Some more details on the Teachers Talking course in Nigeria

This is from Pam McLean (a colleague here in the UK) who is one of the 
facilitators of the the TT workshop out in Nigeria. Note if a bunch of 
people (mostly non-IT specialists) from the UK can do this in Nigeria 
I'm sure a bunch of Trinidadians can do the same in rural Trinidad or 
Tobago, if CIS has any interest in doing something along these lines I 
would be happy to provide the resources generated for this course:

 From Pams post:

   This morning we did practical work.

   We had four groups of teachers, two secondary, two primary. At each 
level one group prepared a lesson on input-process-output and the other 
  prepared a lesson on digital information.

   Then we had secondary pupils in for a half hour lesson, it was 
literally  "luck of the draw" which group presented (observed by all 
their  colleagues). Secondary was digital information, primary was 
input-process-output. After break the groups who had not presented to 
the children presented their lessons to the rest of the group (the 
children had to go for exams).

   Tomorrow we plan something similar with data processing and the Internet.

   At lunch time there was a sad interlude, when ten of us went to pay 
our  condolences to one of the course members who is away due to a 
family  bereavement yesterday. He hopes to return tomorrow.

   In the afternoon we were back in the computer lab. I got there only a 
few  minutes before 2pm - the start time of the afternoon session - to 
find it  was already well under way. The teachers had all arrived early. 
One of  the co-volunteer facilitators (I am sorry I only know him as 
Wale - I do  not know his full name) was there and was scheduled to 
teach some  technical practicalities so an early start had been made.

   When I arrived Wale was explaining about the UPS (Uninteruptable 
Power Supply) - an essential part of any Nigerian computer system. 
Basically it   is a battery system that kicks in when the power supply 
fails to ensure the system is shut down safely and data is not lost.

   Once everyone was confident about powering up and turning off we did 
a  quick session to help us all find our way around the screen and 
keyboard.  After that it was back to everyone logging on to Teachers 
Talking group  and doing their own thing. I have not had to time to go 
through them yet  - perhaps someone else will write that side of things 
again... Person to  person emails were also beginning to flow.

   We did have inconvenience because of screen resolution. Often it was 
  impossible to view the whole screen from left to right. Even with the 
  smallest sized font it was sometimes necessary to scroll from side to 
  side. The download rate is slower than home, but people do not seem to 
be  frustrated by it, and accept that the system needs time before 
information arrives on the screen.

[Ross' note - most of the machines are very old refurbished things from 
the UK, I do not know for sure but I suspect the screen resolution 
problem is to do with the capabilities of the graphics cards.

As for the download speeds, not suprising since their is not sufficient 
power in the national grid to run the computers the majority of the 
time, let alone having a decent Internet connection]

   When I thought to check my watch it was 4.30 - and the session should 
  have ended at 4.00 pm. I called people's attention to the fact and 
apologised for not inviting them to leave at 4.00pm. However nobody 
left,  they kept on working, gradually drifting away during the next 
half hour  or so.

   The computer lab here is filling up again now (it is very hot)- I 
guess  these are people on the FOSS course, and various Fantsuam 
Foundation  volunteers and ex-trainees - but I don't have time to ask 
yet. I need to  check the emails sent during todays session and I don't 
know how long we  will have power...

[Ross' note: The FOSS course is a related course for more IT focussed 
folk but I'm not providing more info on this list as that is not an 
objective of CIS]

   Pam

Visit the CIS Project on the WWW:  http://www.cis.org.tt

View the offlist archives: http://blog.gmane.org/gmane.education.cis

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