Halfway through [2019-02-27]

Since the last post, we’ve continued our visits to existing Reneal installations.  We spent two days at Cebu Technological University (CTU) in Carmen, and we held teacher orientation training at Cantumog National High School.  We dropped by Calero Integrated School in Liloan to return their server after a hardware fix, and then we spent the rest of the day at Arcelo Memorial National High School in Liloan, the school where Sir Jade teaches.  Now we’ve embarked on a major reconfiguration at Compostela National High School, where we’ll spend (at least) the coming week.  And while Neal and I were away for some R&R, Lloyd and Ervin were whirlwinds: putting additional client computers at CTU Carmen, installing a small Reneal lab in the library at Compostela Science and Technology High School, and doing computer repairs in the Compostela National High School library.

CTU Carmen was Reneal’s first tertiary-level installation.  Neal has really enjoyed learning about their curriculum and working with Sir Louie Romano, the computer programming teacher, to add capabilities to the Reneal system to support the students there.  There is more work yet to come during our time here in Cebu in 2019, and we look forward to a continued partnership with CTU Carmen.

The teacher orientation at Cantumog NHS was really a joy.  The teachers there were fast as lightning in checking out the capabilities of the Reneal system!  Right now we have a hardware glitch there to deal with, so that’s high on our priority list to solve*.  We are always grateful for schools that report issues right away.  As we always tell them, “We can’t fix problems we don’t know about.” 

The on-going work at Compostela NHS is a big project.  This was the original Reneal installation starting back in 2007, and it is by far the most complex we’ve ever done.  Working with Sir Jade and the teachers at CNHS, we’ve come up with a way to simplify it while retaining most of the original capability.  This simplification will make it much easier for our team here to maintain.  The original system of hierarchical servers will be changed to three separate servers, one of which is solely for teachers’ work.  Lloyd, Ervin, and I have the recabling done, and the teachers’ server is already in place.  We’ll hopefully finish things up by the end of this week. 

Today Lloyd and Ervin delivered the server and the last client to the Compostela Sci Tech library.  That work is completed now, and I’ll head there next week to give an orientation to Ma’am Ana, the library in-charge.  Although it is a small system, it will hopefully be a big help to the students there.

*Update: I think we just figured out the problem with the Cantumog server – a dead video card.  We’ll head to the mall Saturday to get a replacement.

[Photo: Neal and Sir Louie Romano at CTU Carmen, the students at CTU Carmen using the new laptops installed by Lloyd and Ervin]