Daraja ideas

Every time I come to Daraja, I get ideas for more projects.  It’s a place that encourages collaboration and creative thinking.  

 

Project proposal to Denis and the Media Club

1. Borrow an iPod Touch and record some of the opening lectures from today
• Show this to teachers
2. 2 Students from each Form could have this duty for the term
• Upload the lectures (no longer than 10 minutes per subject) up to Youtube every day after class as Daraja Lectures with that day’s schedule in the comments (as the schedule changes each day; here the teachers rotate, not the students).  
• Label as Form 1. Term 1. Mathematics. Topic. (Form. Term. Course. Topic)
• Organize into Playlists per Form
• This becomes a service to present Daraja students since they can review the lecture after class; Daraja students of the future can review the lecture before class and practice in class; and the videos can also be shared via Youtube (or TeacherTube to benefit other Kenyan students)

Project Proposal on writing

1. School magazine - Issuu.com where you can upload a PDF version; Amazon also has Amazon Author and the students could be producing an anthology of creative works with embedded videos and text and sell them for $4.99 to benefit Daraja PBL projects.  If it’s successful, those monies could be managed by the Grassroots Girls or another campus organization where they take proposals from students and from the community to fund local community projects and initiatives.  

 

 

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During my meeting with Victoria and Charles earlier, I joked that with all of the projects they would like me to take up, I should be here for 5 months.  I really hope that I get tenure next year.  I could easily be here for that long, perhaps a little less, since, of course, I have a partner with a lovely position that he would like to keep, and I would not want to be separated from him for that long.   As newlyweds, yt’s hard enough for being separated for 2 days with an expected 12 more.  

 

I proposed taking a group of students with me to Kenya next January.  I won’t find out about that until February or March.  It’s a course focused on writing for nonprofits that benefit women and children.  We would be based here at Daraja, but the students would work in groups to support up to 4 different initiatives with writing for web content.  For some organizations, this might require building a website for the group as well and developing content for social media.  The students would spend their mornings at the different sites and their afternoons writing on their projects and serving as mentors to the Daraja Media Club and any other girls who identify as writers or who are interested in learning.