So tonight I followed my usual schedule, which is to eat dinner at home and then open the school library from eight to nine, allowing kids to come in and use the computers before they go to bed. Things went along nicely, and then at nine the kids filed out to go to the dorms. I took the rare moment of peace in the library to start making copies of the floppy disk I use, since I want to bring a bunch of them to Nairobi to give out. At the same time, I was testing a new program I had recently put on the floppy disk—a space flight animation that acts as a lead-in to a map of the solar system.
Anyway, some of the older kids who were in study sessions came in and saw I was still there, and they saw the recent addition playing on one of the monitors. They ran out and grabbed some other kids—maybe 40 of them in total—and they all ran in and watched the one tiny yellowing monitor until the spaceship completed its flight and the screen was filled with stars, and then suddenly it flickered to the map of the solar system. Thunderous applause ensued, and then the kids got closer to study the map, which led to conversations about the different size of the sun and the moon.
This map has been on the floppy disk for ages, and I haven’t been able to get anyone to look at it for more than five seconds, and I feared that giving it an exciting intro would make it even less appealing, but there I was, trying to explain why the sun and moon look the same size. Cool.
Anyway, it’s a small victory on the road to making the best use of the little bit of computer time the kids have (and of course I’m a sucker for any story that ends with me being applauded).
It also coincides with me putting the new version of the floppy disk programs onto the blog. It’s the version I’ll be bringing to Nairobi for next week, so I figured it made for a decent milestone, since I haven’t updated that part of the site in a while.
In other news, I have my old phone number back (see right column).
And just so you don’t have to endure a blog post without a photo:
I’ve updated my page on educational software accordingly.
I tried in this version to address the most common question about FUZOMA: “Why do I need to make a floppy disk just to use it?”
So, starting with version 1.3, the FUZOMA page also has instructions and downloads for making bootable CDs, USB sticks, and good-old fashioned hard drive installs. This is pretty significant, as it makes the software much more accessible to all sorts of computers, from 486s to MacBook Pros. I’m not aware of any other educational software project that can make such a claim.
I did create a problem for myself with this version, though. As I found and added better math activities, I ended up with 29 activities total, but there are only 27 icons on FUZOMA’s menu. I never thought I’d run into this problem… 29 activities that fit on a floppy disk! I refuse to make a confusing multi-layer menu for the kids. To address this, I made 2 of them “bonus” activities, meaning that they launch only after you play some other more educational activity first.
The most popular bonus activity by far is Super Worms 3D Racing, which lets two kids get on each computer and race against each other. It’s cute enough for the girls to like it and the boys will like anything that lets them shoot each other. The kids can only play the bonus game if they first solve math problems in Super Worms Math Arena. Both programs are courtesy of Wiering Software, who also sells an improved version of the racing game. Mike Wiering was kind enough to modify Math Arena to make the “Bonus Activity” concept work so well and to provide a smaller version of 3D Racing that takes up less room on a floppy disk.
The kids love the split screen action (and they tolerate the math required to get to it)! Check out the pics:
Today traffic was terrible. On my way to lunch, I jumped out of the matatu early and walked the rest of the way. As it turns out, President Kibaki was coming into town, so all the main roundabouts were completely shut down. He was actually here for a big deal: the big public launch of the undersea fiber optic cable that has finally arrived from the other side of the Indian Ocean. This was the last stretch of ocean in the world that didn’t host an Internet connection, but now East Africa is finally caught up! Here’s a local news blurb on it. And one on Forbes.
I didn’t see the big event, but I did see 50-or-so Mercedes vehicles screech into town, surrounded by motorcycles, sirens blaring. It’s a safe bet that Kibaki was in one of them.
In mildly related news, I’ve updated my learning software page to reflect all the changes I’ve made to my educational floppy disk in the past couple months. I was thrown into a cycle of changes as I tried (and succeeded, I believe) at getting the thing to work on a 486 with 8MB of RAM for an old computer in Embu. It also works on my Core2Duo with 3GB RAM, so it works on a wide range of computers now.
I’ve also gone ahead and given the disk a name: FUZOMA Floppy. FUZOMA is a liberal blending of the Swahili words for “teach” and “learn.” (It’s also a word that had no matches on Google until I registered the domain name.) For now I just have one huge page dedicated to it here on the blog, but sooner or later I’ll get around to moving stuff over to fuzoma.com, because it feels way too cramped on a single page.
I also wanted to mention that over the course of making this floppy disk for the students, I’ve tracked down and contacted a number of shareware authors from the old DOS days and pestered them with questions, and everyone has been remarkably helpful thus far. Special thanks to Bob Ferguson for sending me the EditV source code, which helped me as I designed the FUZOMA text editor for the kids as they learn to use the computer. Also David at Bozz Software for reading my long emails, and Dom Domes and David Alves for making such great learning programs.
I’ve gotten positive feedback on the project from two other volunteers in Kenya thus far. Nic had some nice things to say on this blog, and although Daniel doesn’t get into it on his, he told me that he used the typing game as a bonus for his final exams! It’s a start…
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