Computers in schools

A few shots of a computer lab in an old school. The ICT teachers teach skills - talking endlessly while the boys sit (patiently) and listen. A lesson I watched was on the various workings of the inside of a computer to a Grade 7 class - interesting in many ways but after 30 mins I had to leave. My suggestion was why not get the boys in groups to take an old machine apart while the teacher explained what they were. They thought it was a good idea but I don't think they will do it. They were wathcing a powerpoint with all the terms etc. They did have a display at least up on the wall he could point to.





I was at one of the new schools this week and watched the delivery of 150 brand new desktops!! It was amazing - the new schools have 2 ICT labs with 25 in each, a language lab, computers in the Library Resource Centre and some for the administration. Very impressive but what a huge job to set them all up. Mind you they would have lots of helpers to move them around and usually a fulltime IT teachnician on site.





The new school ICT Labs are large although not set out all that well with monitors facing the back of the room instead of the front so the teacher can see what the kids are doing! Each student has a computer each - no sharing or collaborating on tasks.

Old school

The end of another week. Thought I would add a few photos of the schools I have been working in.
This is what I wear to school - I'm the one on the left!!
We have to wear a long skirt and have our arms covered.
This is one of the old schools - the library with the librarian. She is very on to it and has the place well organised. I was taken on a tour of the school by the Principal, a very enthusiastic man, who wants his school to be the best in the world! He has ordered 25 Promethean boards for the new school so each class has one - the government only supplies each new school with 5! He has a great vision - may take a few years!!
The old Ministry schools are being replaced with brand new schools. They only upgrade a certain number each year. Cognition helps with the transition from old Minstry school which are disfunctional, bad behavior, no learning etc etc to new, what they call, Independent schools.The teachers in the old schools are all sacked and a new Principal is appointed (Qatari) who then employs a whole new bunch of teachers - and so the reform begins. The old schools are usually in a trashed state and the new teachers start the year in these old schools while they wait for the new schools to be built and finished. Cognition is working with 5 of these schools - they have 1 year to 'reform'. We also work with 6 'failing' schools - they didn't meet the standard at the end of their first year so get another year's contract with Cognition. Other companies are doing similar work to Cognition.
These photos are in the old school at a Prep school - Y7-9. They will be moving to their new school at the end of November/Dec. The school year finishes at the end of June.

This photo is for you Geoffrey - Yemen Honey Centre.
We only went into the shop because Geoffrey had raved about Yemeni honey. We stumbled upon it and thought we would call in. A very small man with a friendly face gave us a tasting - how could we refuse. The honey is incredibly expensive for a small jar but very delicious.





A street shopping scene outside the honey shop. Quite different from the flashy malls. The word for a shopping area is Souqs - as in spooks without the p!.
There are Gold Souqs, silk and fabric souqs, and mixed trader souqs. The old market or traditional Souq is a hive of activity with many alleyways lined with small shops cramped with goods hanging out for display - clothes, carpets, spices, hardware, perfume.

Sea Line Resort

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We took a drive south of Doha, in the new car, to a beach resort out in the middle of nowhere. South Qatar is where the sand dunes are. There were many many 4 wheel drives and quad bikes driving all over the dunes. We paid $50 per person for the privelige of spending the day at the Sea Line Resort - it was like a little oasis with grass, palm trees, camel rides, shade and pools, plus the beach and lots of people - a mix of expats and locals. It had a bit of a Hi Dee Ho feel about it, probably won't go back but an interesting experience.

Residency

Yay... I'm officially a resident of Qatar - that now opens many more doors, a useful one being we can now go to the 'Distribution Centre' to purchase liquid refreshments. All very hush, hush....We are visiting it on Saturday to apply for a card - we have to put down a $450 deposit which we get back when we leave the country. We have to have a letter from the company stating how much we earn as we are only allowed to buy/spend a percentage of my monthly income there (which I think allows us to buy a reasonable amount - not that we're doing huge amounts of that these days). Once purchased you must go straight home and not deviate to friends house! If you are caught drink driving - big fine and straight back to NZ.

We have finally leased ourselves a car - freedom to get around when and where we want.
We paid a visit to the distribution Centre - it was packed with people buying up large.

We had to take this photo - we figured it must be a port-a-loo!

Sundays

There are some things here that are hard to get used to - like starting work at 7.00am on a Sunday. It puts your whole week out...and then you finish on a Thursday (TGIT instead od TGIF) Fridays here are like Sundays - everyone sleeps in until 11ish and then they all (well the men) head off to pray - I'm not sure how long they spend in the Mosques but they all stream out and hang around talking - as you would. Not sure what the women are doing. Everything is closed, it's very quiet - just like Sundays used to be like in NZ (showing my age now.....).
Fridays are actually great for us expats, as the roads are pretty much empty. One of the newbies here, Hazel, got her new leased car last week so invited us out with her to go exploring Doha. We had great fun being the navigators and learning all about the road systems here, finding our way around in a much more relaxed manner.
Come Sunday morning though it's chaos again - cars tooting, flashing their lights to make you move over, cutting in in front of you, driving on the footpath to get in front of a line of traffic, crossing all three lanes and then there are roundabouts and the fact you're driving on the other side, all good fun!
I think my residency comes through this week so we'll be checking out the leased cars - we hope to get a big 4 wheel drive (sorry Rob), but large is good, and safer!
We will have to go back and get our fresh fish from these local fishermen down by the port - we'll need to take a chilly bin to put it in so it won't go off. Some of the fish were very small, some of the small ones looked exactly like snapper.

Keeping busy

Brian enjoyed himself today? - he went to two different places ..... first to try and get a temporary drivers license so we can lease a car - but unfortunately the background colour on his photo was the wrong colour. It must be blue or red NOT grey! The second trip was to the Diplomat Club to become members - he thought he had filled in all the paperwork but unfortunately he didnt have a photocopy of my Passport - so he had to come home empty handed....a productive day. Maybe he'll try again tomorrow - we've just come back from getting a new set of photos.

I'm off to get my fingerprints taken tomorrow - another step forward in the process of gaining residency.

The fabrics and tailors here are amazing. I picked up, from the tailor, a top I had made which is a copy of one I already have. It only cost me $20 to get made plus the cost of the fabric. I am getting a skirt made from a picture I found on the internet - he measured me up and suggested the type of material to go off and buy. I will collect in 10 days.

Lots of camels

We were kindly invited to go with a group over to the west coast of Qatar yesterday for a swim. We arrived at a small village and there were a couple of camels wandering around - a fenced area for them was close by. We had to stop and take photos - the neat part was we were able to get up close to them - a mother and her youngster (not sure what they call a baby camel - will have to investigate). Here is a photo of the beach - we were north of Zekreet - fairly isolated and a bumpy sandy/rocky track to get there - you need a 4 wheel drive really to access these parts. There were 12 of us. Bahrain is not far - they are going to build a bridge to Bahrain from this part of Qatar. The water was very warm and salty - easy to float.

After the swim Brian's vehicle drove past a camel racing place and that's where all these wonderful photos were taken.

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Officialdom

Had my first taste of Qatar officialdom this morning at the Nationa Medical Centre. To get residency we need to have a blood test (checking for HIV and Aids), an xray(checking for TB I think) and another blood test to get our blood group.
There was a group of us newbies from Cognition getting this process done. I'm not good at having blood taken, as some of you know, because they can never find a vein. Well I couldn't watch but it did seem to take ages before he had got enough - I now have a bruise on my arm.
Next was off to get an xray. We had been warned to wear a white T-shirt as the gown they give you to wear is worn by many many others and doesn't look like they get washed often. We had to remove our bra where we stood (luckily no men allowed in this area) and then led to the area to stand for the xray and pushed and prodded into place, - very officious. Each time we went somewhere we jumped the que - which felt a bit weird as there were long ques of every nationality you could imagine waiting patiently in line.

eLearning in Qatar?

Yesterday, after a bit of organising, I taught a modelled lesson with a class of 6 year olds in the ICT Lab. I encouraged one of the teachers to be my guinea pig - I would work with her class. I took with me the Arabic translator and we collected the class and walked to the ICT room. I sat them down on the cold lino floor and proceeded to show them, and the teacher, how to use Paint to draw, with the interpreter explaining ( as well as management skills in the room). A group of teachers also came in to watch for a little while. The junior ICT teacher was also with the class. I then sent them in an orderly fashion! to a computer to have a go - there were 20 in this room. The kids were fabulous - they drew some really cute pictures and wrote their name. A teacher questioned why I wasn't doing the theoretical stuff!! (meaning the computer basics!) I tried to explain as they were using the computer they were learning all they needed to know. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me - it was a real photo opportunity....
The best thing was today when I went to the school at about 11.00, the junior ICT teacher had taken a class to the ICT room and copied my lesson. That was very cool. I felt my first 3 days had been worthwhile.

First Day....

Finally after being here nearly 2 weeks I went off to school this morning. I must admit I was feeling a little nervous about what my role was to be although I had an overview I was still unsure about how / what I was going to do . I was picked up at 6.15! School starts at 7.00 and finishes at 1.30 for the students. We got caught up in early morning traffic chaos and didn't arrive at school until just before 7.00. It was fascinating being in a completely different environment. The school is one of the old schools. They are moving to a brand new school in a couple of weeks which is part of the reform process - having us (the Cognition Team) in as well to help change teacher attitudes, tecaher knowledge, teaching approaches, etc etc.
The local teachers have a fairly lax view of teaching by all accounts.
The ICT teaching is scarily skills focused which means learning weird things like changing the date and time on the computer (why), change the desktop background, screensaver?? No context just learning basic skills. I'm going to work with a class tomorrow to get the kids drawing. They have no internet access in the old school but they do have a data projector. They need to learn how to use the ICT Room - management strategies.
This is where the kids have assembly - every morning at 7.00.
Thought you would like to see a pic of the classroom - bearing in mind this is what they are moving from and why they need to reform their education system for the 21st century! Nothing on the walls, no books. Lots to do in 1 year. (each school gets 1 year to make the changes needed - the reality, as we know, takes longer)

Icecream stop

We loved the display this local 'dairy' had - everything was ordered and very colourful.
We had stopped, on our trip to the northern part of Qatar, for an icecream.

Buildings

From construction sites in Doha, of which there are many, to village ruins up the northern tip of Qatar. A reconstructured fort and many shots of the architecture in Doha - in no particular order.
Had to add the shots of the camels going for a ride in the back of a pickup truck! - they looked so cute. We were following the truck.

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More thoughts

Hey thanks you guys for all your emails and comments. We love getting them - keep them coming. We try to reply to each email individually at the mo - cause we have the time.

Here is an exert from Brian.....(apologies Linda and Phil)
We continue to enjoy things here, it is certainly very different from NZ and even what we had imagined of the place. We are somewhat limited still by a number of factors. We really need a vehicle as getting around is otherwise limited to cabs at the moment which gets a bit expensive even though they are generally a lot cheaper than Auckland. Also it is difficult to go anywhere during the day without having air conditioning - its very hot ( and this is kind of mild to how it can get - up to 50 in August/Sept ) so big walks are out unless its early morning or evening when it cools down. Also componding things at the moment is that it is Eid which is three days of Holy Celebration whereby many shops are closed during the day. So we spend a fair bit of time at the moment hanging around the apartment going from one cup of tea to the next ( substitute coffee into that as well ). Thankfully we have a mac full of music, plenty of books and a whole lot of Herald puzzles I accumulated before we left.

Occasionally we have been invited out with someone at our apartment block who has a car which is great. Seems like a pretty good bunch here, mostly Kiwis, and tomorrow we have been invited along with some of them to drive to the northern end of Qatar which we are really looking forward to as we will get to see outside of the city, along with a possible camel or two and maybe if lucky get to see an Orix, which is kind of the national animal. Also we will see a fair bit of desert, along with some ( historic ) port towns and a few beaches, maybe an old Fort or two - should be great. I cant wait to have a swim, the water teperature is about 30 - 33 degrees, which sounds hot but if the air temp is in the very high 30's then the water should be fairly cooling. I dont have a fishing rod yet ( I sent over some reels and tackle ) otherwise the fishing I hear can be quite good. The fish is certainly cheap and so far we have seen fresh Kingfish and Trevally and a fish that very much looks like snapper for sale in the seafood section of the supermarket. They had a fish called white snapper that looked more like a very big trevally on sale at about $1.50 a kg...looks like we will be eating a lot of fish if that sort of price is anything to go by and it seems that about $8 is a maximum price for fish...YUM....

Export quality meat from NZ ( No Pork here ) is about the same price as at home, veges come from all sorts of places, a lot from Jordan and Egypt can be very cheap. We have even been buying Kiwifruit. Most food is imported as nothing grows easily here being so dry and generally the soil infertile. Greenery is pretty sparse around the place although some peoples gardens are very lush and local date palms are everywhere.

Water is a bit of a commodity here, tap water is desalinated and not that nice ( or safe ) to drink. We get bottled water which is pretty cheap and have just orgainsed a weekly bulk delivery where we get a 5 gallon ( 20ish litres ) container for $3.20. You really need to keep your water intake up as you can dehydrate very quickly. I have been getting a few headaches which maybe is the result of still having a bit of flu, but, I think dehydration contributes somewhat too.

Lynne starts work next week from Tuesday and I will soon be contacting a chap who is the manager of a big construction firm so hopefully something may come from that.

Out and about

We are having to spend much time trying to fill our days in at the moment, Ramadan has just finished and Eid is now happening which is a bit like Christmas Day I think - shopping hours are reduced during the day with most things happening at night. It is very hot and you need to be somewhere that is air-conditioned if you want to venture out and about.

We have been for the odd small walk but the heat prevents larger exploration, so has to be very early in the morning or early evening onwards. We have to take taxis until I get a car. I can't lease a car until I get residency - residency takes about a month with a few formalities to be done, like having a medical - they check for TB, HIV I think. Until then I will have a driver who will take me to my schools. Everyone is on holiday at Cognition - schools are closed until next week - so in a way I have arrived at a good time as I get a chance to have a look around before the work begins for real.

Last night we visited one of the many Souks ( trad marketplaces ) and had a Morrocan meal - targine. Very delicious - costing about $45 all up which seemed pretty good value. They don't sell alcohol so I had a carrot juice and Brian a lemon and mint juice. Quite different from the usual wine with a meal we are used to. It was actually OK. The place feels very safe and I think a lot of that has to do with the fact people can't drink. There were lots of families out and about last night. Many different races. The markets had a fabulous feel - most weren't open because it is Eid but there were still heaps of people roaming around.


At the market place a stage had been set up for muscians. Unfortunately we waited around for about an hour hoping to hear them play their traditional instruments but they took ages to get organised - I think it was going to be televised. It was fascinating just standing around watching the crowds of Qatari in their striking outfits.

More mall shots

A couple from our apartment took us out to this newly opened mall called Villagio. Man what a place. It is designed around a waterway that is made to resemble a Venetian village - complete with gondolas that you are able to hire for a wee excursion! The facades of the upper stories of the shops also looked like a village street scene. The ceiling has a cloud theme! Quite impressive.
All the big name shops and the very expensive shops are here. Brian called into the Virgin Megastore but was less than impressed - saying it was 'rubbish' - and "very thinly stocked".


Not many people here at this end - the very exclusive end. We were also early - the place opened at 10.00am until 1.00pm - because of Ramadan. They open again around 7.00pm.
Ramadan has now finished so we are able to eat out during the day.

More apartment living

As you can see Brian has assumed his usual pose - Sudoku in hand. Brian has also set up the sound system, now that our carton has arrived safely. It only took a couple of hours for it to clear customs - mind you there was a lot of paper shuffling going on by the clearing clerks whom we had to pay an extra $60 - I did managed to haggle him down from his original price.