[ALUG] Working group 2 (Collaboration Workspace)

[Richard]

Hi guys,

A significant part of the 3rd meeting centered around the idea of the 
training center as has been articulated in this thread. As Erik has 
mentioned above, the idea is to reach out to secondary school students and 
provide with some sort of basic computing knowledge which they may 
otherwise not get a chance to acquire in school. The discussion touched on:

   1. Some potential areas of training (e.g. Introduction to programming, 
   how the internet works)
   2. The idea of using these trainings to spark interest and maybe even 
   discover talent. This is where one-on-one mentoring can step in.
   3. How to structure these trainings, whether session-based or 
   project-based working on a particular problem (e.g. summer of code 
   projects);
   4. If successful, extending the idea to become a "computer club" in many 
   schools, like Mali Hai clubs.
   5. To make all this happen we will first need a place. Potential leads 
   so far are the AICC and the Arusha City Complex. In addition to that we 
   will need internet bandwidth, which Habari is prepared to offer, and a few 
   computers to begin with.
   

While these ideas are definitely workable, what clearly doesn't sit well 
with me here is the lack of objective. It is indeed possible to just go 
ahead and attempt to do these things but a lack of a clear objective means 
we will attempt to more or less do whatever seems to come up and doable, 
and there will be no way of really knowing how successful our actions are. 
On the other hand, having an objective will really help to simplify 
matters; it will make very clear what we should be doing and also 
importantly what we shouldn't be doing. I should also add that to make 
something like this successful will require a significant amount of 
resources and time; I don't think we should starting putting that time and 
resources into use without first having a clear road map.

With that in mind, I would like to hear your thoughts on what I propose:

   1. First things first, we need a goal. I think the goal was vaguely 
   touched on in our 2nd meeting and roughly put: To enhance the capacity of 
   the local IT industry and the use of IT in general to solve local problems. 
   This is rather rough, it would require quite a bit more thinking and 
   refining. From the goal statement everything else follows suit.
   2. With a goal identified, we need a clear objective. There's actually 
   room for multiple objectives but let's look at the one we've been 
   discussing (and by the way our other idea, presentations and shared 
   learning, neatly fits into the proposed goal above). Here's an example 
   train of thought: we want to enhance the level of computer competency among 
   secondary school students in order to be better equip them to learn, create 
   and participate in the use and application of IT. In order to do that we 
   need to first understand what the current level is, and then identify where 
   we want to take it to. These "levels" need to be quantified: for example 
   maybe we could take a country like Malaysia where similar aged students 
   have higher competency. Let's say in Malaysia they have a pre-university 
   computing test that the students sit for; we could then say we want 
   students here of similar age to have the competency to pass that test (or 
   one inspired by it, taking into account local conditions). This will 
   require needs assessment at a select target schools.
   3. With a clear understanding of the levels of competency we can move to 
   "curriculum" development, what do they need to learn? The answer to that 
   question should be easy to arrive to now given our objective. At this point 
   we'll also need to design the rollout of the learning, how long is a 
   session and how many sessions per week, procedural learning or project 
   based etc. We should arrive at a target period of learning per student, say 
   6 months, 1 year, or 2 years as the curriculum will determine.
   4. After all that we should be ready to start with a few test schools. 
   But before that we would need to get a place, computers and internet. 
   Number of computers and bandwidth will depend on how many we want to start 
   with. We would need to probably look to some sponsors or apply for grants 
   to cover some of these initial costs. This shouldn't be much as we are just 
   starting; we can look for more money once this proves itself.
   5. And then we are ready to start with a select school or schools. If at 
   the end of the training period the students pass the assessment/test then 
   we know we are headed in the right direction.

What I am suggesting above is a rough outline and will need more thought. 
For starters that goal needs to be refined. I think it should immediately 
be clear that this is a lot of work and this will definitely need a project 
manager otherwise this is not going to get off the ground. If you think the 
outline proposed makes sense, and given Habari has already taken a step 
towards providing internet access to secondary schools, perhaps Habari 
could provide someone manage the project. What do you think Erik? Depending 
on whether or not you agree with the outline it would be wise considering 
to hire someone specifically to drive this initiative. It will require 
project management experience, accounting (they'll have to make a budget), 
and writing grant proposals etc which amounts to a full time job. I think 
once we get to the actual training and mentoring, members of our group 
would be happy to pitch in, and we have already indicated to that.

Without taking more or less the steps I propose I do not think this can be 
successful. Sure you could have something set up without all the 
formalities, and we might do some good along the way, but it would be 
rather haphazard and dubious in effectiveness which in the end is to 
enhance our capacity to tackle local problems with IT.

I would love to hear what you guys think.

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Arusha Technical Forum" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to arusha-technical-forum+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.habari.co.tz/pipermail/linux/attachments/20130908/5b99bc48/attachment-0001.html>