a center that is fully equipped and has the potential to transform the learning at school to one that is fully OLPC aided. Efforts are therefore required to see this working efficiently and it has to be everyone’s desire. I am trying to increase the contact time with the students and the laptops. The good and promising thing is that it has become a fact to everyone that there is an aiding tool in the XO in every area of study. The start point has been to start projects that are assistive, student friendly and joyful to work at. The Memorize and Fototoon Activities that have been used to develop projects have ignited the spirit of creativity and, with the introduction of Scratch, TuxMath and Typing Turtle among others, they will help students move from analog to another level of abstraction…the digital world. The students have already completed a test project on creating a picture illustrated story in Fototoon and a Memorize game about the names of the lab equipment which is now loaded onto all 40 laptops in the school.
Tuesday: Ngare Ndare Secondary/Lewa Primary
I am still introducing the OLPC XO laptops to Ngare Ndare and Lewa schools and showing them the different things that the laptop can do. It is a slow process because I am carrying in only four XO laptops in my backback, and there is yet to be power at these two schools. And so, I use 2 laptops at Ngare Ndare, and 2 at Lewa. That gives me a couple of hours of use until the batteries expire. I introduced The Turtle Art Activity to teachers at Ngare Ndare and they were able to design different patterns using it. I proceeded to Lewa and I showed them how to browse the web.
Wednesday: Subuiga Primary
With the whole day at Subuiga I found it good to start a club there that I can be working with when the teachers are busy. I have formed up a Computer Club, just like we have at Ntugi and Leparua, and its activities will commence on the coming Wednesday. It has functioned as an incentive and motivation to the students as the best students are the ones offered the first chance. Every student is now struggling to get the chance. Ntugi Group’s long term goal is for the club members from the primary schools to graduate to the secondary school Computer Club, and for the best of those students to become Ntugi Group Interns like I have, teaching computer literacy back to their previous schools and beyond that. After that, the Interns can become teaching assistants and OLPC site supervisors like Godfrey is at Nutgi...and then on to certified teachers!
Thursday: Lewa Conservation Education Centre
On Thursday we had students from Nkubu High School and were the first school visiting the CEC to be involved in using the laptops in the field.
They used the Distance Activity to take measurements between trees and find out the average spacing between them.
They also used the Record Activity to take photos of the insects found in the vegetation and recorded sounds of the animals and birds .They found it very enjoyable. The last activity was done indoor which was playing the Memorize activity, a quiz about the wild animals they had seen on their game drive.
Friday: Leparua Primary
At Leparua, the Computer Club is doing very well with the sign-in/sign-out idea of letting the students be independent with the XO’s while still monitoring the laptops and keeping them safe and secure. I introduced the wireless ‘mesh’ sharing of activities to the students and they asked and answered questions through a shared Write Activity - and the group that got the most answers right was the winner. They now have this activity that they can use on their own time and it improves both their typing speed and word processing skills apart from class work.
Post by Simon Mwangangi
