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on Kate in Guyana (Guyana), 16/Jan/2010 19:10, 34 days ago
Had a good trip to Linden. The training on Thursday went well, there were 19 teachers who attended out of possible 28. I did an hour of activities about inclusion, both of the pupil with visual impairment as well as other pupils with special needs. I had 10 teachers who wanted me to do some follow up with them, I saw five of them on Friday. I also did some follow up with the two staff in the support unit for the blind, about Jaws, which is the speech programme for the blind. I am writing them a noddy guide for the basics, and persuading them that it would be good to do a little bit every day with at least one pupil, so that it becomes normal. At the moment they either write the work bigger and ask the pupils to copy it, or they like to record it onto cassette - but they don't have a cassette player at the moment. So I am trying to get them to see that if the work is on the computer then it can be accessed any time - for revision as well. Then it transpires that what the support staff really need is IT support, as they don't have much idea about word processing basics. The longer you work with people the more needs they seem to have! I suppose it is a question of confidence to be able to admit that you don't know something.At the other blind unit in Georgetown, I discovered that although they have a couple of computers with Jaws, none of the pupils use them. So I think I will try to get going on getting some of those staff to see the importance of opening the door to computers for these kids. The main barrier is that I am not much good at Jaws myself, but then I guess that is quite a good starting point as I can appreciate that a noddy guide is needed. If I can understand it then maybe they can...Had a birding outing this morning with a group called Feathered Friends. They give guides in the Botanical Gardens to see the birds. As I go there every Saturday morning I already have quite a good knowledge of the birds and where you see them, so that made it easier to tune in to what they were showing us. They had a brilliant big telescope for getting a real close up - which is great - if they sit still long enough. The highlight for me were these really massive kingfishers, which we saw fishing in the trench, also peregrine falcons which were diving after parrots which were bigger than they were! I also got the names of some of the common birds that I am familiar with.We had a walk along the sea wall afterwards, and admired the JCB which is stuck in the mud on the beach. You can see half the cab above the mud, and the big arm. It was trying to dig a trench for the new broadband cable. Someone will be in trouble... I cannot think how much it would cost to have a JCB transported to Guyana.The Haiti earthquake is on the news all day - it seems quite close emotionally to people here, but is physically a long way away. Guyana is off the danger zone for earth quakes as well as hurricanes, although it does do a good line in flooding as Georgetown is below sea level - hence VSO give us upstairs flats. The last massive flood was 2005.