Visiting Day Delight

Observing the smiles and joy of amazed parents as they watch their children use computers with confidence and enthusiasm is one of my favorite activities during visitor days. While these parents anticipated learning improvements they never dared to dream their child would be computer literate.

On one particular visiting day a class three student brought his guest to the computer lab to show her how he could navigate through the keyboard and open a program (math flash). It was clear that his parent was totally impressed with what her child had accomplished. After praising inABLE for this learning opportunity, she said “nobody could have ever thought that a blind person could use computer.” She was then concerned about what would happen when her child went to high school. She feared that these computer skills would be lost if children didn’t continue advancing.

Fortunately, inABLE is working hard to install computer labs to the Thika High School for the Blind and also in Kibos Kisumu. Thanks to the many generous donors, sponsors, and supporters who support inABLE’s mission to open computer labs for the blind at all of the blind primary and secondary schools in Africa.

by Carolyn Ngondi

Computer Lab donations are being accepted at http://www.globalgiving.org/projects/computer-labs-for-the-blind/?rf=ggWidget

Blind Students Excel

Data tabulation is one of those learning modules that induce stress for almost every learner, regardless if one is sighted or visually impaired. The perception is that it is difficult. Generally speaking, most people fear mathematics with or without Microsoft Excel.

A friend cautioned me that teaching Excel to blind students can be very difficult. He recommended that I research practical examples to explain different terminologies used in Excel spreadsheets, which of course I did.

When the time came for me to execute my Excel data tabulation lesson, I began with Class 7. As anticipated, the students groaned with dismay stating that the lesson was too difficult. I was reminded of a Swahili proverb that goes kutangulia sio kufika, meaning “starting a journey does not guarantee finishing”.

Thankfully, my concerns were needless. All of the Class 7 students - who happen to be totally blind - were exceptionally good in Excel.

What I learned is that it is good to embrace a learning challenge and never under estimate any student.

Thank you for your continued support for inABLE and our beneficiaries.

Summer Update

With a plane ticket sponsored by our partner KLM, inABLE was able to send our Executive Director Irene Mbari-Kirika to attend two key events held in Accra, Ghana and Nairobi, Kenya.

5th Africa Forum Blindness Conference – July 2011

inABLE was invited as a presenter at Africa Forum Blindness Conference, the largest-ever gathering in the blindness field. The Forum attracted nearly 400 delegates from 43 countries from Africa and various parts of the world. A number of significant milestones for African people who are visually impaired were announced or launched at this international conference on blindness in Africa.

During the event, inABLE and Georgia Tech co-presented a paper on the Mwangaza Project, which is our collaborative research project identifying ways to use technology to teach math and science to blind students. The presentation was very well received and generated livley discussion about obstacles in this area and options for overcoming them. As one attendee said, “This is a real issue for students across Africa is that this program needs to be expanded to reach more of them.”

inABLE Stakeholder Meeting in Nairobi – 22nd of June

This meeting was held at the Thika Primary School for the Blind, where inABLE’s inaugural computer lab is located. The purpose of the event was to engage policy makers in the educational sector to seek ways to expand our model for computer education for the blind. Among those attending organizations were the Teachers Service Commission (which trains, deploys and pays teachers), the Ministry of Education, the Kenya Institute of Special Education (which trains all special needs instructors), the Kenya Society for the Blind, the African Braille Center and the International Council for Education of People with Visual Impairment. Also attending were representatives from four schools for the blind (St Lucy’s Primary, St Lucy’s Secondary, Thika Primary and Thika Secondary) and the Salvation Army which is their founding body.

Some of the accomplishments were:

· Recognition of our model by the attending stakeholder institutions as a proven and viable strategy that can be applied to other schools.

· Commitment to participation in making the program a success. For example, the Teachers Service Commission agreed to assign a full time instructor to our computer program at Thika Primary.

· Discussions with the Kenya Institute of Special Education about adopting our instructor training program into their trainer curriculum. KISE has identified an initial group that they want to be the first KISE-trained computer instructors for the blind.

New Dawn for Students at Thika School for the Blind

Experiencing computer-based learning is an adventure. Try to remember the first time you saw and test a computer. For many of us, it has been many years or even decades since embracing computers at work and even at home. Now imagine what it would be like if you never knew about or ever touched a computer.

Thankfully the students at Thika School for the Blind Students now have access to computers with assistive technology and are quickly becoming computer savvy. Enclosed below is a recent experience that demonstrates how computers are expanding our students’ learning and lifestyle horizon. It is really a new dawn for our kids at the Thika School for the Blind.

Cyber-Cafe Outing

During a recent holiday break class eight, low vision student Joel Wandai visited a cyber cafe to surf the web and check email. After coming across unfamiliar computer software, he called for assistance and explained that he required a talking computer with Mozilla software- http://www.mozilla.org/ . This was the first time the cyber-café attendant had ever heard of a talking computer, and Joel was able to confidently explain how a talking computer worked.

The cyber-café attendant was very impressed with Joel’s computer knowledge and inquired into his school. The Mozilla program was successfully uploaded and Joel proceeded to access the internet, just like all the other cyber-café customers.

How the Internet Helps Blind Students Become Good Writers

It was exactly 7:00 am when I began the class with seven E students, who were eagerly waiting for the lesson to begin. I had prepared my lesson and one of the areas I wanted to cover was email, so that those students’ who are not able to compose, read and confirm the sent mails could have a chance to review it before we moved onto another topic.

The lesson began quite well and the students seemed to be excited, though some issues began to arise that the students seemed hesitant to share. What could this be?

In the meantime, my attention was briefly taken outside of class. When I returned to the class, I found the students crowding at Faith Kavutha’s workstation. I rushed over to see what was taking place, because we are dealing with kids who are very inquisitive. What I found was that the students had found a new resource that helped them email at http://www.mwanasimba.online.fr/E_methali_01.htm.

This link was the solution to Faith and friends’ problem writing good email composition and isha. The site contains over 90 proverbs translated into Swahili (Methali) that students are expected to include in their insha and composition in order to pass the class.

When I asked Faith - who is a totally blind student - how she found this valuable learning website. She boldly told me that just Googled to seek this information. Of course she did, with computer assistive technology she has the same online research abilities as the rest of the connected world..

The lesson I learned out of this scenario was that, given time and access our blind or visually impaired students can fully utilize the vast educational tools available on the internet, just like their sighted peers. Thanks to Access Kenya Group and other stakeholders.

Determination in a class three pupil

Irene Thambi is a class 3 student at Thika Primary School for the Blind. Irene has a problem with her hands whereby the left hand cannot completely do anything. Then the right hand is not firm to hold something, so Irene writes Braille using her tongue that means she holds the stylus with the right hand and presses using the tongue so that it becomes firm. In case she wants to locate the hole where she has reached writing she would locate it using the lips since she has no sense of touch.

I asked a teacher about Irene and I was told that she is very clever and intelligent and through my own observations I found out that its true because, when I assign her to do math flash she always has an answer to the sum but the problem is she cant be able to put that answer down using the keyboard

The challenge we have with Irene is that the right hand that she uses is not stable such that if she wants to do math flash (a computer game) she cannot be able to locate the numbers properly but keeps on pressing any key from one end of the keyboard to the other. We are still trying to help her master the keys every time she comes to the computer lab

Irene has a good memory and is very kin to listen to instructions. She is determined to succeed in the computer program despite her disability.

A determined student - John Brown

John Brown is the seventh born in a family of nine siblings and the fifth among boys.
His parents are farmers based in Western Kenya. At the tender age of 9 years in 2005, while in class 2, Brown was introduced to computers by his aunt. She taught him how to play games such as Bow Man and this sparked a sensation and enthusiasm like no other. With such a game, he was able to develop eye-hand co-ordination since the game involves pointing and clicking.

In 2009 at Thika Primary School for the Blind, Brown was excited when he knew he could continue learning about computers as inABLE started operating in the school from July 2009.As time progressed, so did his passion. With the introduction to Gmail, Brown was always keen to reply mails sent to him as much as possible. Whenever visitors came to the school he was quick to ask for their email addresses so that they can interact more frequently.

As the computer concepts seemed complex to some of his classmates, he viewed them as an extension of himself and this made it easy for him to understand. Always asking questions in class and willing to do research on the web on class work material, has moved Brown a notch higher than the rest. This is because he was the number One student end of year 2010 in the entire class 7 with 377 marks out of 500.

After learning some fundamental concepts in HTML, Brown approached me with a sketch of a web page that he would like to create. From the sketch, he intended to include a picture of himself and some personal details. I could see a clear sense of the end product as it displayed images and text at various portions. He tried as much as possible not to cluster the details on one page. He later put pen to paper and developed the sketch in HTML.

Currently, he is working on improving his HTML skills in order to develop products that will suite the market. He is one of the students who participated in designing their school website this month.

He is a self-driven, inquisitive, focused and persistent student aiming high for the skies. His dream is to become a pilot when he grows up.