Dativa's snack shop's table had two One Laptop Per Child laptops casually lying around in their plastic wrappers, with two small children sitting near them, munching on amandazis (donuts). It is really weird seeing children in rural areas, some with only one torn warn uniform they wear daily, carrying brightly colored laptops.
I tried to help some of the teachers learn how to use the laptops. This thing is, I'm really lost using Apples because they're not PC's, so forget about a totally different "user friendly" operating system. I suppose it may be user friendly, but Windows is just etched into my brain. So most of my "helping" was my usual, "oh no, what did I press? no, no, bring the window back, bring it back" followed by the teacher I am helping pressing a few buttons and bringing the window back, even though the teacher has close to no experience using computers, and then both of us realizing I am only there for moral support. And me also realizing that even with my 20+ years experience using computers, I am still about as good or worse at using them compared to a grown adult clicking away at the keys for the first time.
I did teach him how to save a text document. Yay.
Both of us could just not figure out how to find the flash on the computer after plugging it in. Which is a shame, because flashes are the only way to share anything around here, where internet non-existent or to slow for Dropbox.
The kids are supposed to get internet soon, and then they can use wikipedia. The teacher I was helping was extremely excited about this - the idea of being able to search for anything under the sun and get some sort of answer. I told the teacher he could even add information he knows.
I don't yet know how they are going to integrate the computers into the classroom, but I will keep you all updated. Maybe with a One Laptop Per Child laptop.
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