[ALUG] Working group 2 (Collaboration Workspace)

[Erik Rowberg]

Thanks Richard for taking the time to put all that down. 

I agree without goals and objectives we could waste alot of time.  although 
I am not completely sure what that goal  should be specifically.  I am a 
bit concerned it turns into a place to go surf the web and use social 
websites.  


 I am looking for this model of similar think done in Canada, and will 
forward.

It is Arusha Node Society that owns half of Habari that would be willing to 
bein involved by giving bandwidth and maybe some cash.  I will ask about 
paying for a coordinator/manager .  Habari Node Ltd would also consider 
helping in some way.


I happened to meet a couple www.reneal.org  who setup thinclient labs for 
schools in Tanzania and Philipines.  I think we should talk with them about 
experiences.  We might even want to visit some of these labs in Arusha or 
send someone around and report back.  Maybe one of the university field 
students.

There are alot of people on this group, please give your thoughts to 
Richard's thoughts.





On Monday, September 9, 2013 8:40:21 AM UTC+3, Richard wrote:
>
> 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.
>

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