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from the Conference with Excerpts from Individuals |
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Attendees have received a message from Ed with a questionnaire and this message from Brooks: "Greetings and jambos, all. We would like to continue some of the momentum generated in Seattle where I hope you all agree that hosts Audrey and Leal Dickson and Planner Sharon Hartmann provided us with a marvelous experience. And except for Sunday midday we kept the rain away. I would like to solicit reflections from you...if you feel so inclined. A paragraph or two, five to ten if you get rolling. We have found following past gatherings that these reflections have helped capture spirit and pointed us to future activities or considerations." The invitation to reflect remains open. All responses submitted so far are available, with long ones linked and shorter ones shown in full in the Messages page. Several excerpts appear below, in appropriate contexts. |
Click the topics above that interest you or scroll down through all of them. Then make yourself heard! Better yet, find something you want to work on and volunteer for it. |
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Shelby Lewis stepped up at Seattle-07 to offer her efforts for a reunion and conference event in Atlanta, which has great resources. There was also some interest expressed in a return to East Africa, though no offer of trip leadership has emerged so far. We also need to decide, collectively, the year in which such an event is to take place, presumably 2009 if we continue our biennial pattern. Responses to the questionnaire gave strong support for doing something, about evenly divided between the two locations. Shelby's followup includes this: I renew my offer to work closely with TEAAers in the area to ensure a well planned and enjoyable conference if Atlanta is selected as the next site. Click here to see Dale Otto's program suggestions for next time, which would encourage broader and deeper participation. See his item #2. He would leave more time for discussion, capture the results systematically and put out a call for substantive presentations, to supplement the invited speaker(s). Sharon Hartmann, program chair of Seattle-07 had the following response to these comments from Dale: "I found your thoughts about the structure of the next conference very interesting and helpful. I am sure that the folks in Atlanta will be interested and that Brooks will see that they arrive in the proper place." >> top of this page |
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Eleven people attended the open meeting on fundraising on Saturday morning of the conference. The agenda was possible next steps and how to fund them. First, however, we discussed possible affiliations and collaborations. There was concern that we not be swallowed up and/or steered away from our strengths and passions. Some expressed a concern that - in Dale Otto's phrase - we are on borrowed time. Others said quite the opposite and several of us are headed back to Africa soon, with TEAA assistance on their agenda. The possibility of raising $100,000 was put forward, as was the idea of a challenge grant. We need to look to ourselves and we need to look outward, for wealthy individual funders and foundations. Someone asked if we would use a cash infusion to support more schools or increase the support at the current ones. The answer that came forward was "both," since we are giving schools only a portion of their needs. Both kinds of assistance mean more work, especially starting up with new schools, so we need volunteers for site visiting both before and after money is allocated. From Dale Otto: We are an organization on borrowed time. What do we want to persist beyond ourselves? If anything, what sort of endowment and structure would be workable and acceptable? Or what other organization would use our 'endowment' for the purposes we want and with as little cost to the 'TEAA endowed action fund' as possible? >> top of this page |
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There was a spirited discussion about oversight. There was concern that it not be so lax as to create temptation. It was noted that a requirement like the submission of receipts is standard practice for granting agencies and is practiced domestically as well as in the international arena. The other side of the coin is paternalism and apparent absence of trust. Click here to see Dale Otto's followup comments. His item #4 speaks of nurturing "transparency, honesty, and faithful adherence to the stated purpose of a grant." Click here to see Ed Schmidt's response to Dale. He supports accountability both to assure donors and to help principals resist "extraneous demands for use of TEAA funds." Click here to see Sharon Hartmann's response to Dale. She notes that submitting receipts is common practice for grant recipients. "I have spent a lot of time accounting for receipt of items purchased with federal funds for use in California schools. I may have wished that they would just trust me, so that I could save the time, but they never did." From Jonne Robinson: "I support Bill Jones' point that it is not always a good thing to provide very poor people with what must seem like to them vast amounts. This is not only because of the possibly corrupting effects but because of the image it creates of us and our organization, images which I am sure we would not want to be fostering." |
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One small-group session report urged more attention and assistance for teacher training. This function, once the province of special-purpose TTCs, is now often part of a broader institution. Those who have this concern need to come forward with proposals and volunteers for site visiting. We already have contacts at some relevant places. From Jonne Robinson: Our area of concentration should be relevant to who we are. Therefore, concentrate on secondary schools & TTCs. Since TTCs seem to be comparatively well catered for, concentrate on secondary schools. I think Tanzania may have a program of improving computing facilities at the TTCs. Certainly a lot of money has been put into the facilities, including internet connection, at Mpwapwa TTC. This may provide access for many of the secondary schools; e.g., the internet facilities at Mpwapwa TTC can be used very inexpensively by members of the public. >> top of this page |
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Laptops, cheap: Several TEAA-ers have seen announcements of cheap new laptops and some have suggested we get involved in distributing them. The cost of the XO from One Laptop Per Child has turned out to be $200 (not $100) and their goal has been huge sales to countries. An NGO like us is welcome to contribute, but OLPC apparently chooses the destination. Any volunteers to negotiate? In a new deal, you pay for two ($400) and get to control one of them while the other is "sent to a student in a poor country." India is aiming for a $10-dollar laptop and reportedly has production cost down to $47. These units will presumably be for domestic consumption at first. Desktops, used: Meanwhile, TEAA's efforts have gone to supplying schools with used desktop computers, typically in lots of 20. When the Uganda shipment arrives in December-07, we will have placed 170 of them, mostly through the services of another NGO, at a cost of about $100 each, delivered, and there have been some setup and initial repair costs. Comparison of these two options raises an array of issues and questions: functionality, education strategy, security, impact for a given cost, disposal/pollution at the end of usable lifetime and more. Comments on these factors and others, and the interactions among them, are most welcome. Please also send new information, with source if possible, about what is available and what is being done in schools in the developing world. Internet connectivity was expensive to maintain in Tanzania where Frank Mitchell tried it. However, Kenya had a better deal and a brief websearch indicates strong recent progress in this area for Uganda schools, with UConnect, World Links, AMD's 50x15 and the nation's own Communications Commission all involved. Costs for equipment, installation, maintenance and line charges need to be investigated and monitored, as do opportunities for collaboration in the three countries if we are going to have a hand in this. eGranary: Meantime our long-awaited 750 gigabyte eGranary digital libraries are about to be shipped to 6 of our schools. Each unit contains literally a library's-worth of material, much of it educational, academic and health-oriented. What they do not have is ads, porn, viruses, monthly fees and long waits. From Jonne Robinson: The eGranary is a great idea. I often find trying to get information about a particular topic on the internet a bit of a mixed blessing, and the egranary must eliminate the dross. >> top of this page |
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At the Kampala-03 wrap-up session in Arusha, there was a discussion of various forms of assistance we might provide. Although the idea of tuition assistance was raised at that time, there was wider support for the idea of supplying books and equipment selected by schools, on the grounds that it would benefit many students. At Seattle, Arlone Child raised this issue again. She has raised thousands of dollars in her community to fund a highly successful project at MacKay, providing four-year, half-tuition scholarships for over 30 high-performing students orphaned by AIDS. A followup message from her and Gene is below. From Arlone and Gene Child: We think that more time should have been allotted to small group discussions on specific topics; e.g., personal tuition assistance for individuals versus supplying materials to schools... As you are aware from our past actions we are more interested in helping people than supplying things to schools. We think the TEAA program should include both facets. |
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Someone rightly observed that the pre-conference Seattle-07 information page should not be so prominent any more. That's been changed, but you can still get to it by clicking "Pre-conf Info" in the lower left. We said we should communicate about followup and that's what this page is for. So communicate! Think about the above issues and send your thoughts to henryjh@comcast.net . Also be sure to send back the emailed questionnaire to Ed at eschmidt1@sbcglobal.com Would you rather not route everything through the webguy? Should we have a setup where everyone can post ideas directly? We now have a more appropriate web address (URL). A call for suggestions appeared here and several of us reached agreement on tea-a.org (since teaa.org was not available). Please bookmark it (make it a favorite). |
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Is some whole topic missing here? Send reminders and suggestions to henryjh@comcast.net |
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