Bridging the Technology Gap in Kenya and Denver

Dear Friends,

We are excited to tell you that we completed our first dance exchange with our students from Kaaga Primary schools in Meru, Kenya through live webinar connection in the Posner Center for International Development's classroom in March! We updated a computer lab in Kaaga primary school with better computers from “Close the Gap”, a non-profit in Belgium and set up internet service for this primary school through Kenyan internet provider Safaricom.

We encountered a few challenges on our pilot exchange. First of all, the cost of the internet service is $100 per month and the school originally planned to share in the cost but has since backed out. Secondly, the quality of the internet connection is insufficient to allow us to clearly see the dancers in Kenya. The poor quality may also be due to the video input on the Kenya side coming from a laptop instead of a video camera.

We have brainstormed a few ways to overcome these challenges. We can absorb an extra $50 per month of internet cost or see if there is a way to utilize the existing computer lab to deflect the $50 cost.One option may be to open the lab after school to the community for a small fee. Additionally, our board president is travelling to Meru in May and will consult with his technical contact there to determine where we need to make changes organizationally and technically to improve the transmission.

Other challenges we faced were communication issues with our Kenya director and delays by Safaricom. The exchange in March which was very successful.  Both the Kenya team and the U.S. team were very excited and motivated to learn more about each other's culture. We have a second exchange scheduled in May, before the U.S. students finish spring semester.

We are currently launching our penpal exchange; we have created a list of questions from students at Hope Online Learning Academy to use in the email exchange. We have also recruited a teacher in Kenya willing to supervise and organize the email exchange. Students on both sides will send emails through their teachers rather than directly to their email pen pal.

With help from the Posner Center's technical adviser, we identified issues and problems with the webinar exchange in March and have worked to resolve those. In the May exchange, we will use a video camera in Kenya to see if that improves the resolution from Kenya. This will also help determine if the internet connection speed is a factor in the picture quality.

There is such excitement and wonder from the students who are viewing, talking to, teaching, and learning from their counterparts in the other country.  We are really eager to continue our cultural exchanges via web conference and penpal exchanges. 

Thank you again for all of your continued support! The opportunities for cross-continent connections would not be possible without you!

With gratitude,

Barb Bates