Who are we > Coach

Coach René de Vries

[ Who am I ]

[ In what way did I coach this group ]

[ What are the learning targets for my students? ]

[ What did my students learn more? ]

[ What kind of problems did we face while working on this project? ]

[ Conclusion ]

Who am I

My name is Rene de Vries. I am teacher of grade 6 of primary school De Wadden - location Molenwijk - in Haarlem, Netherlands.
But, as you can read on this website, I am also a member of the board of Foundation Ukunda Schools Project, FUSP. This foundation supports schools in Kenya.

Since the beginning of Dutch ThinkQuest Junior, my students participate each year in this internet contest. My students made in total more than [ 60 websites ] . Last year I did not know if I would like to continue with ThinkQuest. But when my school received a special award and when I heard the questions of my students, I thought by myself: why not. Because it is true: in the first week of this new school year, my students came to my desk and asked me: "Mr. Rene, we do join ThinkQuest again, don't we?"

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In what way did I coach this group

When the students stood next to my desk, I said something like: "Ok, well, let's see, this year is Australia year in our country... maybe we can make a website for that."
At the same moment I realized that some years ago some of my students already made a website about Australia.
So, the next day I suggested another topic for a website: finding Dutch people all over the world. We decided to make 7 working groups, and each group would make a report on one of the continents. The main goal of our project would be: let's see where Dutch people went to when they started to emigrate to other countries / continents. We could make a kind of Quest for that, making links with Dutch emigrants in other parts of the world.. My students worked about 4 weeks on this project, but I could see and tell: they did not like it very much.

In the first week of October we decided to quit the project. In that same week I told my students that I would take some extra days vacation end of October, because I would go to Kenya for 2 weeks. My students started to yell: "Why don't we make a website about your work in Kenya."

My first thoughts were: yes, why not... but... wouldn't it be a kind of child labor when I let them make a children's website for the foundation? Well, I thought: NO. It would give an extra dimension to their internet contest. However, I told them that they had to think it over very carefully and that we would discuss it after my return from Kenya.

In November it became clear to me that the students wanted to do this project: making a website about Africa and Kenya. So we made again working groups: this time 5.
I made a time schedule for them with fixed targets.
First target: finish the Africa report before Christmas. If the reports were well written and well made, than I would not give them extra tests about Africa. The kids were very enthusiastic about that ;-)

During the weeks after our decision to make the website as it is now, we discussed the content of the total website: Africa pages, Kenya pages, raising money for FUSP...

In January I told them that our school was approached by two volunteers of Novib. They asked us to do a new project with Novib. We told them we were willing to co-operate, so my students and I agreed that we would pay attention to this project as well.

Since the end of December my students started to write in their week journals. Each week each team has to write down what they did during that week. They could submit it in a kind of online diary. If you can read Dutch, then we would like to invite you to read their stories.

My students are smart and they know that since the beginning of Dutch ThinkQuest Junior my students make it to the finals with at least one team. Their target is to be a finalist too: they would like to go to the theme park Efteling in June 2006.
The last few weeks before the deadline of ThinkQuest we discussed the possibility what we would do if we would get an award for our website. ALL my students said it loud and crystal clear: we will donate the total award to FUSP. So no I-pods, no computers, no trips to the moon... donate the money of these prices to FUSP. The students even discussed to which school they want to donate their awards.

Well, with such a wonderful attitude, for me my students are already winners!

I coached my students as usual (as I did the last several years): I explained them how they could scan drawings / photos, I explained resolution of photos, we worked with Frontpage, discussed the importance of having a good source page, etc. My students worked on the project during some Geography and Biology hours but most of the work is done after school hours: at home or in my classroom.

We discussed the lay-out of the website. Since we would write about FUSP and the Kenyan schools, we thought it would be important that the Kenyan students can read this website too. That is the main reason why I translated the complete Dutch website into English.
I explained to my students that most internet cafes in Kenya use a dial up modem for internet connection. So the connection is very slow: it takes "hours" to load an internet page. So we decided to drop fancy things like Flash, animations, and other stuff and go back to the basics. That way the students in Kenya will have no problem to open our pages. People who were in internet cafes like I described above, will agree with me that our website is the only good website for internet cafes: quick in loading.

My students said that it was no problem to design a website as it is now. They thought too that most important thing is that children in Kenya can read their website.

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What are the learning targets for my group

The main target of the Novib project is to make students in upper grades of primary schools more global thinking. You have to agree with me, that my students met these target! They did a wonderful job the last few months.
Beside that I of course had my own list:

• work together in small working groups, can handle criticism, discuss ideas

• collect information in libraries, on internet and other sources

• make a good selection of all collected materials and make your own report from that (in your own words)

• learn to work with Frontpage

• learn to work with a digital photo camera and a scanner

• edit photos on the computer

• divide tasks, make appointments and keep them

The students did what I expected them to do: great job kids!

My own learning objective was to see how I could motivate students in my grade to be more global thinkers. And I can tell you crystal clear: they are!

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What did my students learn more?

The answer is simple: yes!

In present days, when kids in Holland can have access to internet, to computer games, to mobile phones, and more... in this time of comfort and enough money it was a good moment that my students could think about how it would be if they have to grow up in a country as Kenya. My students now know that for instance most girls cannot finish their education because they have to help in house holdings. Or to work in the fields, factories... or have to work in prostitution. Even girls of their own age... of younger.
My students saw on my video tapes how students in Kenya have to follow lessons: under trees, or bad school buildings, sitting on the ground, over crowded classrooms. No text books, no lesson materials, no desks.

So my students were very motivated to make our ThinkQuest entry to a huge success. They realize how thankful they must be to be a child in Holland!

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What kind of problems did we face while working on this project?

We had two small problems:
We wanted to start chatting with the Magutu school in Ukunda, Kenya. However, the power company could not deliver electricity to the Magutu school in time, so we could not add some chat coverages to this website for the ThinkQuest contest. Besides that problem, the internet connection of Safaricom was not good enough too. The Kenyan phone company promised us that they would work hard to solve that problem.

Further no problems: Hakuna Matata. Maybe the jury of the internet contests will find a problem when they want to view our site with another browser. Well, that is their problem: most people in the world use Internet Explorer, so we only tested our site with that program.

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Conclusion: 

For me it was a challenge to produce again a website for an internet contest. This time the entry is more than just a website. This time the website is very meaningful for my students and myself. And we hope also for you!