{Posted by Troy Rysedorph}
As a group, we spent a fair amount of time the second half
of Monday in the new computer lab at the Holy Family School. [A brief summary for those who are not aware
of the backstory: St. Edward the
Confessor Haiti Ministry was fortunate enough to link up with two different
outfits distributing computers to places in Haiti in need of them. In August of 2013, St. Edward funded a
project to make significant security improvements to an existing building as
well as wire it for electricity. As part
of the same effort, 24 desks were purchased and installed. In September, 23 computers (half laptops,
half desktops) were installed and the lab became operational.] Three of us from the group attended what would best be
expressed as an “adult education” computer class being held in the lab. The instructor, Sony, delivered an engaging
and informative session helping the students to understand and practice key
elements of word processing including shapes, lines, text boxes with practical
applications in depicting processes, marketing materials, and organizational
charts. The young adults in attendance
are paying for this class on the belief that mastery of some computer skills
will substantially improve their chances of succeeding in the brutal job market
that is seemingly eternal in Haiti. As
far as I could tell, the young adults, roughly 24 of them, signed up for and
are taking this class that meets 4 times per week over a 6 month period. This intensive training has the potential to
leave the students with substantial expertise.
It is unclear how much it has cost them to receive this training.
Sony, the skilled instructor, has had to overcome
significant challenges to deliver the learning experience. The quantity of electrical power is limited. By all reports and appearances, when all the
computers in the lab are up and running and the instructor then turns on his
laptop and projector, the electrical system cannot handle the load. This is overcome by Sony negotiating with
Father KK to turn on the generator. When
the generator is up and running they switch over the power source of the
computer lab from Government power to generator power. The laptops make the transition gracefully,
while the desktops go down and need to be restarted. Another technical challenge is that the
donated computers came with different operating systems—the laptops arrived
with Linux, the desktops with Microsoft Windows 7. In order to ensure that the students are all
working on the application he is teaching, Sony has had to “level the playing
field”. His solution has been to equip
each of the laptops with a Windows virtual machine within which Microsoft
Office applications are run.
One of the biggest questions coming out of this experience
is, “How do the students of the Holy Family School benefit from the existence
of the new computer lab?” An honest
answer would be that so far, the students of Holy Family School do not benefit
very much. Some Holy Family School students,
key word being some, receive 1 hour of computer familiarization training per
week. It is safe to say that this
quantity of training, while better than nothing at all, is insufficient in
building computer skills. It
familiarizes—students will be able to say they’ve seen and touched a computer. It can stimulate an interest that can be
acted upon later. Not much beyond this
is accomplished. All of that said, the
computer lab is a mere 6 months old. The
opportunities and possibilities are substantial. Much more needs to be done to turn these into
realities for the students of the Holy Family School.
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