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Published: September 27th 2007
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My students
Frank, Marupa and Rose. Ok, I am so excited today I could burst with joy. I was able to show my students the internet for the first time in their lives. They were so excited I can't even tell you. As the week has gone on I have been able to learn more about them. Frank wants to be a business man and constantly asks me things like, "Teacher, can you please explain to me how to generate revenue using a computer?" It's so cute, he really is interested in business and finance. Marupa wants to be a doctor although he isn't sure what type yet. He likes to ask me personal questions like, "Teacher, please to discuss your education and potential boyfriends." I love them. Rose, my only female student, wants to be a secretary. She is so smart I tried to tell her that she should be a business owner but she disagreed. I know that it is new for women to assume working roles so if that is what she is comfortable with I am going to be supportive.
I asked the head of the college today if I could show them the internet. Since I exhausted my Access knowledge in
Online
My expanded class learning the internet!!! one day we've also been spending time working on Microsoft Word because I think that will be the most useful to them. First the secretary brought in a telephone with a USB adaptor and said, "here use internet." Uhhh, no phone cord or anything. I wasn't sure what to do so I went back and asked again. She then brought in a new computer, I guess only one has a modem, and she connected it to the internet. It was thrilling. I should also mention that the students who are taking computer maintenance are also in the same classroom as my students. Their teacher is out of town so they just sit and watch a dvd (the same one each day) and talk amongst themselves. As soon as she brought in the computer and I said internet they all brought their chairs over and crowded around. You see many signs in Tanzania where businesses have websites or email addresses. The students all want an email address even though they don't have internet access. Before the computer was set up I tried to explain the internet to them. That was challenging in itself. Basically I just used the analogy of a library and that you could find any information you want in many different forms. Email I likened to regular mail but sent via the computer and instant messaging was like a phone call. My students are so smart they started firing all sorts of great questions at me. I took them to Yahoo and showed them my email account. I composed a message and sent it --- Stacy was the lucky recipient. After that I asked them to take turns sending email so one sent a message to my father to tell him I was a good teacher. And one girl from the maintenance class has a friend with a yahoo account so she sent her a message. I'm sure in a few weeks I'll get a random message back. If anyone wants to send my class a message please send it to me at shel2404@yahoo.com. They were so proud of themselves for sending an email that I made them pasha for each other. Basicall you rub your hands then clap to show appreciation and pride.
Next up was showing them how to browse the internet. I turned to my good friend Google and had them each give me a topic to look up. They each gave me their respective tribe and we search and found images. They were amazed. They also asked to see pictures of the US and Kansas City. They did recognize sunflowers and apparently they have them somewhere in Moshi but I haven't seen any yet. We also had to search for Akon because even though they don't know any of his music they have seen him on tv. We tried to listen to music via his website but the connection is so slow it was still loading when I left. Another boy asked to see cars, big American cars so I showed him the Hummer website. Frank wanted to read the business news from a local magazine. It was so much fun!
We ran out of time quickly. Some were so shy that they didn't want to nagivate themselves so we'll work more on that tomorrow. They all thanked me and said it was very good. I'm supposed to bring my laptop tomorrow to show them what it looks like. Frank said that he knew this would be very important for his future and it made me want to cry. I mentioned that there were internet cafes in Moshi that they could pay money and use the internet but they didn't know where they were. I am going to try to take a field trip to one so they can all get online together and send emails to each other. Tomorrow I've promised to help them make email addresses.
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Tim
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Best Day Yet
Shel, It is awesome to see them sitting at the computer, but even moreso, your excitement! Keep up the good work. I did email back to Frank.