Parihaka's Sustainable Energy project

Five of our Computers in Homes families will be taking part in a sustainable energy project being set up at Parihaka.

The sustainable energy project will be looking at where and how Parihaka residents use power in their homes, and researcher Josh Curd is using the internet to collect data over a 12 month period.

Ten Parihaka families will have a small device installed, which will then send incremental data to a central hub for collection and analysis.  Five of our families agreed to be part of the project.  They were chosen because they have an internet connection, which is part of their Computers in Homes experience.

Four of the other five houses do not have internet connected, so CIH Champion, Charissa Waerea put in a call to our Computers in Homes tech, Ian Andrew, to see if he had a solution to the problem:  "how can information be collected from homes with no internet?"

He did!  Ian took a look at the devices that Josh will be using, the map of the houses and the distance from house to house, and reassured Josh that his equipment is capable of transmitting data from those houses to the Education House where the central control computer will be, without the need for those families to pay for an internet connection that they don't want.

The project, called Taiepa Tiketike Sustainable Energy Research, is a collaboration between Parihaka Papakainga Trust, Te Puni Kokiri, Massey University, Otago University and PowerCo.  The data collected will help Parihaka decide how to best provide power to their community into the future.

Say NO to higher internet charges

This message from Spark was in my inbox:

We think broadband charges should be going down, not up. But the Commerce Commission is proposing to increase what Chorus can charge all service providers (including Spark) to connect you to the internet. These charges make up around half your monthly bill. If you agree with us and think New Zealanders deserve better value internet, go toBeCounted.org.nz to find out what’s going on and send a message to the Commerce Commission to reduce charges for broadband.

If you agree, click the link and BECOUNTED

New Computers in Homes classes in May

We are starting new computer classes in Hawera, Eltham and Opunake in the first week of May.

The Eltham/'Stratford class is full, but there are one or two places left on the Hawera class and about five left at Opunake.

Computers in Homes is for families who don't have an internet-capable computer at home for their children to use for homework, learning, surfing the net .... and playing games.

Computer classes are for the kids too!

Tongariro Area School held their Graduation at Literacy Turangi

Seventeen students graduated their Computers in Homes course recently.

It might have been April Fool's Day, but seventeen families from Tongariro Area School went home with a computer.
In a departure from the norm, Literacy Turangi partnered with the school to deliver this Computers in Homes course.  Families spent the last two lessons at Literacy Turangi where they were able to learn on their own computers, how to set it up, how to use a USB stick and more!

Some of the seventeen graduates and their whanau

Keynote speaker, Tongariro Area School Principal Steve Allen

Turangi-Tongariro Ward Councillor Maggie Stewart spoke to the graduates

Two Tutor/Technicians talking shop!

Dion Nurse - Turangi's tutor.  Very lucky to find this young man.

After accepting his mother's certificate, this young man perused all the computers to choose the one he wanted.  We made sure he got it!

Beautiful carvings on the wall above some of the Computers in Homes computers.

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So can we share things from Blogger to our facebook page?

Graduation December 2014

Graduation December 2014 at Eltham. 

Giving out certificates are Ian Andrew our Tutor and Tech, and Linda Ogle Trustee and Stepping Up Graduate. Well done to all the Graduates!!

Snap increases data allowance

Great news for Computers in Homes families! Snap has increased the data allowance on all plans to 

50gb a month, at no extra cost to our families.

Even more good news! Snap is offering UFB service wherever UFB is available! Here’s a snippet 

from computersinhomes.org.nz news

SNAP will be offering a 30M download/10M upload naked UFB service for $60 per month 

(incl GST) on the same terms as their current Naked DSL service for Computers in 

Homes families. Families will have a data cap of 50GB/month and unlimited YouTube (an 

increase over the existing 30GB/month data cap). As with existing Naked DSL services, 

there will be no overuse charges – the connection speed will simply throttle back for the 

remaining portion of the month. The Computers in Homes programme subsidises internet 

costs during the first year; this means families can obtain access to this service for just $10 

per week or $15 per week when the subsidy ends.

Read the article here 

http://computersinhomes.org.nz/news/2014/09/16/snap-provide-ufb-internet-computers-homes-
families/