A Chance to Help and Holiday Shop...

Pwof Ansanm, the NGO I went to Haiti with two years ago, is running an online auction. The funds will support the organization's educational work, which includes teacher trainings and curriculum development, with a special focus on capacity building and cooperative efforts between Haitian and foreign educational institutions.

There are four ways that you can help:

1. Start your holiday shopping by bidding! Bidding started Sunday Nov. 5 and will run for two weeks. Please take a look at the auction website: www.pwofansanm.cmarket.com.

2. Even if you don't bid, consider registering. The more people who sign in, the more donationed items Pwof Ansanm will be able to collect in the future.

3. Donate an item to the auction. There's a link on the left side of the page.

4. Pass the word along to anyone you think might be interested in participating! Feel free to forward on this message, or there is a link on the website to refer friends.

(If you have questions, you can refer them to Raven Travillian at ravensar@myuw.net.)

You may also want to check out Pwof Ansanm's website: www.pwofansanm.org - they do really great work!

Lighting Africa Competition

I love the World Bank's Development Marketplace Competition - what a great way to encourage innovation! This year's theme is Lighting Africa. Check it out, and if you know of anyone who might be interested in or good at this sort of thing, pass it along. And if there's some way I can help, let me know! The preminary proposal deadline is October 31.

Bridging the Digital Divide

Three cheers for technology that advances international development!

Sub-$100 laptop design unveiled

One MIT professor Nicholas Negroponte has developed a laptop that costs less than $100. Why? Because children in developing countries can't afford them at current prices. And because many children even here can't afford them. The "digital divide" means faster and faster progress for those who have access to technology, while those with no access are left ever-further behind. So much for convergence theory-until now. Expected to come out in late 2006 or early 2007, these laptops will not be available for sale but will be distributed directly to schools through government programs, domestic and internationally.

The laptops are highly portable and will have a handcrank for locations without electricity. They will be enabled for "peer-to-peer" networking and wifi internet connectivity. The low price is possible because of technology developed to create a display that can be produced for $35-an incredible reduction. They are also designed to be adjusted for viewing in a range of lighting conditions.

You can check out the design plans here:One Laptop per Child

Final (?) Internet Participants

To be able to continue to receive one free hour of education-related internet time each month, the teachers from the seminar have to send an email each month to report what they are researching and which websites they find. As of the (fuzzy) final cut-off for the first round (it was supposed to be one month, but numerous complications won out, extending the deadline to somewhere mid-October, with stragglers still allowed in) there are 26 participants.

Of the 26, one of these was a student who we ended up using as a computer teacher and have pulled out from the list of seminar participants (the official number of registrees is then 58). Two more are teachers who were not participants in the seminar but who were very helpful in the setting up and running of the seminar. 54 of the original 58 registrees graduated (I'll verify this number), and three of the graduates finished without an email address. So, 23 of 51 trainees with email addresses have joined the program by sending an email.

Not all of the internet program participants have managed to explain what they search for (though this is improving), and not one has listed a website found. The rules have been flexible in this so far. One possible reason for a lack of websites might be that they write as the first thing, before they've found any websites during that session.

Anecdotal Successes

Throughout the training, and afterwards, Joy and I have worried that while the teachers found the course interesting, they wouldn't want or be able to apply any of it in their own classrooms.

But, just from keeping tabs on the emails teachers send in to Pwof Ansanm (which is itself a success!) I have a few "warm fuzzies" to report:

Teacher 21 wrote in October to say that he had been using the internet to look up information on distance for a lesson. To keep the students interested and to do something hands-on, during class he had them measure the dimensions of the classroom, their heights, etc. The active lesson was so popular that the students in other classes were begging their teachers to do the same. (I also have the feeling that this may have been the first time most of the students knew their own height.)

Teacher 21 wrote again this month to say he was using the internet to research space and vectors. He reports that he encouragess them to see what discoveries they can make on the internet.

Teacher 41 wrote this month that he along with Teacher 51 organized a debate with some of the students, reporting that it was quite interesting. The debate was one of the activities over the summer that was wrought with drama and complications, but it turned out to be so popular that people requested a second round.

The teachers have also organized themselves to have a two- or three-day seminar at one of the high schools to share what they've learned with the rest of the teachers at that school. If everything goes according to plan, it will take place in about a week. Joy will also be visiting at that time, so she will be able to observe the process. It is exciting to note that she is not the one organizing the seminar. The teachers really are doing it.

It's nice to see at least a few signs of progress. Change takes time, and it's hard to be patient, but as I had my English students there frequently repeat, "Rome wasn't built in a day!"

Biting the Bullet

After spending half of my graduate school life (Okay, I exaggerate, but only a little.) in the Hurst Social Science (Statistical) Computer Lab, and after getting kicked out of the lab last Friday night because it was closing(sad, I know), I have finally decided to go ahead and purchase STATA, the statistical software that I use for everything. Haiti data, an empirical assignment this semester, my SRP (Substantial Research Paper, basically a thesis)...

Now, I'm trying to figure out why I didn't just go ahead and buy it last semester...

Data Coming Soon!

I'm in the process of writing up the evaluation I went to Haiti to do, so I've been doing more intensive cleaning of the data. I will be posting some of the results soon!