Rain, Rain, Go Away...

Raining yet again

Corozal received a lot of rain since last night. Many streets outside the town was flooded. There were puddles so big that they could be rivers! Despite the downpour, 29 teachers from the technology session and 13 from the curriculum session still made it to school. Some had wade through the knee-deep puddles to get their child to the babysitter before school, others fell in a puddle outside the school parking lot because the taxi driver refuse to enter the parking lot.

Google presentation with Magazine cover

For most of the day, the teachers worked on creating learning tasks based on their grade level. Many enjoyed using BigHugeLabs and Make Beliefs Comix. 

Some of the students left during lunch time because they were worried about flooding in their homes. Fortunately, I still had enough students to take a group photo.

BTW, here is what we have for lunch today.

Black dinner with rice

Power Outage

Teachers blogging

Day 1 in Corozal: 30 teachers attended the technology session. Unfortunately, I only had half the number of working computers but at least I had AC! Some of these teachers travelled far (from Sarteneja, etc.) to attend the session and they varied in tech skills. For some, using the computer was a new experience and for others, it was a review session.  

Day 2 began with strategic searching; however, in the middle of the lesson, there was a scheduled power outage. Originally, it was scheduled 8:00 AM but it did not happen until 9:45 and it lasted for two hours. 

Deserted lab with no power

After the power was turn backed on, we continued with our day. Many teachers were frustrated because of the slow internet connection and the computers freezing. The most enjoyable part of the day was when they worked on their ABC Book of Belize. Many of the teachers used the share function of Google Docs to work collaboratively and put what they have learned the previous day into practice.

When life gives you lemons (or hurricanes), make lemonade!

The teams in northern Belize were moved south to the Cayo district to stay safe from Hurricane Ernesto.  We had some heavy rain for a short time in the evening, but felt no other severe effects at our location.  Since classes were cancelled, we decided to learn more about the culture of this beautiful country with a trip to the Mayan ruins of Xunantunich, only 1 km away from the Guatemalan border.  On our way to the bus, we walked by a playground built by a rotary club, so  we stopped for a photo opportunity.

The ruins were beautiful; they are amazing structures.  We enjoyed a light lunch on the top of Plaza A6, before retreating back down the ruin.  On the way down, we spotted some howler monkeys playing in the trees.

On our way back , we received a phone call indicating that any storm danger has passed and that we would be returning to our respective locations to go back to the real work we came here for - to coach the teachers of Belize in curriculum implementation and technology integration. It is an adventure here!

The Calm Before the Storm...

We arrived first thing Monday morning at ITVET anticipating a day of facilitating and learning.

Joanne and Alvina in front of ITVET

There was 14 teachers attending the Math and Science curriculum session and 22 teachers attending the Technology Integration session. However,  upon arrival we were told that any CPD was cancelled  for the day due to tropical storm Ernesto.  We were going to facilitate for half a day and try to cram in a full-day into it but by the time we were ready to start, the whole session was postpone for next week. There were many disappointed teachers.

We were also disappointed but we decided to take advantage of the free time to find Joanne a cup of coffee. We ended up at Blues, where Joanne got her caffeine fix, and we both had a very delicious vegetarian pizza.

view from the restaurant

We are off to Cayo first thing in the morning.

Buenas Noches !