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Follow-up [2014-11-15]

Neal and I are back in California again, catching up on sleep and deferred home tasks.  We also both have long lists of action items to tackle, from the Tanzania trip behind and for the Philippines trip ahead.  Each Reneal IEO trip brings lessons-learned and ideas for improvements, so it’s an exciting time for us to make strides in operations and systems that will benefit the students and teachers that we serve.  We are also hunting for resources already for the 2015 Tanzania projects.  Shipping costs to Tanzania dictate that we use laptops as clients in the low-cost computer system, so we are in need of a large quantity of used laptops to build new computer labs and address any hardware attrition at existing labs.  This will all make for a busy two months before we leave for Cebu in January!

Making the rounds [2014-11-08]

Our last week in Tanzania was filled mainly with follow-up visits at the schools in the Arusha area with the Reneal IEO system: Mukulat Secondary School, Mlangarini Secondary School, Mwandet Secondary School, and Ilkding’a Secondary School.  Neal made some final updates, include adding some health videos that we obtained from another U.S. non-profit, Empower Tanzania (http://www.empowertz.org/).  And finally, we completed negotiations with Arusha Node Marie, Habari Node Ltd, Reneal IEO, and the Arusha District Council for a collaboration agreement.  As we flew out of Kilimanjaro International Airport last evening, we felt true satisfaction for the 2014 projects in Tanzania.

Lights out [2014-11-01]

We’re sitting here on a Saturday morning at the school in Musoma, waiting and hoping for the return of electricity so we can tidy up a few last things before leaving.  Yesterday marked the official completion of the Reneal IEO 2014 projects, as we conducted teacher orientation trainings for the teachers at Paroma.  Tomorrow we will return to Arusha.  It’s hard to believe it was only a week ago today that we began our trip here to Musoma– what a myriad of experiences we’ve had, both work and fun.

Progress on all fronts [2014-10-23]

It’s been a lively week for Reneal IEO here in Arusha.  We returned to Ilkiding’a Secondary School on Monday for two sessions of teacher orientation training.  A question posed by one of the teachers led Neal to some late-night software sessions to develop an exciting new capability for the system.  We had a meeting Tuesday with representatives from the Arusha District Council, Arusha Node Marie, Habari Node Ltd, and Reneal to discuss a possible partnership to expand our collective ability to equip schools with computer hardware and software.   We have begun scouting in earnest for candidate schools for 2015 projects.  And tomorrow we leave for Musoma, for the final installation for the 2014 projects.

Rube Goldberg fun [2014-10-19]

Saturday we participated in a teachers’ workshop sponsored by Arusha Node Marie (http://www.arushanodemarie.or.tz/).  The workshop was for teachers to learn more about IT and the internet, and the coordinators invited Neal and me to give a two-hour demonstration of the Reneal IEO system.  Neal spent Friday evening tinkering here in our room, and ended up with a improvised (but very clever) system to replicate a Reneal IEO computer lab for the workshop.

Onward to Ilkiding'a [2014-10-15]

Monday we returned to Mwandet Secondary School for the teacher orientation training on the Reneal IEO system.  It was a lot of fun!  Today we began our second computer lab installation, this at Ilkiding’a Secondary School.  Just like at Mwandet, we’re installing a server along with 16 donated laptops connected to the server for student and teacher use.

Updates from 2013 schools [2014-10-12]

While last week’s main focus was the computer lab installation at Mwandet Secondary School, we also had a chance to visit two of our 2013 installations: Mukulat Secondary School and Mlangarini Secondary School.  One of the highlights was participating in the awarding of certificates for the top-performing teachers and students in computer use at Mukulat (some photos are posted on the Reneal IEO Facebook page).  At both schools we gained valuable information about what is (and isn’t) working, from which we can learn for future installations. 

Out in the field [2014-10-09]

It’s Thursday night, and we’re here at Mwandet Secondary School doing our first 2014 Tanzania installation.  Since it is a rather long, rocky, dusty drive from Arusha, we are staying here at the school from Wednesday through Friday.  As is usual, we have been astonished and humbled by the generosity and assistance we’ve received.  We are excited to report that we are nearly finished already with the installation here, with full-up system testing planned for tomorrow.

First light [2014-10-04]

Neal and I recently read a great book about the building of the Palomar 200” reflecting telescope.  We loved how they grappled with each of the many engineering challenges to eventually achieve “first light” – the time when starlight is first observed with a new telescope.  We had our own (very minor) version of “first light” just a few minutes ago here in Tanzania, as Neal fired up the server for Mwandet Secondary School for the first time.  It was very exciting to see the Reneal IEO startup screen filling the monitor!

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