Update
My apologies for not updating sooner, but here are the blog entries for the previous weeks ::
Week up to 04/10/08
We decided this week to separate into 2 different tracks. Our biggest problem is that we've been at kind of a standstill in terms of the project. We really need to start cracking, so we divided into our 2 groups (technical - Paul and Justin and curriculum - Angela, Leanne, and me). I assigned Paul and Justin to come up with an outline of all the technical aspects they have to do and a timeline for when they will do what. Angela will be looking at geography and history of Malawi information. Leanne will be looking at educatoin in general, and I will be focusing on health education. We received feedback back for our presentation. I didn't find our grade of 3.8/5 fair for the amount of work that we put into it and for the quality of the presentation, but that just means we need to work that much harder for the final presentation. I sent out a motivating email to the group to get us all pumped for the KBox which will hopefully help us get a huge surge forward as well. I researched different websites that we could use in the KBox and in my first runthrough, the biggest problem seems to be finding information presented in a way that is culturally relevant for Beehive as well as finding fun yet informational ways of teaching kids about health. Out team will be meeting again on Sunday evening to figure out the following: (1) how easy is it to transfer a webpage minus some parts of it (i.e. ads and links to other pages), (2) how easy is it to just add/delete some information from an existing webpage, (3)how do we go about “copying the webpage”, (4) what are the copyright issues?, (5) A lot of the health stuff is written do we want to spend the time drawing cartoons and etc ourselves, and (6) How do we manage the “other links” – we need to make it so that all the links link to webpages we include. Leanne and I need to finalize a list of websites to use, edit the websites to be culturally relevant, and copy websites. Overall, the project idea is great, but progress has been a bit slow because there is not an intense structure to the class in terms of small milestones that we need to meet. I wish we had smaller assignments due that were parts of the steps of our project so that we could make sure we are staying on a good time track.
Week up to 04/03/08
Eva uploaded information about our project to the Beehive website this week. Justin returned from Malawi and shared everything that he learned. SMS technologies are completely out of the question, but the KBox is a Go! Justin's stories were exciting, and we all hope we get a chance to visit Beehive in the future as well! The information he brought us helped us decide that we're going to focus on the KBox and in particular on geography, history, and health information oriented towards 8-12 year old kids. We are going to try to get more computer donations to expand their lab as well as a surge protector to protect their existing computers. We scheduled a meeting with Sally Susnowitz in the PSC for tomorrow (Friday) and Angela and Paul will be attending to fill Sally in about our project and see if there is potential for funding in the future.
Week up to 03/27/08
This week was Spring Break. Justin is in Malawi visiting with Beehive. He left last Thursday and will be returning on Sunday evening. We did not realize we were supposed to do an assessment and so did not have one prepared before he left. Once we found out, we did it and sent it to him, but he has been unable to get a hold of it. Paul called Justin on Niall's cellphone to chat and everything seems to be going well. In the meantime, I am thinking about what kind of information to include in the project. Niall wanted geographic information and health information, but we don't really know what types to include. We also need to get a better sense of direction to the project, as right now it is a bit hazy.
Week up to 03/20/08
We created a needs assessment for Justin to do while in Malawi. We weren't able to create it before he left, so we emailed it to him, and hopefully he will receive it in time to use it. Otherwise, we had already talked to him about different types of questions to ask and things to observe/record, so we had done an informal needs assessment which will suffice. Our needs assessment asks questions to the kids and family members about their personal information about what they like to learn, logistics, and their thoughts as well as information about the community such as what the village does for fun, cell phone use, and text messaging. We had our presentation this week as well which I think went very well. Justin and I were the spokespeople where I spoke more about logistics and background and Justin spoke about the technical aspects. The audience seemed very interested and seemed to understand the project well. The KBox symbol that I made as a knock-off of the XBox symbol was a big hit! I can see potential for it to be an actual logo! We prepared for Justin's trip in terms of who he's going to meet, pictures he should take, video he should take, and when he would be leaving/coming back. A few of us had an informal meeting with Eva and Spencer at a pub to talk about Beehive on a more casual basis. This was a great way to communicate and bond with the team, and it would be great to do something similar with the entire team in the future. Creating a good group atmosphere is key to a good group project.
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