Wellington - Happy 10th Birthday Computers In Homes

Christina Turner Project Coordinator for Taranaki, and Karen Cave Chairperson for the Taranaki E-Learning Trust are currently in Wellington for the Computers In Homes 10th birthday. This coincides with the quarterly meeting for the National Coordinating Group. Below are some photos...

Mt Taranaki from the plane

The birthday dinner

Di Das speaks to the group

Wellington looking all beautiful :)

National Coordinating Group Meeting

Graduation time!!

On Thursday the 9th of December at the Eltham Town Hall another group of families will be graduating from the Computer in Homes course. These are people from Opunake High School, Te Kura Kaupapa Maori o te Ngati Ruanui, Hawera CtC, and Patea Area School. There will be 60 graduates this time around.
The caterer for this event will be Wendy, who is one of the graduates from the first Eltham Computers In Homes class.

The newly painted Eltham Town Hall on Stanners Street, Eltham, where the Graduation will take place 

Christina our coordinator will be attending the Te Kura Kaupapa Maori o te Ngati Ruanui prize-giving assembly in Hawera, on the 14th of December to present certificates to their graduates, as many are unable to make the graduation in Eltham.

Our awesome website :)

Just added to our website is a new page.  The new page lists the trustees, with photos of each one. Here is the link....http://www.tel2020.org/taranaki-e-learning/the-trustees

The current classes have been making use of the web site extensively as many of the downloads the students use in class are on the website for them to down load. Here is the link for that page...
http://www.tel2020.org/computers-in-homes/handouts

We have another page titled "Hoaxes, urban myths and spam" where we have added some of the interesting and creative ways that people have tried to catch others out http://www.tel2020.org/hoaxes-urban-myths-and-spam

Announcement news and more is a page where Ive tried to put some online newspaper articles http://www.tel2020.org/taranaki-e-learning/announcements

We really like our website!! You can visit it at tel2020.org

We also have a Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000882262625&ref=ts which I TRY and put updates on.

eDay is coming!!

eDay is back again this year on Saturday 6^th November at the TSB Hub.

This is a public ‘drive thru’ event where any resident can put any ewaste (computers, computer equipment, cameras or cellphones) into their boot and come to the TSB Hub, Camberwell Rd carpark between 9am and 3pm on the 6^th of Nov and drop it off for free. The equipment gets loaded into a container onsite and gets shipped off to be recycled. 

Click here for more information

Funding from the budget

Computers in Homes received some funding in the latest budget. At our May meeting, the National CIH Coordinating Group were guests at a function for Bill English, deputy Prime Minister, who told us that we had Tariana Turia to thank for the money we did get. He said that she sat in his office and glowered at him till he put us in the budget. It looks like we will have funding for 1000 families a year for the next three years, over the whole of NZ. We need to think about our role in this. Laurence sent an email after he had meetings with DIA. Some of the salient points are as follows:

Scope is for 3000 families over 3 years, commencing with 2010/11 year
2020 is to be funded directly
2020 will enter into agreements with local partners – similar to existing arrangements
Essential that local CIH committees (or Trusts) stay in place not essential to establish new trusts, but personally, I still think this is a good idea – to seek other local leverage opportunities – and explore the local deployment.

It looks like the Taranaki E-Learning Trust may have parts of King Country and National Park area.


Given that there are thousands of families in the South Island, South Auckland, Wellington, Manawatu, Horowhenua, and Waikato who have not been served (apart from funding 2020 has received for Di to manage in those areas) I think that we should not expect to be assigned a large number of families.

CIH Coordinator for Taranaki Christina Turner speaks with Bill English Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance

New Computer in Homes classes

On Tuesday the 27th of July tutor Karen Cave had a class full of new students. To fit these classes in before the term ends Karen and Coordinator Christina Turner have had to rearrange the lesson plans from a series of 10 into a series of 8. To date 4 of the 8 classes have been completed, and most of the time things are running smoothly.

Photographs are taken of the students and then emailed to them so they can have practice downloading and saving their images and then creating an email and attaching the photograph.
Pictured below are some of Karen's students.

Classes have also started at the Hawera CTC with tutor Lisa Tangaroa.

Graduation Monday 28th June

COMPUTER in Homes Taranaki had its biggest ever graduation ceremony on Monday the 28th June, with 62 students from all over South Taranaki graduating.
The event, held in the Eltham Town Hall, was well attended by  graduates, their family and friends, several  Community Board members, Mayor Ross Dunlop,  local MP Chester Burrows and national co-ordinator Di Das. Performances were made by the local Te Kura Kaupapa Maori O Ngati Ruanui school.

“We had no idea just how well this programme was going to be received” Said Di Das, National coordinator of Computer in Homes.  “South Taranaki is one of the most successful programmes, as we see students not only help their children in the home, but go on to seek more education and even better job opportunities for themselves”
MP Chester Burrows admitted that he remembers when he was first learning, how frustrated and he felt when first using new technology so he has a lot of admiration for the graduates and what they have achieved.
Eltham’s had its first intake of 15 families graduating in March, 2005.  “We have seen this grow from just a small group of dedicated people  to what it is today and we will see it grow even  more” said Di Das.

Tutor Lisa Tangaroa and Mayor Ross Dunlop call students up to receive certificates

 

 

 Below: students and tutors line up for photos :)