Jamhuri Primary School and Moshi Tanzania
Back on the Road Again!
We are back in Moshi, Tanzania for our annual technology education trip, this time for 4 weeks, instead of 2 weeks. Moshi is located in the northeast corner of the country, near the Kenyan border and at the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro. The country is as beautiful as ever. We have a spectacular view of Mt. Kilimanjaro from our hotel window. Below, we see the bustle of street activities, little shops selling their specialties – shoes, clothing, plumbing, plastic chairs, tailors, electronics, shoes, vegetables and so on. It’s a colorful hodgepodge of capitalism.
A few years ago we decided to volunteer on a project in Africa. The opportunity we found where we could work together was to teach Microsoft Office skills to at-risk women. Unbeknownst to us, the volunteer organization we signed up with switched their focus to primary schools and we found ourselves at Jamhuri Primary School with 6 old computers, one teacher who spoke English well and a head teacher who wondered what the heck we were doing at their school.
At Jamhuri, we managed to get 4 computers working and bought a few more and proceeded to teach with a curriculum we created on the fly, Intro to Computers, Word, Excel, and the Internet to some of the 5th and 6th year students. By the end of 2 weeks, some of the other teachers became more interested, stopping by to see what we were teaching. We purchased a printer for the head teacher so he was more engaged.
Fast forward to today, this is Mark’s 3rd and Betsey’s 4th trip to Moshi. We continue to invest in technology education for the primary schools because we believe learning computer skills will empower the young learners as well as the teachers. We have parted ways with our original sponsor and have partnered with a local community center, Simba's Footprints, backed by Asali, a US non-profit. This year we will teach at Jamhuri and help two other schools on their path to using computers.
At Jamhuri Primary School, we were greeted as old friends by the teachers as well as the students. Their computers were not in bad shape thanks to the glass doors we installed on the windows last year to keep the dust out. We’ve also added a larger TV connected to a teacher’s computer to display the materials as well as lots of dongles, speakers, and various educational games.
We also added ‘Internet In a Box (IIAB)’ which is based on a raspberry Pi microcomputer (the size of a deck of cards) + a 2 TByte hard drive - you download most of Wiki, google maps, Ubongo Swahili version of Sesame Street, and a lot more. It allows local internet via WIFI to all the schools computers thanks to the wizards who helped me with this!
Our plan for Jamhuri this year is to train some teachers so they can teach the hands-on computer education already presented in the textbooks for 5th and 6th years. We would also, of course, teach some students as well. Some educational games we brought have multiple levels of difficulty for math and typing which can be used by all grades. Both games, written in the early ´90s, will increase dexterity with the keyboard and mouse, important for early computer learners. Since there is no internet,we’ve had to find standalone games. Tux Math is all about computing in your head and typing the answer. Tux typing allows students to learn their way around a keyboard as they type the word that appears on the screen. We were able to modify the game to include words in Swahili which will make it easier for all players, especially the younger ones.
As Betsey was teaching teachers in the morning, Mark was off at our 2nd school, Muungano Primary making sure the new computers we purchased were all working properly and installing software. We will start there next week.
The lessons we’ve created are powerpoint presentations with lots of graphics and too many words all in English. When we teach at Jamhuri, one of the teachers, usually Adah Jagwasy, translates to Swahili to make sure the students understand. Our hope is to translate the slides to Swahili soon.
As we work with the students, we are always amazed at how focused they are when they are at the computers. Some take to it easily, others struggle but all seem to get there in the end; with 2 or 3 at each computer, they teach each other. Students help one another and are excited when they win a game or complete a lesson. The smiles on their faces and the light in their eyes tell us they are excited to learn and that’s what it is all about.
Jamhuri has welcomed us with open arms. They are appreciative of the computers and support, but especially the printer/copier which saves them money and time printing exams. We have been eating lunch with the teachers, typical Tanzanian meals of rice or ugali and beans or some meat with cooked vegetables which is prepared in the outside kitchen over a wood fire.
The head teacher, Madam Salome has taken us to the tailor to have some clothes made and has even invited us to Sunday dinner with her family at their home. The food was amazing!
Next week we are off to Muungano, our second school. Rumor has it that the head teacher is planning a ribbon cutting to open the new computer room at his school!
