Log me on Scotty

Today has been one of those days when a fairly simple job turned into a long and protracted one. Now that I’ve found my feet I’ve been able to make some plans to get more actively involved in teaching again. I had a good meeting with the High School teachers yesterday and we re-arranged the timetable so that I can teach some Business Studies and ICT lessons. It will be good to get back in the classroom, though I am a little apprehensive about teaching without all the usual technical aids that I’m used to. It will be like being on teaching practice again for the first few lessons.

Back to the unraveling problem. I thought it would be a good idea if all of the students’ computer screens looked the same when they start using them and that they are set up so a novice user only has very limited options to do anything catastrophic. I’m used to having ICT technicians look after this kind of thing; it’s been a long time since I’ve had to do much about computer security. We currently have five laptops for the students to use so the first task was to make sure they were all running the same software. Time consuming but straightforward. Setting up a user name for each student on each laptop has been a bit more challenging. It’s not difficult to give them each a user name and password but it’s more complicated limiting their options the copying that over the five laptops. Trying to work out the best way to achieve this is a bit of a conundrum at the moment but I’m confident that I’ll achieve a breakthrough tomorrow.

As the rain happened this afternoon and hasn’t picked up again tonight the place is strangely quiet. Even the frogs seem to have called it a day. I think I’ll try and get my first early night so far. If I can avoid mulling over the computer problems I think I might succeed. Still. It’s a good problem to have. When I think about the first year we spent in Kenya it is incredible how much we are able to do now. I feel very privileged to be working so far ‘off the grid’ with such a good team of staff and very keen students. Victory over the technology is so much sweeter when it’s being used in a challenging environment.