Capturing Their Creative Spirit


In March of 2013, we teamed up with One Laptop Per Child Community (http://olpcMAP.net) and handed out 42 specially designed third-world laptops to children and assigned two skilled local teachers, Junior and Elisabeth, to oversee the laptop integration and student's continued education.

Four months later, we are seeing leaps in creativity and engagement in the students—especially in the training epicenter in Grand Goave, Haiti, at the Mission of Hope International School (MOHI).



The students began by learning the unique Sugar software, an open learning toolkit for digital expression and collaborative construction. This is now allowing them to take their very first steps into civic journalism, contributing online blog posts for the world!

 
The beginning stages of the learning process bring to life ideas and drawings like the beautiful fish and home scene below:
 

 

 

 

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GREAT MINDS - YOUNG MINDS

Most recently, two young and fearless students named Sora Edwards-Thro, age 17, and James Murzda, age 19, traveled to Haiti with the goal of advancing the Haitian students' XO skills to a more interactive and literary level. Both the MOHI location and Pastor Silar's ORAEDH orphanage location are beginning to develop their own Newspaper publications with weekly progress of the unique project being captured at http://blog.unleashkids.org:
 

 

August 1, 2013. Sora wrote:

 

"We gave the Newspaper activity a shot today. They put together a “Journal Mission of Hope” using writing, drawing and layout skills. We could definitely spend many more days on this, but it’s a good start!"

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August 4, 2013. James wrote:

"Yesterday Sora and I paid a visit to ORAEDH (Orphanage of the Organization for Aid to Children in Difficulty in Haiti) where we spent the afternoon with Pastor Silar and his wonderful children.

We spent our time organizing the children to create their own newspaper articles using Newspaper, beginning with simple interviews and advancing into focused writing for more advanced kids. They learned a new activity combining some skills they already had, and made some nice articles too.

"We were impressed by the kids’ knowledge of the computers—some of them were familiar with Gnome as well as the Sugar interface and would use it for more complex programs like Audacity. They also used solar panels even though they had electricity, which was great!"

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SO, WHAT DO YOU THINK?

On August 1, 2013, the kids were also asked for their feedback on what they like and don't like about working with the XO laptops.

 

Cheno, a student at MOHI, takes a relatively balanced approach:

 

Translation:

 

I love these activities:

• Clock
• TamTam Mini (Music)
• Typing Turtle
• Scratch (visual programming)

I do not like these activities:

•  TuxMath
• Record (photos, audio recording & videos)
• Speak (pronunciation)
• Mouse (touchpad)

Jorday Laguerre's seems to like it all:

Translation:

 

I love these activities:

TamTam Mini (music)

Scratch (visual programming)

Journal (portfolio of my work)

Typing Turtle

Record (photos, audio recording & videos)

NEWSPAPER

Memorize (make your own learning games)

Browse

Pippy (fun progamming example)

TuxMath (videogame to learn all kinds of math)

Paint (draw anything)

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“I am very happy that Child in Hand supports the Haitian
dream, and brings the kids creativity and happiness.
Thank you to Child in Hand who make it possible
for me to work with the kids, a passion for me.”
Junior Monrose, lead OLPC community local trainer,
(pictured above in the yellow shirt and cap): 



 

Child in Hand would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to Renee Edmé, Junior and Elisabeth (our local trainers), Adam Holt, and Sora and James for their tireless commitment to ensuring this creative explosion continues. A special thanks, also, goes to the student council of Academy of Charter Schools that raised funds to keep the training going in Haiti!

We are all excited to see the progress and new vision arising from the opportunities these laptops and trainers present. What if these are the building block skills that will launch these kids beyond the walls they have always known? Yes. We believe this is possible!

 

 

 "A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral."



— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry



 

 





Students attempt to draw the Child in Hand logo on July 31, 2013.
Great job!!