Hi Mary and all,

Thanks for the effort. I'll close this task now. If necessary we can open it later again.

Great work!

Pelle

Hey Neighbours,
All who participated its a well done Job cheers to Mary thank you for putting together all that we were looking for.

Paul

HI!

I had an email from Paul yesterday to say that the CDs of education software I sent to him have arrived in Jinja.

Paul, thanks for letting me know!

Mary

Thank you MARY for the task

OK - will do!

Mary

Hi Mary,

Yes, please include a copy of OpenOffice, if it's not too much to ask.

I think Paul will try to arrange MSOffice too, since it's the standard in Uganda as well.... but just in case. OpenOffice looks pretty much the same.

Pelle

Hi Pelle and Paul

Quick question - do you want a copy of OpenOffice? This is completely free software which has the same functions as Microsoft Office e.g. word processing, spreadsheets etc. If so I can download it and associated user manuals.

Mary

Cor, Mary, Kim,

Thanks for all the suggestions.

Mary - you mentioned downloading some material: which ones have you downloaded? And thanks for the information on accessibility options.
I saw that the 'wougnet' CD costs $20. I'll discuss with Paul if it would be useful.

Online trainings won't do at first... there's no internet connection at the centre yet. :-(
I've sent an email to BBC, asking if their courses would be available on CD.

Paul said the trainer that will help them was very happy with some of the manuals we've found earlier.

Keep them coming!!

Pelle

Hi Paul

I believe you are focusing on providing training for orphans and people with disablilties?

Ths Microsoft website has information on accessibility features that make Windows products easier to use by disabled people e.g. increasing text size, changing keyboard/mouse settings etc

The main webpage is http://www.microsoft.com/enable/default.aspx

The most useful pages are probably those under Accessibility in Microsoft Products
http://www.microsoft.com/enable/products/default.aspx

And the various Tutorials and Training pages
Accessibility Tutorials - http://www.microsoft.com/enable/training/default.aspx
Guides By Impairment -
http://www.microsoft.com/enable/guides/default.aspx

The info is all on webpages which should be fairly quick to access.

There are also some bigger docs that describe things in more detail - I will put some of them onto the CD I am sending you.

Mary

Paul,

For the very basics, there is a tutorial on the BBC site "how to use the computer":
http://www.bbc.co.uk/computertutor/computertutorone/index.shtml?survey=n...

A tutorial for the basics of Windows XP, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel etc;
(scroll down for the free tutorials)
http://www.baycongroup.com/education/ed_teaching_resource.htm

Tutorials for (the free) Open Office (can be downloaded here: http://www.openoffice.org/index.html):
http://www.tutorialsforopenoffice.org/category_index/wordprocessing.html

Cor

Hi Paul

I don't think I have mentioned this on here before. Although not exactly the type of computer training you are hoping to provide, it is an interesting example of using CD-based training with people who have no computer experience.

See http://www.wougnet.org/News/cdupdate.html for more information.

In this case it focused on providing training in business skills to women in rural Uganda, skills which would be relevant to their day-to-day lives. While doing this, they also gained some very basic computer skills which they then built on during later lessons at the computer centre. So the women were seeing the computer as something that was simple, that they could learn to use easily, and that could provide them with real beneifts.

You can see the course contents here http://www.iwtc.org/files/!start.html and it is also available on CD - more details of that at http://www.wougnet.org/Links/agriculture.html#IWTC_CD

Mary

Here are a few sites with free software of various sorts:

http://www.getopenoffice.org/

http://www.freebyte.com/

http://directory.fsf.org/

http://www.guidesandtutorials.com/

Kim

Dear all,

Daniel Akileng just posted.

Next to that Paul and Aaron have arranged a training for a technician in Jinja itself: Aaron will be the technical guy of the training centre and will be trained by someone who repairs the computers in other internet cafés.

Pelle

Hi

Marc is right - there is a need for a small group of people with real interest in computer tech things to learn basic maintenance issues. These people need also to defend the whole system against viruses, including control and checking of discs, etc, that people bring in from outside.

There is also, at the other end of the spectrum, a need for training/education about the role of computers in life - control the computer, don't let the computer control your life!

best wishes

Dennis

Just a thought that crossed my mind: would the course also need to include a bit of troubleshooting?

Marc