The Long week end

I had a long week end starting 26th Jan-Republic day.It was good time to complete the activities which I had so longed to do at the Nishulka school.

I recorded a few tutorials in Hindi for teaching MSWord,Excel to the students.But for running these I thought it wud be better if I could have WinXp on the only machine that was working in the school.

Also,I really wanted to bring the other machine which had all along been dead,to life.

These 4 days provided me a real good opportunity to do all those things.

I spent an average of 2 hours each day at the school and did all the things which I had planned to do:

*Installed Windows OS on both the PCs
*Installed CBTs for MS Office
*Installed a science CBT for the students
*Showed the principal of the school how to print receipts using Mail merge in Word.

I also met a group from TCS who teached spoken English to the students at the school.I had a brief chat with them and exchanged email Ids witjh them for further communication.I wished that all people associated with the school come on one platform.

Fortunately,I was contacted by the members of this group later and now I am a part of their group which is involved in social activities in school children.

I was really satified by the results at the school.The teachers seemed to have also bought the idea of using computers to aid their teaching activities.

Once everyone buys the idea to use the computer effectively,I beleieve there would be a sea change in the way children learn at Nishulka.

I am waiting for that day !!!

Log of activity on Dec 10,2005

HI All
Below is the log of activity at Nishulka on Dec 10,2005

Volunteers : Amit Kelkar,Ramit Raj,Ratan Kumar,Madhuban Chaudhary,Sagar Chandratrey

Students : Suman Jain

Details
As it was a second saturday,we learnt that the school had a holiday.We were very disappointed to find the school and the computer lab closed.We had come with plans to install win 98 on the machines.

When we asked the resident caretaker Sandeep,he told us about the second saturday thing.We asked him for keys of the lab and he said he did not have them.we were very annoyed and decided to make improvements in the management of this programme.

Fortunately,the principal came to the school after some time and we could manage to get the keys to the lab.

We tried to install a WIN 98 OS on the PCs but failed to do so as the CD that we had was not a bootable CD.

Then we tried to gather some students and were able to get Suman Jain and her brother Dhanpat Jain to the lab.

We taught them some spreadsheet skills and asked Suman to pass on the same to Geeta.

After the activity,we had tea with the shool principal and he asked us to help the school with a software for priniting the monthly fee receipts.

We told him that this could be done in a MS office macro and promised to give that to him soon.We are now working on developing such a macro.

Group

Group
Originally uploaded by Sagar Chandratrey.

I struggled to manage the things at Nishulka alone.So I decided to team up with like minded colleagues at Kanbay to help me with the Nishulka project.

Luckily,I found 5 such people.

Seen in the picture are from Left:
Madhuban Chaudhary,Pratik Kadao,Amit Kelkar,Ramit Raj Sharma,Sagar Chandratrey and Ratan Kumar Tiwari

Kandho se milte hai kandhe,Kadamo se kadam milte hai
Hum chalte hai jab aise to dil dushman ke hilte hai !!!

The Church College students

The Church College students
Originally uploaded by Sagar Chandratrey.

I met these engineering students of the Church college at Agama which is a training centre run by Kasinadh Ji.

The students volunteered to help us in training the Nishulka students and they have really contributed a lot of time and energy to the programme.

The infrastructure

The infrastructure
Originally uploaded by Sagar Chandratrey.

The Nishulka management had given us Rs.20,000/ to buy PCs to start the programme.

We managed two second hand PCs with the amount.The same could be seen in the adjoining picture.

Its been a challenge to keep these PCs running especially the client machine.

We had configured these machines on the Linux Terminal Server Project,but unfortunately that did not work out well.

We have now decided to make both the machines as standalone PCs.One being on Linux and the other on Win 98.

The project has taught us all a lot of new things.

Us and the students

Us and the students
Originally uploaded by Sagar Chandratrey.

Amit and Ramit with the students.

One can see the blackboard behind the students.

in the same lab,in one corner,we conduct the theory classes and in the other the practicals.

Geeta and Suman

Geeta and Suman
Originally uploaded by Sagar Chandratrey.

Geeta and Suman.

These two students participated in teh programme from its inception and we were very satisfied by the progress and enthusiasm they have shown in learning computers.

They know quite a few important shortcuts in the Open Office word processing software.

The only thing that they lack is exposure which we are not able to provide them.Hopefully,things should be straightened out in some time now and these girls can really learn a lot of new things.

Geeta and Suman are also helping us conduct practicals when we take theory sessions in one part of the lab.

Kasinadhji,myself,Ramit and Pratik with the students

Kasinadhji,myself,Ramit and Pratik with the students
Originally uploaded by Sagar Chandratrey.

We had a presentation before the Nishulka school management on this Saturday i.e 3rd Dec.

We reviewed the Computerisation programme which started off in April-May 2005.

After the presentation,we had a look at the PC which were not working for some time.

we managed to get one PC working and decided to change the OS of the second one.

With GOD's grace,we should ahve both the PCs working by the next week end.

The Nishulka Computerisation Project

This Blog would detail the Computerization programme at Nishulka Pathshala Khairatabad.