The Great Primate Handshake – Volunteer in Africa, working to conserve monkeys and apes through film and educational content production

Jeff Bittner

Jeff Bittner first came to Uganda in October last year. Back in April, he had met Elizabeth Ross who founded the Kasiisi Project which offers seconday school scholarships, builds buildings and latrines, gives out sanitary pads to girls and pays for extra teachers as well as running 5 primary schools around Kibale National Park which children attend free of charge.

Jeff has an undergraduate degree in Information Science but his professional background is in Special Needs Education. His wife came to Uganda to carry out research on the red colobus monkey in Kibale Forest and when they arrived he offered his services to Kasiisi Primary School. After doing various administrative and accounting work for them, he became involved in the team setting up the XO project at the school. The other members of the team were Ian Wrangham (Elizabeth’s son), Koojo Matthew and Rwabuhinga Francis. Matthew and Francis are currently at university in Kampala and were themselves beneficiaries of the Kasiisi Project scholarship scheme.

The XO (priced currently for the public at $400 through the “Buy One Give One” scheme and $100-$130 for schools), is the product of the One Laptop Per Child project and is very different from the windows and mac systems we’re accustomed to in the UK. It has completely new software that focuses on thinking laterally and imaginatively.

The features include:

- A camera for photos or videos

- A writing program, much like Microsoft Word

- Learning activity games

- Music making programs

- A built in Wikipedia with 10,000 articles

- The ability to turn the laptop into an electronic book

- A chat program

- A calculator

- A mesh network which allows all the XOs in a classroom to link up with each other.

It is also possible to download more Wikipedia articles and activities for the XOs, free of charge.

The XO is project based, which encourages the blending of different programs. Currently at Kasiisi they are working on an autobiography project which allows the children to use photo and word programs as well as posting the finished articles on a forum which the other student can then see through the mesh network. A central server allows the teacher to post questions and quizzes which the children can then access, much like on-line courses.

OLPC send the XOs to schools along with a small student volunteer team to help the school set the laptops up. Some schools have nevertheless failed to get the project successfully up and running – the lack of electricity and general technical knowledge proving an insurmountable obstacle. However, Jeff set up a system at Kasiisi to charge the laptops using a generator, battery and inverter. Now he can charge all the computers in the school in two and a half hours. Some other schools he’s spoken to take days to charge their laptops or the volunteers have to ride into town with the laptops in rucksacks to charge them. Jeff’s system can be used as a blueprint for others trying to set up the XO project within a school. However the system is changing and evolving and he is still looking for ways to improve it.

Click here for a link to the XO schematic

Discovering The XO

The XOs only arrived at Kasiisi 6-8 weeks ago but have already proved very popular with the kids. They are currently being used during an extracurricular club which is, needless to say, exceptionally well-attended. Indeed, the teachers have noted that school attendance in general seems to have risen since the introduction of the laptops. That the kids love them there is no doubt. However, there are problems that will take time to resolve.

“I think there’s a huge learning curve with them before they’ll be useful in the classroom”

Jeff Bittner

The laptops are so far outside of what’s normal for the children, and indeed the teachers, that to use them in every lesson would slow down their learning rather than accelerate it. However in the club they are slowly gaining basic skills such as how to use the mouse and find the way around a QWERTY keyboard. Jeff is currently giving classes in lunch times to the teachers in how to use the XOs.

The XOs can only be used at school as the children have no electricity at home. They are also kept at school for security reasons as many of the children walk a long way to get to school and the parents felt that carrying a laptop would make the children targets for thieves. Another concern that parents felt was that the cameras on the laptops could be used inappropriately. However despite these worries they were very impressed at what their children could do with the laptops and were incredibly appreciative of the opportunity their children were being given.

In The Classroom

It is only with time that the true potential of the XO will be revealed. But despite the obstacles, it is clear that with teacher training and proper technical support the XOs can enhance children’s enthusiasm for school and interest in education.

For more information, please see www.kasiisiproject.org