Those of you who have heard me ramble about our upcoming trip have undoubtedly heard an earful about the technology portion of what we’ll be doing.  I can’t hide it – I’m pretty excited!

We’ll be bringing at least two or three older laptops with us, loaded with software suitable for training and educating young children from ages 5 – 10.  The primary purpose of this effort is to 1) get technology into the hands of people who otherwise may never see it, and 2) use the technology to teach more efficiently and effectively than we otherwise could.

To that end, we’ll also be training the teachers.  Part of this exercise will involve building a primitive weather station outside the Grace School that can measure temperature, rainfall, and humidity.  We’ll then create a spreadsheet that teachers can use to update the daily minimum temp, maximum temp, and other weather “vitals” – the goal of which is to provide a tangible and practical use of information technology.  Charts and graphs of weather stats can then be created and used to demonstrate the value of storing all those bits and bytes.  ”Let’s look at the trend.”  It’s uncertain if the next Al Roker will emerge from Tikapur, but we certainly will be organizing information!

On the topic of computer software: we can most certainly use any modern (meaning, post Windows 95/98 era) software with educational or entertainment value.  My plan is to create a very basic software image consisting of open-source tools combined with commercially-available games/educational titles that can be used interchangably on machines of varying power and speed.

How can you make a difference?  Most certainly, if you have 

• a Windows-based laptop with power supply (a good battery isn’t a must, but the power supply is.)
• educational software (think Encarta, BodyWorks, learning games suitable for grades preK – 3)
• technology teaching ideas

we can use them most certainly right now, right away.

That old laptop you have in your home office or in the attic (yeah, that one) that runs Windows 2000 or XP, that was good back in the day but just wasn’t fast enough for the newest PowerPoint, could be used immediately in Nepal.  I’ll bring over as many as I can pack.

Please… drop me a line if you have any ideas or donations.  We’ll make good use of them.