OLPC Conference in Boston, Massachusetts

Howdy Ya’ll,
It’s nice to be back in Texas, however, I miss Kenya with all my heart! I had the opportunity to represent our team in the Boston, Massachusetts OLPC Conference. We basically did a whole de-briefing about our projects. We were told that OLPC may not continue to do small portion deployments. They are looking to saturate whole countries like they did in Uruguay and Haiti. Whatever the outcome, OLPC Kenya will continue to support Asilong Primary School. Our ultimate goal, however, will be to saturate all of Kenya. Our plans of now include starting club organizations at our University, writing grants, and finding donors for future deployments. On a larger scale we are setting up meetings with the Prime Minister, Board of Education, OLPC representatives, and our NGO’s to discuss this mass deployment. Who knows what our future holds and with faith in God I believe that this project will flourish.

-Sophia

Sustainability Update

During our last week in Pokot we decided to have a meeting at the bore hole with all of the community, City Harvest and SNV. We had a lot of positive response, the parents promised to send more children to school and SNV decided to partner with OLPC and host another teacher workshop in August. I never imagined that we would get such amazing results. Not only did the teachers learn more about the applications on the XOs but also SNV donated a computer,printer and internet for the school. SNV is even thinking about purchasing more XOs in the future. The teachers are also able to send e-mails to us now.

Here are some of their e-mails:

THE SNV, CITY HARVEST, KIFICOM, OLPC AND E-LEARNING CONSORTIUM
The training done from 10th to 14th of August 2009 supported by the above departments has brought a significant change and encouragement to the trainees.All teachers from Asilong and Toroko with their chief became excited.
The Asilong members were presented a computer and modem by SNV in order to access internet and KIFICOM donated printer to enhance easy printing within the school. All this will promote E learning.
The attendance were happy and promised to share the knowledge with the entire community and become computer initiators. They will become seeds sown in pokots and marakwet society.
May god bless SNV, CITY HARVEST, KIFICOM, OLPC AND E- LEARNING CONSORTIUM(for peace will prevail)
By Nicholas Krop Lorikow FROM ASILONG

I hereby joyfully thank your contribution [ELEARNING Consortium] training people say about computer I thought was like [sky was limit].
Your training encourages soul that already demolished about technology. I approved to put more effort for limit I have heard. My prayer to have one laptop one time, tears for harmony relay to volunteers of training [snv, elearning consortium, city harvest, and kificom for training , laptops and water to Asilong
My God bless you
Benson kitiyo—FROM ASILONG

THANKS GIVING
I would like to say thanks to all those who took part in facilitating a one week computer training to Asilong primary school teachers at Eldoret.
To start with I can say the training was good and enjoyable one. We had the best teachers, who were not only good in training but also friendly and willing to equip us with their knowledge on computer
As we are going back to Asilong, I think all that we acquired throughout the training period will be of use to Asilong community. we promise the OLPC group that their donation will be of benefit to the community. We also dream of making Asilong the champion of ICT in the region and liberate the community from the negative attitude they have on child education, especially the girl child. Your donation of laptops has made the school to register an increase in pupils population.
summary my thanks and gratitude are to all the facilitators of the training. the donors of XO laptop, the donors of safaricom modem, the donors of the printer and desktop computer.
From SIKUKU KORIR EMMANUEL—teacher Asilong

ASILONG PRIMARY SCHOOL COMMUNITY
I am happy to note that the need of Asilong problems is now available in the internet. City harvest, kificom, SNV really deserves great thanks. This school started in the year 2003 with little or no hope of progress, the school now has something to smile about because its future is being catered for, as a new administrator of the school I promises to learn the use of ICT and transform the school and the entire community to the world of ICT technology. With the use of laptop computers and other related computers provided to school, the school is going to be a computer literate and computer center in North pokot and perhaps the whole of north rift region.
From the head teacher Asilong primary
Mr. Francis Merireng

This has been a break through for the tribe at North Pokot. At first they had no food, water, electricity and adequate knowledge- and now all the doors have opened up for them. Without the help from everyone, our team, our supporting parents, OLPC, UBC, City Harvest and SNV we never could have made it this far. I am excited to see what blessings the future brings to the tribe at Pokot. God bless!

-Sophia Worth

Success At Last!

During our last few days at North Pokot, everything started to fit together like a puzzle. OLPC set up solar panels, brought the laptops, brought a server, and taught the children and teachers how to use them. City Harvest Ministries and United Baptist Church continually work with the children at Asilong primary school throughout the year. We have two interns coming for four months in the fall. SNV (an NGO based out of the Netherlands) donated internet, a printer, and held a two week teacher workshop. At the final Parent Meeting we discussed several topics. We talked about sending more children to school instead of making them tend the cattle. Sophia Yiega, part of SNV, told us that her parents sent her to school and now she bought them a house and several cows, goats, and sheep. Grace from City Harvest said to send your daughters to school. It is time to break the oppression of women. Women should not be slaves to men. Women are just as capable as men if not more! I do not want to force the Pokot to change their traditional ways, however, I do want to educate them and give them all the information they need to make the choice for themselves. I loved the tribal experiences I had. I loved the dancing, the preparation of food, their way of survival. I just want females to be treated with respect. Aretha Franklin knew what she was talking about!
-Sophia

Child Ownership of the XOs

Our group decided to try something different with the XO's. Instead of simply having a computer class for two hours a day we decided that we would let the children check the laptops out before school. We did not want the laptops to be a distraction from their classes so we have a meeting with the students and teachers. We told the students to keep the laptops in their desks unless their teacher wanted to use them for that class. We made sure the teachers understood that the children should be able to use them during their break times, lunch, and after school. We wanted to test the waters so we did an experiment day where the teachers were in charge of the laptops. We shadowed them to make sure everything went smoothly.

The results were fantastic. The kids picked up their assigned laptops and carried the XOs to class. Not one single child disobeyed the teacher when class was going on. On break, all the children were gathered under trees using their XO's in excitement and wonder. One boy had illustrated his family tree using paint and then wrote a story about each of his family members. One girl drew a house using the same application and then inside the house, wrote out the names of everyone who lived with her. Now we do need to keep in mind that the children of Pokot do not live in houses. They live in huts. The concept of "house" was different for these children.

I'm a Survivor

Teacher training has been going very well. We decided to keep the teacher training all throughout the time we are spending at Pokot. Right now they are learning about Scratch (which has to deal with animations) Chat, and Measure. The older teachers are still having problems with clicking and dragging items on the laptops while the younger teachers have already started teaching their students different programs on the XO's.

We were able to saturate the entire 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and the 6th graders at Asilong Primary school. We gave them their assigned laptops and divided them into two groups. We have the 2nd and 3rd graders together and the 4th, 5th, and 6th graders together. When teaching the younger group we found out that it was rather difficult because we had to go through each program and each step over and over and over again. They couldn't even type their own story using "write" so instead we started out with them just typing out the alphabet. The older group however, was able to grasp the concepts of the programs. They are doing very well with each of the assignments we have given them.

Our goal for this next week is to let the children take full responsibility of their laptops. They will be able to sign them out and take them home, charge their laptops at the school using the Charging Schedule, and to start an after school program where the children can decide what they want to learn.

We had a meeting with the parents which was successful. Even though they are very traditional they were excited that we brought this new technology to their tribe. We let them look at the laptops and we took pictures of them using the XOs. They want their children to learn more about the lap tops so in turn the children can teach their parents. We are having another parent/teacher conference this Thursday, the 16th.

Besides our priorities we have been able to dance with the tribe, sit in the back of a chicken truck, fix up the children using our first aid kits, climb Mount Sequot, see a chicken get slaughtered, and eat 2 small meals a day. Leila, Sharon (our NGO Representative) and I have started a Girl's club. We meet everyday and talk to the women about hygiene, equality, and education. We want them to know that women can have a future besides being a wife. They tell us they want to wear pants but they are scared to be beaten. They also tell us what they want to be when they grow up. We want them to have a safe place where they can express their concerns, fears, and hopes.

It has been a very interesting trip to say the least.

Teacher Workshop Week 1

This has been an adventurous week. When we first arrived we had no sleeping bags so we slept on rocks for about a week. We had no running water so in order to take a shower or cook we had to travel to the well and fetch buckets of water. There are no toilets, just an outhouse. There is no electricity so you must get everything done before the sun sets. Cory slaughtered a goat and we were able to feed the whole community. The women here are treated like property. They are circumsized and have their bottom teeth pulled out. They fetch the water, cook, clean, tend the children, plant, water the plants- basically any chore you can think of. The men sit on their "special chairs" made out of wood under the shade. They sunbathe naked and have many wives. They are very lazy and it makes me sick to my stomache. If a woman gets caught sitting on the "chair" they are beaten and must sacrifice one of their goats.

I can't be totally pessimistic, education is improving, and will be even more with the XO's OLPC has donated. More girls are being allowed to attend instead of getting married when they turn 13.

We started teaching the teachers about the XO and its programs from 3pm to 5pm every day. The first day was very fustrating because they could not grasp the concept of the mouse. It took about 30 minutes just for them to get a hang of clicking and dragging the mouse. We started with record and write. Then we tried to get them to copy and paste a picture into write and illustrate a story- big mistake for the first day. Each day got better and better. The second day we taught speak and wikipedia which they really enjoyed. Then we taught them memorize and calculate. They made their own memorize game by matching a swahili word with an english one

i.e. Jambo-Hello Asante-Thank you

We moved on to ruler, implode, and moon activity. We have accomplished so much in only four days. We decided that we will start teaching the children in the morning and continue the teacher workshops from 3-5pm each day. I also decided that I am going to start an after school program where we will go more in depth with the XO's so that they will fully understand the functions. Some of the OLPC team have become full time teachers- they have taught english, science, and of course computer science. The solar panels we installed are a huge success and we were able to also put in a light so that the children can learn at night.

All is well!

Asilong Primary School at the Pokot Tribe

The school in Pokot is very different from the schools you find in America. First of all, to build a school they use pieces of wood for the frame, then they put the mixture of of cow dung, water, and dirt over the wood. The desks are long wooden benches with a slab of wood for the tables. There are little chalkboards in each of the rooms. They have levels 1-6, along with books for each grade. The books however, are very outdated and most of the English books have mistakes in them. Some of the children actually live near the school in these little houses (like a dormitory.) They sleep on the floor without pillows and blankets. When they wake up they eat porridge and head out to school around 8am and get out at 3pm. There are 8 teachers total, including the head master. They are very estatic to learn about the XO's, most of them have never seen a computer before. Each teacher has at least 2 to 3 subjects that they teach. They have science, social studies, mathematics, swahili, english, and religion. Most of the teachers do not have teaching certificates- just a diploma from high school. The kids are very happy to see us. They always stare and say "Karam" which means good in Pokot or they say "how are you, how are you."