Final Farewell

Today was our last day at ECC, and it was a very busy day. After waking up and taking a cab to the school, we began tying up all the loose ends which had yet to be finished. The A/V repair group had to finish repairing computers, teach students how to maintain their systems, and finish providing all the teachers with their new computers.
Sterling and Ed were in charge of doling out the teacher machines. Ed gave a new computer to Ms. Julie. Fortunately Ms. Julie was already very knowledgeable about computers. Ed set up her administrator account and gave her a mouse as she was having trouble with the laptop touchpad. Ed also gave a computer to David. He is also knowledgeable about computers and was given an ubantu machine instead of the usual windows xp. Sterling gave out computers to Ms. Nicole and Ms. Margaret. Both teachers were computer literate and therefore did not need too much help. Sterling also set up a desktop in Ms. Nicole’s room for students to use.
In addition to handing out computers, the A/V group continued teaching a small group of students about IT issues. These students really wanted to learn, and teaching them was one of the most enjoyable parts of the trip. We walked them through troubleshooting today, as when we live they will be relied on to support all the computers at their school.
We also continued repairing computers for used by the students. Due to the large number of laptops and small number of repair group members, we were not able to finish all of the machines. We made sure that the students were trained to handle these, as well as any unforeseen, issues in the future.
Leaving was bittersweet. Everyone in our group, as well as all the other groups, had grown attached to the students at ECC. We were sad to leave as there were still many things we could have done given the time. However I do think that we made a difference in the lives of these students and am glad that we were given the opportunity.

Continuing Education

Today was another quick morning for our group. All the bacon and eggs we bought to cook has not even been used. We have concluded that no matter how early we go to bed, the school work makes us so tired that we wake up tired. Today, we rode a nice cab to the school and got right to work. We had another day of teaching. John worked with one of our better students, Roberto, on making ethernet cables. Sterling worked with our least advanced students on computer repair. Ed, Billy, and Alex worked with the other students on computer repair and troubleshooting. Towards the end of the day, Carrie stepped in and helped teach and overview the students repair internet connectivity. By the end of the day, more computers had been fixed and our group felt more comfortable with the students abilities to fix computers on their own. After school we took a cab back to the Regattas and went directly to the dive shop from there. After picking up our flippers and mask we went to mermaid reef to go snorkeling. All of our group members really enjoyed the reef. From the reef we came back to the Regattas and then went of to Jamie’s Place for dinner. Although, they were out of conch fritters our group enjoyed the lobster, snapper, shrimp, and chicken. We were all deeply upset and devastated because we were not able to have any conch fritters. However,the food was very reasonable and delicious. From dinner we came back to the hotel and met for a nightly meeting. The meeting went very well and gave us an opportunity to plan for the next day.

Alex, Billy, Sterling, and John

Forming Relationships

Today was an exciting day for the repair group. It was the first day that we would be able to teach students at ECC about both computer hardware and software. We had very little information as to the level of computer competency of the students and thus had to design the instruction on the fly. For instance the students that we worked with were much more advanced than we had previously thought.
We began the morning updating computers that we had been unable to get to the previous day. Then at 9:15 our entire group had a meet and greet with the students with whom we would be working. After getting to know the kids a bit we divide into two groups. John and Sterling continued to work on getting more laptops operational, as well as work on the internet network. Billy, Alex, and Ed took the students through basic hardware and software lessons. Alex was the leader of the section on hardware basics. He showed them the main components of both laptop and desktop computers.
Next, Billy led the lesson on windows and software basics. We wanted to make sure they had basic computer knowledge and therefore started at step one. We learned however that most of these students were in fact quite knowledgeable and therefore we did not need to spend as much time on this as previously thought.
The last class consisted of showing the students Ethernet cables and basic networking configurations. We also showed them how to run basic preventative maintenance on their machines such as virus protection and running updates. At 2:00 we left ECC and went to the island’s prestigious private school, Forest Heights Academy. We were given a tour and were all very impressed by the technology and resources which the school had. The last part of our day consisted of an invasive species removal on the only public beach in Marsh Harbour. Many people at first did not want to participate in “weed pulling,” but most soon realized that our help had made an important difference. For dinner we had pizza on the beach. Tomorrow we will have another day of teaching and helping ECC become more technologically savvy.

First Day at ECC

Today was pretty easy to get up as it was our first day at ECC. The first day had finally come that we had been preparing for all semester. After we all ate some breakfast and drank our coffee, we grabbed our packs and hit the main road to walk to the ECC. Once we arrived, the school was a lot different then how I thought it would be. There were two main buildings and one freestanding classroom. I thought the atmosphere was very relaxed as all the classrooms were designed to be very open. We all seemed to take our positions pretty quickly. My group, the video group was introduced to the teacher of our class, Mars. Mars seemed very excited for us to get to work and really looked forward to learning all that we had to offer. His class was made up of about thirteen kids who were the oldest and most advanced.

Our Day began with a warm up, which consisted of Mr. Mars’s class and us. There was a student leader in front of all of us and we were instructed to follow his every move. It seemed like we were back in middle school PE as we all looked at each other awkwardly. This warm up had us rubbing our foreheads to doing jumping jacks in order for us to “stimulate our brains.” Although it was an odd experience, I think we all secretly had fun reverting back to our earlier education.

Once we all returned back to the classroom we started the regular class day off with a chapter of reading that we each read with two kids. Their reading was pretty good, only a missed word here or there. The level was probably compared to that off the 5^th grader, but there insight seemed to be at their own age level. The while school system was very different from our own, there was no grade levels, but just levels in general based on their knowledge and over all ability. Even though we had the “most advanced” class the ages ranged from 14-18. They seemed to like everything that other teenagers like, music, sports, driver’s licenses exc.

We finally took action and jumped right into what we came for. We put some questions on the board and had them answer on a separate piece of paper so we could assess their technology levels. Based on these results, we split them into groups. Each group was assigned one of us as a group leader with the exception of Mark who bounced around and helped us out. We went over shooting, recording, and hardware so they would be prepared to film tomorrow. After the school day was over, we were definitely exhausted but as we reflected back on it there was definitely a feeling of satisfaction.

our strengthening bond

Yesterday was an exhausting day of traveling, so needless to say we had great night sleep for our 9am snorkeling trip! Captain Keith chartered us out. He originally asked if we wanted to reschedule for tomorrow because of the chilly, windy weather (I was wearing black Nike sport pants and my rain jacket), but we faced the choppy ocean head on. It actually wasn’t bad, Keith even admitted it to be better than he was expecting. Manda, Amanda and I sat at the bow of the boat on the way out and got absolutely drenched by, what Keith described as, the ocean ‘spray’. We had our wetsuits on, however, so the cold did not take away from our fun! We laughed almost the whole 30minutes out.
Snorkeling has always been a favorite of mine. I love how the ocean silences all the externalities of the outside world. Despite the cold (and when I say cold, I just mean not super hot… we’re all Floridians now!), there was no hesitation for everyone to jump on the ocean. Amanda, Helen and I did the old fall-off-the-side-of-the-boat trick instead of using the ladder.
The ocean was still a little rough so I don’t think there was as many fish as there usually would be, but we saw a lot of barracuda, schools of fish, coral reef, and a turtle!! It was fun but it took a lot out of us, we all fell asleep on the boat ride back! (Except for Manda who went back to the bow of the boat to get drenched… this time with her snorkeling goggles on).
We made our own lunches when we got back the villas, and only a few hours later it was 5:00 and we were off to Pete’s Pub (owned by a former Rollins graduate!) for dinner. *5:00 was not to be mistaken for an early dinner, however, because it took a good 40minutes of scenic Abaco to get there! Pete’s Pub was super cool. It was, for a lack of more descriptive words, in the middle of nowhere. They were actually saying that parts of the Pirates of the Caribbean was filmed there! There were no walls, only large wooden pillars, and shirts on the ceilings from people who have ate there (we brought and signed a Rollins t-shirt!). The meals were AMAZING. I had grilled grouper marinated with a sweet mango glaze… it had my mouth watering at every succulent bite mmmmmm, SO GOOD!!
It had been a big day in the sun today, and right when everyone was fading, Ed came running from the beach to herd everyone to look at the stars on the other side. With virtually no light pollution (we almost had trouble walking across the well paved path because it was so dark!) we were stunned in place with our necks tilted back to the sky. The stars were as numerous and bright as I think anyone had ever seen them before. People able to point out O’Ryan’s Belt, the Big Dipper and the Milky Way to the astrology inept others in the group, me being one. It was truly awesome looking around and seeing us all together on the beach, looking at the stars, and participating in recreational interaction as a whole group for, perhaps, the first time this trip.

Eve of Trip

We are leaving tomorrow or should I say today and have now prepared as much as possible.  The students have been split into 4 groups.  The groups are A/V Repair, Teching with Technology 1 & 2 and Digital Video.  The students have worked very hard in preparation which you can see by viewing thier attached lesson plans:
A/V Repair
General Teaching Group 1
General Teaching Group 2
Digital Video
There will be daily posts by the various groups which should be very enjoyable to read.  We look forward to posting soon!