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Basic Project Ideas

13 March 2008 - 12:58am — LeanneV

At another productive meeting, we defined the scope of our project. Essentially, our project will accomplish several educational goals.

1. We will teach students of the Beehive school how to navigate the internet. They will learn how to make webpages and use search engines. Since internet access is extremely limited in Malawi, we plan to remedy this deficiency by storing a portion of the information from the internet in a server, and software engineering a program that mimics the set-up of a web browser. Then students can search through the different "webpages" that will seem like actual internet sites, but are really stored remotely in the server. This means that the server will have to connected to the internet periodically in order to get updated, but in general it will store and large amount of information. By teaching this generation of students how to use the internet and gain confidence in their programming skills, we can prepare the country for when the internet does finally arrive.

2. While the students learn how to use the internet, they will learn the information stored in the server via the different projects/assignments they will do. For example, students might make a "webpage" relating to health issues like HIV/AIDS, typhoid, malaria, alcohol, smoking, and sex, and therefore learn about these issues while simultaneously learning how to make the webpage for them.

3. Community involvement: A final aspect of our project is to use a GSM modem so that a project the students can be in charge of is to send out information (from the server) to members of the community who can access the information with cell phones. Students can inform the community about a local school play or soccer game, or organize other events. Building a strong sense of community is key to the longevity of a successful Malawi.

We are finding out information about Malawi from our local source there, Niell Dorey from Beehive (our community partner). This project idea can be easily modified to fit into other countries and include many different ideas.