This
story appeared in a Mexican newspaper ....
"The
students of the English Studio of the Institute of Languages of the American
School of Tampico, Mexico, initiated the unit "Youth, Technology and
Business." They were learning how to be young entrepreneurs, when they
encountered the young Jamaican, Makonnen Blake Hannah, a youth who at the
age of 13 years was named Technology consultant to the Honourable Phillip
Paulwell, Minister of Commerce and Technology in Jamaica.
Makonnen actually
is 17 years now, and although he holds this important post, at the same time
he works with his mother in a project called TechSchool Jamaica. The knowledge
of this well-known youth was being shared by the students of the Language
Institute of the ATS, by connecting via the Internet through SAC.
The students
and Makonnen were communicating online via MSN Messenger to share their dreams
and ideas to be realized. Teacher Kerri Phillpott made this link-up, which
without a doubt will be of great benefit to the students, who in this manner
practiced another language … Communications!"
-------------------------------------------------
Kerri
sent us their websites:
Hi
Makonnen….Unfortunately
today was our last class. We uploaded five pages. Two were quite small and
had to be tweaked.
www.angelfire.com/home/teenworkshop/wendy.html
www.angelfire.com/home/teenworkshop/jeant.html
Gilberto
tried very hard, but hadn't come over to the idea of doing everything by hand
and was trying to use microsoft shortcuts they gave him at school.
www.angelfire.com/home/teenworkshop/gilberto.html
DIana
did a great job except her graphics would not show. And I tried all the tricks
I knew to try and get it to happen. (TechSchool has since then showed her
how to correct her coding error.)
www.angelfire.com/home/teenworkshop/diana.html
And
Leslie's is simple, one graphic and a presentation of information with bulleted
lists. She said it turned out exactly like she planned.
www.angelfire.com/home/teenworkshop/leslie.html
There
finally has been something published in the local newspaper. The school's
board of directors congratulated our director on it this morning. I have a
copy that I can send to you.
Thanks
for everything! It was wonderful!
MY
MEXICAN CONNECTION
---------------------------------------------------------------
February,
2002
If
you ever wonder what I do as Youth Technology consultant, this is a story
of a nice project I worked on last month which is just one of the overseas
links which I have made since my appointment in 1998.
4 years ago my Mom and I started operating TechSchool Jamaica (http://www.techschooljamaica.com)
as an online cyberschool. While we have been unsuccessful so far in making
TechSchool a physical place, we have held several summer and Easter workshops
for Jamaican teens who want to learn technology. We have even had students
from Trinidad, America, Yugoslavia and Pakistan in Jamaica for TechSchool
workshops, and then continued working with those students online after they
return home. In all we have taught about 100 students from all over the world.
Last
year a teacher, Kerri Phillpott in Tampico, Mexico contacted me saying she
had read about me at the Reuters News website, which offers a service using
their news stories to help people learning English as a second language. She
asked if I and TechSchool could help her teach web building skills to her
students. We agreed and told her to sign up to MSN Messenger so we could communicate
online. Then once a week she and the students would connect with us online
and we do our lessons.
TechSchool's
website has links to several sites which teach web-building skills, and we
would send her and the students to those sites and discuss how to use them.
The students sent us drawings of how they wanted their websites to look, and
we sent them tips on how to make it happen.
Even
though we had our share of problems, getting bounced off the 'net in mid-sentence,
logging on an hour early because we forgot the time difference, and so on,
it was fun working with Kerri and the students. Here are the results, good
beginnings of which I can say we are all very proud.
TechSchool's
main emphasis is on building websites. We have seen that building websites
not only teaches several tech skills at once, but is a very useful skill to
have in this time. If you can build a website, you can use it to sell your
products or services, and you can earn income from home using a computer this
way.
In
1999, I worked online with two teens in Texas to build a website teaching
youths how to build and operate an e-business website. "eBiz4Teens"
(http://library.advanced.org/28188)
won us a Silver Award and scholarship prize money in the ThinkQuest (http://www.thinkquest.org)
-- an international web-building competition for students working online in
different countries. If you are interested in ThinkQuest, log on and look
for other students who want overseas partners to build award-winning websites
with them.
BEHIND
PRISON WALLS
March, 2002.....One
of the things that I like about my assignment with the Ministry, is being
involved in unusual and interesting activities.
One such was
being invited to take a look inside the General Penitentiary on Tower Street,
by my friend Professor Charles Nesson
of the Harvard Law School. 'Prof' heads the Law School's
Berkman Center for Internet and Society, which uses technology and the
Internet to advance social objectives and encourage creativity.
We met when
'Prof' started coming to Jamaica about 4 years ago, linking with the Ministry
to find ways to help Jamaica through technology. Through the Ministry, Prof
heard about a programme taking place in the prisons called "Reverence
For Life", led by a man named Desmond Green. Through "Reverence
For Life", Mr. Green has found a positive approach to rehabilitiation
of the people in prison, and the programme has been so successful that Prof.
Nesson thought it would be good to bring a team from Harvard to take a look
and give some assistance.
So a concert
was held at GP (properly called Tower Street Correctional Center), and the
"team-mates" - as inmates are to be called - gave us a great show
of songs, poems and music which form the cultural development part of the
"Reverence For Life" programme. The little plays they performed
were funny, but they showed that some 'team-mates' had learnt lessons that
would keep them from coming back inside that place.
Chief guest
at the concert was Commissioner Colonel Prescod, who was just about to retire.
When this was mentioned during the concert, the men all shouted that he should
stay. He seemed to be very loved, because of the opportunities for reform
and parole that he has shepherded into the prison system.
The Harvard
team numbered 23 persons, each with a different job to film, photograph, record
or interview some part of the day's activities. All of the stuff they did
was put on a website within two days and used as part of Professor Nesson's
law class at Harvard the following Monday morning. The recordings, including
a music video and interviews on a RJR talk-show programme, are being used
to inform the world about Jamaica and its prison reform programme.
The Berkman
Center will be helping the Ministry to set up an IT training programme for
people in the Tower Street and South Camp Road prisons as part of the "Reverence
For Life" programme. The idea is to give people IT training they can
use when they have served their time. This is now being put in place by the
Ministry.
So that is
how I got my first look behind the prison walls. It's a grim place. The cells
are like small cages, and there is laundry dripping from everywhere. So many
men, all looking into your eyes. It really makes you think to realize that
these really nice guys around you, who look just like any guys on any street
in Jamaica, are here for a while. But some are there for a long time, for
reasons I would rather not hear about.
Very interesting.
Very serious. Quite the opposite kind of place was the "Zinc Link"
Internet Café, which I had the pleasure of seeing when I was invited
to the opening ceremony. I had heard a lot about the Mustard Seed Community
and the work of Father Gregory Ramkissoon, but to actually be there and see
the place was another good experience.
"Zinc
Link" is sponsored by Vision Consulting, an Irish firm that has sent
systems analyst Hugh O'Reilly to set up and run the place. There were lots
of children at the opening, all wanting to use the computers, so I took them
to visit "MamaMedia", which is a really great website that
children love to explore with lots of features to keep them interested for
hours. MamaMedia is built by Idit Harel and Professor Seymour Papert's team
at the Media Lab at M.I.T., which believes that every child should have a
computer in their life.
I also showed
them the TechSchool website where they can learn
lots of ways to use the computer.
The Zinc Link
has ten new computers and charges only $50-$100 per hour. I had a quick look
around Mustard Seed, including the ROOTS radio station, and was very impressed
that there is a place like this in the community. So much could be done for
community development with ZINK LINK. For example, if a group of adults come
together, they can use the center's computers to operate websites to sell
goods and services offered by the residents. For only $500 an hour, someone
can hire the computers and teach 10 children a tech skill that they can then
hire out and earn money. They can also use the computers for lifelong learning.
I plan to
continue linking with ZINK LINK.
