You may notice the title of this blog has changed. That’s because I’m not in Namibia anymore. Otherwise, everything I wrote on this site would be under the dark cloud of a lie.
This blog will also change in other ways. Since our time as volunteers is over (at least for now), my attention is inevitably going to be heading towards new things. That said, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to shake — not that I would even want to — the impact that living in Omungwelume has had on myself, my interests, or my priorities. I think what makes the most sense for this blog now is for me to refocus my public blatherings on projects that I am working on which are motivated by the experiences I had as part of the education system in a developing country.
So, to keep things brief, my first order of business will be to produce a free, open-source alternative to school administrative software similar to SchoolWrite. One issue I encountered over the last year is that, at least in Namibia but probably in other developing nations, the government is quick to deliver computers to schools but slow to provide training or otherwise enable the schools’ faculty and staff to use those computers to their full potential. Thus it was all too common in my staff room to see teachers sitting at their desks, working out assessment sheets and calculating sums and averages by hand, while someone who wasn’t busy sat at the computer playing Solitaire.
Free, easy-to-use software could make a huge impact and potentially transform such scenes. But I guess time will tell. I’ll keep this blog updated with my progress, or (hopefully not) lack thereof.
One Comment
Dan – it would be wonderful if you produce free open-source software for schools in Namibia and other developing countries. I can see from your blog that you and Kathryn have done some great work in northern Namibia with computer literacy for teachers. Your software development concept will be an added plus.
I suggest teachers’ mark book software as the place to start. This is something that each teacher can have on their USB stick as they work on their class marks, tests and exams throughout the term.
Keep us (at SchoolWrite International) informed of developments and maybe we can interface to your software. SchoolWrite is the centralised database, and could send student class data to a teacher-based system. Maybe final marks can be uploaded back to SchoolWrite.
FYI, SchoolWrite is the product of over 100 man years of development.Our team has been developing this for a long time, and ongoing support is the key to its success. There are tailored reports for schools in a number of developing countries – Namibia, Uganda, Botswana, Zambia, Nigeria and Ghana.
I am sure your recent experiences and the need for computer literacy amongst teachers is common to all of these countries.