San Ramon ICT Project

Week 2 Report

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Week 2 Report

San Ramon ICT Survey

I was able to test my survey on three girls (aged 14, 16, and 17) from Samulali (Matagalpa municipality) on Thursday. CESESMA works with Samulali, and since I already know these girls from a previous visit and because they are outside of my sample (San Ramon municipality), I thought it would be a perfect test for the survey. It proved very helpful. The test uncovered many bugs that I am correcting this weekend. For example, the phrase "type of information" is too vague for my sample group. I have to make the question more concrete. The majority of the bugs concern issues of ambiguity.

The most important issue that arose during this test was the following. The first part of the survey concerns access to information technology. This part is not very helpful to the local organizations that I am working for because they are already aware that the current state of access to information technology is extremely low or nonexistent. The second part of the survey concerns information needs - what kind of information is being exchanged by this sample group. This is the section most helpful to the local organizations, because they want to develop telecenters that meet the needs of their constituents. However, this section proved most discouraging to me. When I asked questions regarding the type of information being exchanged, the girls would stare blankly at me. Upon prompting by a local coworker (another issue I have to work out), the girl would respond "I would like a computer to access information." This response was most likely due to NGOs telling the girls what technology they needed rather than actual inquiry into their needs. When I would further inquire into the type of information, or what information in general, she would like to access via computer, the blank stare would return. If she was unable to answer the question, she would begin to get nervous and I would risk losing her participation in the rest of the survey.

To summarize the results of the test:

Need to correct linguistic errors
Need to make abstract or ambiguous questions more concrete and practical
Need to delete redundant/repetitive questions
Need to have brief introduction with other people present to avoid (in)direct prompting on their part
Need to identify a way to learn the person´s informational needs considering that they may be unaware of the potential information that they can access.

I will be presenting my revised (final?) survey to CESESMA tomorrow for their review, and will begin scheduling my survey visits to communities this week.

Basic Computation Course

I am beginning to design a course in basic computation for the young people that CESESMA works with. Finding Spanish-language resources is proving difficult. I will need to spend half a day in the ciber to research these resources (with a preference toward Nicaraguan resources). I have a general outline of how a course should go, considering that these girls may have never touched a computer. I will dedicate more time this week to designing the course. It is quite difficult to get my work done in the timely manner I was hoping for considering that I have no access to Internet in San Ramon, and I am becoming concerned about the costs of transportation and internet use in Matagalpa.

CESESMA Telecenter

The desktop computers have not yet arrived. As mentioned last week, we do have laptops. I have learned that these laptops are to be used for mobile telecenters/classes in the communities. They are not to be used for the central telecenter at the CESESMA offices. I am beginning to investigate ways of gaining quicker and cheaper access to good quality internet. I am disappointed in the CSR of Enitel (a Carlos Slim enterprise). I will investigate further and try to make some office visits in Managua if it might help.

UCA-San Ramon Project

I was unable to meet the UCA this week to establish a project outline with them. I will try again on Monday, with the goal of accessing their constituents for the survey, learning about their telecenter work for the benefit of CESESMA, and seeing where else I might be able to help in the short time I have. My goals with the UCA are slimming down with each day that passes without having established a project plan.