Dadamac Days - 6 years of UK-Nigeria collaboration online. November 10, 2010
A brief history of Dadamac Days - celebrating six years of online collaboration between UK and Nigeria
First anniversary celebration of TT - online reunion:
Second anniversary celebration- more structure:
Third anniversary - Worknets chatroom
Fourth anniversary - two channels
Fifth anniversary - greater inclusion
Sixth anniversary
2004 - Introducing teachers around Fantsuam to world-wide community online
Birth of Dadamac:
- Pamela McLean's first visit to Fantsuam. (Fantsuam Foundation and Dadamac)
- First presentation of Teachers Talking (TT) course
- Highlight of the course was TT-online.
- Participants became part of a supportive online community (the TT yahoo group) with members scattered around the world.
First anniversary celebration of TT - online reunion:
- Sending out invitations to 2004 participants was the first challenge - no phones, no reliable postal service.
- Fantsuam Foundation Volunteer - Seun Adegboyega - spent two days riding around by motorcycle to deliver invitations.
- Celebration party was held at Fantsuam.
- Yahoo chat used for UK-Fantsuam communication.
- David Mutua did most of the typing for everyone.
- Mostly just exchanging greetings.
- Great excitement to simply be in contact again after one year.
- First experience of instant messaging for most participants.
Second anniversary celebration- more structure:
- A teacher sent a message beforehand via Florence Bale asking for information from the Internet on harvesting her ginger crop (a new venture).
- Pamela and Florence ale agreed an agenda before the online meeting, so more information was exchanged than in previous year.
- Florence discussed agenda with the participants before going online so that the group's replies were agreed
- One of the schools was raising money for a (refurbished) computer: the pupils were collecting and selling sand.
- Florence did the typing for the group
Third anniversary - Worknets chatroom
- Pamela at Fantsuam for Dadamac Day
- Dadamac Day celebrated during a TT course
- TT participants introduced to the worknets chat room for the online celebration of Dadamac Day
- First time people in other countries (not jut UK) connected with Dadamac in Nigeria in real time.
- Part of TT-online's "communication and collaboration" initiatives (course also linked with London University Institute of Education and Ahead)
Fourth anniversary - two channels
- Use of skype to wave and smile between UK and Nigeria - some recogntion of familiar faces, some putting faces-to-names previously only known through e-meetings and emails.
- First experience of video link for many participants (bandwidth not usually sufficient for video - only possible if most other users of the Zittnet VSAT are not logging on).
- Use of worknets chat room for the typed messages - to include people in other countries who had not got skype access
- Dadamac Day 2008 (previously known as Teacher's Talking Anniversary Celebration) report in LearnByDoing blog
Fifth anniversary - greater inclusion
- Wide reaching celebration.
- In UK - Dadamac Day run as fringe event at Bar-Camp Africa.
- In Nigeria - Dadamac Day entertainment included local prize-winning choir.
- Choir was heard in UK via skype link (video of full performance later provided for UK).
- Skype video connection between UK and Nigeria so people could smile and wave at each other.
Sixth anniversary
- Another new approach - held on the First Thursday of the month - but timed differently to usual First Thursday meetings to better suit students and staff.
- Invited group at Knowledge Resource Centre (KRC) - staff and students, people from TT courses and Self Directed Learners Group, people who had been with Dadamac from the start and some who were very new.
- Online visitors who were all closely connected with Dadamac - from SW Nigeria, Benin, Ireland and several UK locations.
- Goodwill messages received from four continents.
- Ambitious agenda - looking at local initiatives in global context. Dadamac Day 2010 - agenda and archive
- Topics - micofinance, education and training, Zittnet, details of software in use, Twitter, Attachab, new sickle cell research. laboratory, central role of Knowledge Resource Centre, relationship to Midlands University, what people have been learning.