ELDER Project

ELDER reboot in Deer Lake

Austin here. About a week and a half after I was introduced to the ELDER project, I had the opportunity to go up to Deer Lake on November 2nd 2011 to introduce the ELDER project to the school there.

It was exciting to be able to go out and work on the project in the frontlines instead of behind a computer screen, but I was also anxious because I still felt unfamiliar with Edubuntu and the other programs I was supposed to put on these school computers (working on the ELDER project was the first time I used a Linux OS, let alone Edubuntu). I just prepared myself as best I could and hoped for the best.

I woke up at 6:30am to catch the plane, and after a short layover in Red Lake, arrived at Deer Lake by 11:00am.



After spending some time to unpack and do some other business, I went over to the Deer Lake First Nations school to see what the teachers and students wanted from me in terms of what I had to offer (i.e. free educational software).



The building itself has a very unique architectural design, and the students and staff, though small in number, were very warm and receptive to my arrival in the community and what I planned to do.



However, it turned out that the school did not have a dedicated IT technician, so the staff there were most interested in fixing up/updating their current computer setup, as many of the desktops in their computer lab weren't working properly for various reasons. Consequently, I spent the first day trying to configure their computer lab.



I worked with Germaine, an employee at the school, going through each computer and figuring out what was wrong with each computer. Most of the computers were very simple to fix, usually just a missing or broken cord. The school had a storage room full of spare and old computer parts but it was impossible to tell what was junk and what actually worked. Germaine and I had to individually test the equipment, which ended up taking the entire afternoon.



My second day I continued to clean up and fix the computers. By the end of the morning I managed to get all of them in some state of working order. I could only work on the hardware because the computers were locked down with Deep Freeze (a program that restores the system after every restart to whatever configurations and settings the user locked it in) and made it impossible to install software or change settings without the password, which no one seemed to know.



While I waited for someone to find the password, I managed to meet some of the school teachers at lunch and show them some of the software I brought from the ELDER project. I tried installing Edubuntu on one of the lab computers the day before but it didn't work out, and I didn't think I had time to install Edubuntu on all the computers, so instead I showed the teachers some programs on OpenEducationDisc, a suite of premium quality open source software for Windows, instead. The teachers were especially interested in 3 programs: TuxPaint, TuxMath, and TuxType (ironically all three were originally designed for Linux). Their enthusiam was really encouraging because I felt that the ELDER Project and what I had to offer was being recognized and appreciated. We also talked about other things they would like for their classrooms, such as distributing educational videos and setting up an unopened SMART Board lying in storage.



However, all that had to wait since I had to help move communication tower parts for the Deer Lake television station in the afternoon.



Later that day I finally found out the password to unlock Deep Freeze so I could start updating the computer's settings and software. Unfortunately I didn't have enough time that day to do more than check to see if the password worked (thankfully it did). The real work was about to begin.

In a conveniently inconvenient turn of events, the flight that I was scheduled to return on the morning of November 4th was cancelled. While that meant I had to stay in Deer Lake longer than I expected, it also meant that I had another day to finally update and install programs in the computer lab. I spent the entire day going through the slow and laborious process of going through each computer and doing the following:

-install Mozilla Firefox (internet browser that's safer and faster than internet explorer)
-install Adobe Flash player (program needed to run Flash programs)
-update Java runtime environment (program needed to run Java programs)
-install TuxPaint (a painting/drawing program intended for young children)
-install TuxType (a typing game to teach children the keyboard layout and how to touchtype)
-install TuxMath (a series of arcard-style math games for young children)
-install GIMP (an image editing/graphic design program)
-install Geometer's Sketchpad (a geometry drawing program; not open source but a teacher had the cd and asked me to install it)
-reorganize the desktop (changed backgrounds to something more colourful and got rid of program shortcuts that the kids would never use like "acer system backup")
-change power settings (set monitor to turn off after 5 minutes of inactivity and the system to hibernate after 20 minutes)
-speed up boot process by disabling nonessential programs at startup via msconfig
-remotely connect to laser printer in the computer lab (probably the most difficult part of updating the computers)
-test to see each computer is fully operational (mouse, keyboard, monitor working; software and settings installed correctly)



The whole process took about 15 minutes for each computer and involved installing from a cd and a usb stick, rebooting at least two times, and anything else that needed to be fixed for each individual case. Even with Germain and my supervisor Brian's help, it still took until 6pm to finish (I wouldn't have been able to finish in time to catch my flight without them). I also managed to help some teachers with some miscellaneous issues (setup a computer, burn a disc, etc.) and installed other programs from the OpenEducationDisc on one of the computer lab desktops for teachers and students to test on their own time.

Unfortunately I never managed to install Edubuntu or Qimo on any of their computers, but it wasn't any huge loss. During my time working there I realized that the teachers don't have the time, and sometimes the technical experience, to familiarize themselves with anything more than the simplest of programs to teach the students. Unless there is someone in the community who is dedicated to learning and teaching others how to use the ELDER Project resources, I doubt many programs for Windows will not be used in the long run, let alone a completely different operating system.

In any case, I finished my work and left the school with two usb drives containing OpenEducationDisc and some other programs, and promised to follow up with them in the near future with more information and resources. After all that, it was time for me head back to Sioux Lookout.




Deer Lake was my first time working on the ELDER project as well as visiting a native reserve. It was an eye-opening experience and really made me think about my work and why I'm doing what I'm doing. There's a lot of potential for the ELDER project to make a really big impact in communities, but it needs a lot of work to get to that point as well. Since I'm only in Sioux Lookout until December 16th, these are the things I'd really like to accomplish in my time with K-Net:

-compile a suite of educational and other useful open source programs for Windows that people can use as an alternative to Edubuntu
-compile a series of free educational videos, textbooks, and other digital resouces that can be distributed along with the programs
-find or write up detailed guides on how to use the freeware programs and the Edubuntu OS itself
-make the Edubuntu installation process simple enough so people in remote communities can install it using only a written guide
-keep a detailed log and instructions of what I'm doing so others can carry on this work after I'm done