Wednesday, September 11, 2013

A day in history to always remember! We met Dan Bwanika along with Madut Peter, Guild President madutpeter@yahoo.com; Lawrence Nserevo, Human Resource Director lawrnserevo@gmail.com; Frank Mbaaga, Vice-Chancellor frankmbaaga@gmail.com; Jane, the External Director (student exchange), kushjane@yahoo.com; and student Geuma Yona, jonahgeu@gmail.com. I presented the project, speaking about the Ministry, the PTCs, the XOs and the tablets. I could demonstrate the tablet on the projector but passed around the XO1 and the XO tablet. Everyone was pleased with the work being done and proposed but really wanted to know how they could connect with us. I explained that I could not add more schools to the project at this time, but Eric is going to give a lecture to the ICT students next Thursday or Friday. Next we met with Prince Joseph Mulongo of the UNESCO site of Kisubi Tombs and purchased some more paintings for sale at the next benefit. We stopped for lunch at the Chinese Restaurant again. We tried to make contact with a Fabric Retailer who could help us find a distributor. Unfortunately, she wanted to be a middle man and this would be too cumbersome, especially in expediting fabrics to use in the next fundraising Fashion Show. Next we drove to meet with Ronald Ssemyalo and discussed how Kampala University can use this project as a research project. He was enthusiastic and had a few suggestions. He now has the XO1 and an XO tablet to review so that he can suggest a distribution of the 12 XO1s and the 12 XO tablets that provides for a good research study. The computers are different, the XO1 focusing on activities around a generic user, while the XO tablet is based on potential career choices. I spoke about running a distance learning group of classes, perhaps in conjunction with my colleagues who service Kenya, for the pre-service, inservice teachers in Jinja and Uganda, including those who come to the trainings next week. That would be for ICT (Microsoft) and the XO integration. Ronald asked if I could become a Fulbright Scholar and come to work on a curriculum for integrating ICT into the teaching curriculum. I described our EdMedia program and told him I could help him develop such a program. Next, we met with Chris Salide from MTN, a huge internet provider. We explained the project. Unfortunately, I could not show him the XO1 and the XO tablets because I loaned them to Ronald Ssemyalo. I showed him pictures, and the projector. He was impressed enough to set up an introduction to their MTN foundation Head. We are to write a proposal and set up a meeting to discuss. Next, we met up with Lawrence O, who was a fashion designer. Amazing guy. Creative designer! He wants to be involved in fashion show. Gave us some good leads as to where to find fabrics and we received an education on which fabrics were best and why. He gave us two leads to follow to find wholesale fabrics shipped from Ghana, using DHL at the best and safest cost. One was da-viva.com/contact-form.php (they would send us samples before an order is to be placed) ;the other could be gotten by another contact he would mail to us. He can be reached at info@renzioni.com.