Day 4: Technology & Bracelets in Haiti

When I came to the school in 2010, there were few to no decorations on the walls, electricity was intermittent and it seemed impossible to consider how my skills as an instructional technology specialist might apply in this context. Here we are six and a half years later and there are 5 Chromebooks, wifi and a projector! We started the day continuing the work we started yesterday with geoboards, but this time we used the document camera for demonstrations and sharing. Students were excited to see their work on the screen and were ecstatic when I took group shots of them and projected the image. They jumped to tap themselves projected on the wall - a gesture communicating, "Hey, that's me!"After time with the 6th graders, we moved to 4th graders and I altered my plan a bit. It was clear that some of the students struggled with more complex tasks, so I quickly

divided the students into three groups and sent Ben, Eli, Steve and our translator Dell to work in another room. The 1:5 ratio worked well for all involved.

Next came recess....Eil will take the lead on describing this experience as he was quite the desired person by many of the students. I think they were still trying to "pull the shy out" of him. His dad Steve followed close behind as the kids were enamored with this big muscles and tattoo. He said some of the kids licked their fingers and tried to see if they could rub it off. We repeated some chanting/dancing circles and brought out the emoji hackey sacks. Some of boys tried juggling after watching Steve and Chris and seemed to pick it up quickly. Ben played 1 on 1 with a Haitian and it was quite a sight. After almost every attempted basket, they had to adjust the rim which was held in place mostly by ropes. By the end of their game, the hoop was completely separate from the backboard, and not from any dunk attempts, only from shooting. Recess is typically only 30 minutes, but today it went on for over an hour! It was joy-filled chaos for sure. We discovered that this week is typically vacation but they decided to come to school since we were visiting. At first I felt badly to think that we interrupted possibly vacation, but had we known (the school calendar suggested they had school M-W this week), we may not have planned the trip.

The afternoon was calmer, but just as busy. We had about 8 students working on Chromebooks and the rest were learning to make paracord bracelets. Our team practiced before we came and refreshed our memories as we trained our translators. The work started slowly but as soon as they got the hang of it, many of the students decided to make as many bracelets as time and supplies would allow. Our plan was to leave at 3:30 but we didn't get out until after 4pm because so many students wanted to make just one more!

A few special moments from today:
- We sponsor several students and sent letters and family photos along when a friend came a few years ago. One of the girls brought her framed picture of us and happily showed it to us. It was fun to tell her that we have her picture on our wall. At the end of the day, she asked me to correct the English essay she was working on - she is one of the students who studies English on Saturdays.

- We wondered if students would wear their glasses to school and they did! I think it may have helped that several of us wear glasses - showing them it's not a bad thing. I don't know how long they will last, but at least it's a good start.