Onward to Ilkiding'a [2014-10-15]
Monday we returned to Mwandet Secondary School for the teacher orientation training on the Reneal IEO system. It was a lot of fun! Today we began our second computer lab installation, this at Ilkiding’a Secondary School. Just like at Mwandet, we’re installing a server along with 16 donated laptops connected to the server for student and teacher use.
The training at Mwandet went well. I spent much of Sunday restructuring the training material, and it seemed to pay off. The teachers were very enthusiastic about the educational programs and resources included on the server; it seems like Tux Math is always especially popular! The training concluded our 2014 work at Mwandet, but we will visit one more time before we head back to America to address follow-up questions or problems. We put a few photos on the Reneal IEO Facebook page from the training.
Tuesday Neal worked on creating disks of the Reneal IEO system for our colleagues at Habari Node and Arusha Node Marie (ANM). These will hopefully be resources that can be used by other schools. We also hope to visit a few of the schools that have internet sponsored by ANM. According to our ANM contacts, some of these schools have obsolete computers that may be perfect for use with the Reneal IEO system.
Today’s installation at Ilkiding’a had the usual ration of decisions and challenges for a first day. Server and network switch placement is always the first order of business, and there are several factors to consider. Most importantly, they should be in an out-of-the-way location. We had a somewhat unusual situation in that network wiring had been installed previously in the Ilkiding’a computer room, so we had to do enough testing to see if it would last for another generation of computers. It appears that at least half of the laptops will be able to use this previous wiring, but that still left one wall of computers that need cabling. I had goofed by taking the UPS up to the school on our first visit almost two weeks ago, so it needed to charge all day before it could be used. Thus we had to rummage through the “green bag”, our trusty tool kit, to find non-UPS cables so we could start some work today. One of the laptops that had passed the memory test suddenly became unresponsive (after further checking this evening, it appears just to be a temperamental “on” switch). And so on and so forth. But in the end, it was a productive day and we are well-positioned to finish off the cabling tomorrow and get on with the serious business of testing.
We were quite pleased to have six students joining us in our work today, as well as the frequent presence of the school Headmaster and Secondmaster. The IT teachers are very interested and engaged, and everyone really worked hard today to transform a pile of boxes into what now looks pretty close to a functioning computer lab! To round out a good day, we all enjoyed some lighter moments together popping bubble wrap. Working with the students is always gratifying, and these six kids were very sharp. Inevitably we think of our intern Jade when we work with these young, motivated students who are so eager to learn; we wish them the kind of success and knowledge that Jade has achieved. It’s why we do this work and is the ultimate reward for the investment of time and effort.