Hi All,
Things have kind of started. We have hired a teacher from the community . A ITI computer student. She will teach 3 hours in the evening and then on Sundays.
We are currently training the teacher, Kalapana and two other students mani and prabhu who are very keen to learn. They in turn teach the others.
See a detailed report below on whats happening an how you can help.
cheers c3 team http://slumdweller.wikispaces.com/team http://slumdweller.wikispaces.com/team
Articles --------------- Is a slum computer center really needed
http://slumdweller.wikispaces.com/Is+a+slum+tution+center+really+useful <http://slumdweller.wikispaces.com/Is+a+slum+tution+center+really+useful
Sensex hit a new low today http://slumdweller.wikispaces.com/Songs http://slumdweller.wikispaces.com/Songs
TRAINING and QUALITY improvement ----------------------------------------------------------- Will be the foucs for the coming 4 months. From the AID Chennai experience it looks like it will take about 4-6 months to converge on some minimum quality.
We intend to keep this program as a pilot. We want to see some distinct differnce after the intervention. If we are able to do the same then we can think of scaling after 4-5 months.
TIMINGS ---------- You can meet us in the center Mon , Wed, Fri : 6.30 to 9.00 p.m and Sunday : 2.00 p.m-6.p.m. Other days there will be regular classes.
LANGAUGE NOT A CONSTRAINT : Pulkit experience ------------------------------------------------- Oh the other good thing is that Pulkit did his first class on friday . He is basically from Gujrat and we ha d the fear that language might be a constraint. We gave it a shot. He tried with English and it seems to work to a large extent.
Things needed: ----------------
HARDWARE REPAIR ------------------ 1) We need some one with hardware repair skills to troubleshoot the 2 comps which have some issues. If you know a commercial computer hardware engineer who can help thats also good.
COMPUTER NEEDED ----------------- 2) After March the exams will be over. Then it might be good to have another comp and UPS. We have a promise for the UPS already. We need a computer
BOOKS NEEDED ---------------- 3) Good Computer Basics books : if some one who knows kannada can go to some place like Swapna book store and get a set of good computer books. Not hi fi ones but basic books. In tamil there is a book on how a computer works and internet by Sujatha who just passed away. Such books make a interesting read an are ver helpful to the students in quality improvement. However any book is good. Especially ones which suggest a lot of practical things for the student to try.
Also books in English are good.
Visit
http://slumdweller.wikispaces.com/Curriculum http://slumdweller.wikispaces.com/Curriculum
for the topics on which you should buy books.
GNU LINUX Currciulum ----------------------------------
You know that we use the skill set exercise model developed by AID Chennai .
We would like to have the GNU/LINUX curriculum equivalent of the skill set model. This is not very difficult and for a good GNU-LINUX person it might take less than a day to develop.