Tech Age Teens

2011 TAT FINALISTS BECOME LEADERS

Ardashka — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 06:49:57 GMT

Seventeen Tech Age Teens participants were selected to participate in the 2011 Summer Finalists’ Conference due to their dedication during training sessions, IT skill building activities, and performance during a number of community service opportunities, including Global Youth Service Day.
The conference, which took place between August 22 and 30 at the G. Slanov Library in Atyrau, focused on increasing and combining the knowledge TAT participants gained over the course of the program in leadership and information and communication technology (ICT), to develop their fall community service projects. For eight hours each day during the conference, working individually and in groups, the finalists learned to conduct community research and needs assessment, brainstormed solutions to problems in their community, and designed project goals and workplans. During additional sessions, the finalists learned how to promote their ideas, connect with others for support, and promote awareness of social issues using social networking and new media tools. Following the conference, they continue their work, implementing self-designed service projects to benefit their community.
Two examples of the TAT’s summer community work:
TAT 2011 participant Ubolsyn Shyngalieva has been passionate about chess since her childhood, and wanted to share in the enjoyment of the intellectually stimulating game with youth in her community. Leveraging leadership and IT skills she developed in TAT, she started a chess club with regular lessons for underprivileged youth, and launched a Kazakh-language website with video
strategy guides.
Noting the great demand for more English lessons at her school, Gaziza Uteshkaliyeva created an English language club for her fellow students in the third through fifth grades, meeting twice a week for 90 minutes to learn new words, and develop a beginning mastery of the English alphabet and pronunciations. Using her TAT-gained IT skills, Uteshkaliyeva created a club website where photos and videos of their activities are available.

Article

aizhana8908 — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 10:37:39 GMT

Sixteen-year-old Gaukhar Isabekova from Abai School had not volunteered a day in her life before the Tech Age Teens program came to her school. Now nearly a day passes without a visit to the Ak Bota orphanage, where she has been help-ing children with disabilities and oth-ers she finds along the way. It is ex-actly for this type of change in behav-ior and attitude in young people that the Tengizchevroil-funded project strives, which is administered by IREX with the support of the Atyrau Oblast Akimat, Atyrau Oblast and City De-partments of Education, and Slanov Atyrau Oblast Scientific Library.
Gaukhar has been working at the orphanage, teaching needlework and beads, orga-nizing concerts, and simply having fun with the children. "I got used to working with the kids and have even fallen in love with them,” Gaukhar said. "People who cannot get around on their own for whatever reason can’t be blamed for their condition—I’d just like to help them. Recently, I started visiting Arman, a disabled boy at home, who has only one leg which doesn’t work. His mom bought him a computer, and I’m teaching him to use it. We spend two hours a session, and the time flies.”
Gaukhar is just getting started as an active citi-zen of Atyrau. She is put-ting a team of volunteers together to go teach computer skills to more children with disabilities as a part of her next community project. "The more of us who work on this, the more people we’re going to help.”
From November 4-11, Gaukhar and 19 others, who were the best and most commit-ted Tech Age Teens participants from Atyrau and the surrounding village schools, completed intensive ICT and project-planning courses at the Slanov Library. From 8:30 am to 6:00 pm daily, trainers from Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and the United States, along with the best two teachers from this year’s teachers pool in Atyrau, Kazakhstan, challenged the eighth through eleventh graders to refine their community projects and integrate the internet and video tools into their implementation. All 20 students finished the training with a concrete work plan, new Web 2.0 tools, an online pres-ence, and a video public service announcement, all centered around a project that addresses a social need in the community through volunteerism.
From the 40 students who were most active since May, when the pro-ject began instruction in after-school clubs, Tech Age Teens manage-ment selected the 20 finalists based on the quality of the proposed project and identification of a social problem. The finalists spent the first two days of the finalists training with this rough project idea, and Myahriban Karyagdyyeva from IREX Ukraine and Zhannat Saparova from School #20 pushed the students to rethink their plans. Instruc-tors and students pushed each other and themselves with critical thinking exercises to refine the definition of the social problem they aimed to address, whom they could help, and how. On the first day, the students’ assumptions and ideas were challenged, and they de-signed research questions. The next day, the students were on the streets asking the target groups, such as orphans and the elderly, questions they may have overlooked, such as "What are your needs? Would my proposed project approach meet your needs? What more could we do to help?” In addition, the students were lined up with NGOs and government organizations specializing in their issues, such as an NGO focusing on helping people with disabilities, where they asked the experts to help explain the challenges. It helped the Tech Age Teens understand their own limitations; some learned that their projects had more potential than they imagined, and others realized they need to come up with a completely different approach.
"I conducted two interviews, one at Elektra Energy and another at the recruiting company Fircroft,” reported Anara Maksut from Lomonos-ova School, who is working on a project to help young people choose their professions. "At first it was scary, and I was nervous. But the peo-ple I met were nice and happy to help. I ended up learning a lot that will help my project—and it made me want to become a journalist.”
"I conducted interviews with the heads of the AIDS Center,” reported Anastasia Gizatullina, a ninth grader from School 20, who is conducting a project to dispel myths about HIV-infected people. "It was great. I not only collected information and brochures, but also won their support. I’m attending their roundtable on World AIDS Day on December 1.”
Zohrab Abdullayev from IREX Turkmenistan and Shinar Taufixhanova from Abai School taught ICT tools for strengthening the projects, such as Web 2.0 tools, exploration and expansion of Wikipe-dia’s Kazakh language pages, online searches, and how to use a digital video camera. Students created websites for their projects on Google Pages and learned other helpful Google tools, such as Translate. They opened Twitter accounts for communicating with others working in the same field, Picasa for telling a story with photos, and Ulead Vide-oStudio for editing video stories. By understand-ing, searching, and creat-ing a social network on the popular My World (Мой мир), students found people with simi-lar social intentions. Bobek Axmurova, an 11th grader from Abai School, wants to conduct an online discussion and find volunteers through her online campaign.
As the week progressed, the students passed through interactive exercises, much of it in group work and presentations, to develop a project map, outreach strategy, and budget. In further critical thinking deepening, they worked out solutions to problems they pre-dicted that could arise for their projects. It was the first time most participants had cre-ated a budget. Tech Age Teens is supporting financially some of the activities of the fi-nalists’ projects, and the students prepared proposals to convince program manage-ment for support.
A large part of the final three days was devoted to learning techniques for and develop-ing short films to serve as public service announcements for projects. Mark Belinsky, who was visiting from his NGO in the United States, taught the students to see the world through a camera lens and provided examples for ways videos can tell a story with ef-fective filming, planning, angles, lighting, sound, and hard work. Students had filmed the interviews they conducted earlier in the week, and Belinsky used their footage to show the group some mistakes that were made and how the shots could have been improved. Finally, he helped them plan their videos, which were intended to share a message about the importance of their community project need. The students plotted scenarios for their videos, and within the confines of the library, were required to film—and often fill in as actors for each other—with their new skills. The final products, all between 25 seconds and seven minutes in length (online at http://www.youtube.com), prepared the Tech Age Teens to return home where they will create more seri-ous messages for their projects in December.
With no time to spare, the videos were completed for the closing ceremony, on November 11, where parents, teachers, and school directors joined TCO representatives and IREX to hear about the Tech Age Teens finalists’ social projects and watch the videos.
With Tengizchevroil and IREX already planning Tech Age Teens 2011, the enthusiasm and success behind Tech Age Teens 2010 has estab-lished a pilot group and momentum to spread the desire for greater volunteerism and ICT use among young people looking to make a positive difference in and around Atyrau.
"Thank you so much,” shared the parent of ninth-grader Valeria Moreva from School 20. "Everyday Lera (short for Valeria) came home so excited, as she told me about what she’d learned and done.”

TV and Newspapers Highlight Changes in Atyrau Youth Activism

Many — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 10:13:30 GMT

On July 1, Atyrau Oblast officials, journalists, and school representatives gathered to recognize the Tech Age Teens project, which is funded by Tengizchevroil and implemented by IREX. The event allowed student participants to present their summer projects and media to cover the stories.

Local TV channel Kazakhstan-Atyrau aired coverage in its news program twice and two local well-known publications Ak Zhaiyk and Atyrau ran stories on the event. The media coverage was positive and recognized the contributions that have helped 13 to 15-year-olds understand community needs and develop leadership, teamwork, technology skills.

Tech Age Teens emphasizes the need to increase the role of internet in the education process. Information and communication technology helps teachers prepare for lessons and students with their homework and extracurricular activities. Since April, 64 teachers in Atyrau and the environs trained over 270 kids in 29 schools, creating after-school clubs. By the end of the second month of training kids had proposed 46 ideas as a social projects. Some ideas are new, some borrowed, and some could potentially address acute social needs. The exercise was the teens’ first to plan and participate in a social project. Most students did not even know what a social project was when they started.

Students from five schools presented PowerPoint slides to share about their projects. One of these students was a participant from School No. 20 Artur Loginov told how his team started their project. First, they analyzed social questions given to their peers in the micro-regions of Zhilgorodok, Balykshy, Masloprom, Avangard and Central. As a result, they concluded that young people lack constructive options for their free time, especially in summer. Using the talents among them, they organized five interventions to address spare time, reaching 400 kids. They also plan to organize internet training for kids from foster families in the fall.

Following encouraging words from Deputy Akim of Atyrau Oblast Serik Amangaliev, a representative of the Oblast Department of Education (OblOO) spoke. Shakirzhan Myrzagaliev thanked Tengizchevroil and said, "By teaching innovative technologies, IREX not only gives kids an opportunity to become equal with their peers, but also supports development of their abilities and gives a chance to go with the times.”

Public Relations Coordinator of Tengizchevroil, Gulnara Aitzhanova congratulated everyone with the end of the school year and explained the principle of a new approach to the management company's social projects, where priorities are given to education, medicine, and environmental awareness.

With 50 people in attendance and the following media coverage, the event allowed decision makers and the public through television news and newspapers, to appreciate Tech Age Teens. With successful implementation, some needy people in the community and the students themselves doing the good deeds will appreciate it even more.

Tech Age Teens Project Unlocks Potential of Computer Labs in Schools

Many — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 11:39:58 GMT

In a recent focus group in Atyrau, eighth graders were asked if they would use an internet center in their school open daily to everyone from 8am to 8pm, and the responses shed light on the low internet penetration in the region. The first child didn’t get it, "No, I wouldn’t use it, because the director would lock it.” After reassurance that the center would be open, another child said, "No, I wouldn’t, because it would be chaos with all the kids there.” Ever since computers were introduced to schools more than 12 years ago, computer classrooms have mostly remained locked throughout Kazakhstan outside the teaching hours of computer science (informatika, a dated name and approach which includes everything information-related). When the government provided internet to all schools over four years ago, it was similarly bridled.
When the Tech Age Teens project started in Atyrau and the surrounding environs in April 2010, with the training of informatika and leadership teachers from 31 schools, none provided internet access directly to students. IREX invited an international trainer to teach how to support the local area network (LAN), set up a proxy server and handy cache, and provide safe, economic internet on the students’ computers. In addition to training teachers, IREX assembled and trained a team of third-year computer science students to assume responsibility for helping the teachers to improve and maintain their computer classrooms.
The traveling team set up a LAN in 23 schools and helped open the internet to students’ computers in 22 schools. In some schools, the team found boxes of the LAN cable and a teacher who feared trying to set it up on her own. In five schools, the internet was connected to a different room than the computer lab, which simply required extending the cable to the lab. Other schools had broken computers, but it was possible to exchange parts to increase the number of working machines, as the team did at one school with only three working computers. After the team’s work, the school’s only computer lab was transformed into a usable learning environment with eight functioning machines. The team also repaired broken keyboards, mice, and routers. In two schools, where computers were more than 10 years old and inoperable, nothing could be done.
As a result, the computer classrooms are ready not only for the project, but also for further advanced ICT for other students and teachers. Providing internet is the first step to introducing it as a helpful education tool in a system that requires teachers to buy their own materials and lacks a rich array of local language resources. Children can use internet at home if they have it, but teachers do not know the technology well enough to assign homework with internet or use it to improve their lessons. IREX plans to teach more teachers outside of informatika to use internet this fall. Accessibility and training will overcome the mentality and practical restraints of internet penetration.