SIDSNET/CPACC
INTERNET TRAINING WORKSHOP
Seychelles
19 - 21
October 1999
Altaf Dossa
Director - Centre SYFED REFER Maurice
Agence universitaire de la Francophonie
altaf.dossa@aupelf.refer.org
Background Information
After the workshops in Mauritius
held during the 3rd week of September 1999, a second session was organised
in Seychelles with the collaboration of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The workshop took place at the Victoria Computer Services (VCS) in Victoria,
Mahé.
I was called upon to be one
of the trainers and I was asked to handle the demonstration of the functionality
of the SIDSnet website, the use of the E-Room tool and HTML design.
Technical Information
For the 18 participants, we had
15 computers running Windows 98 on a local area network of 100 Mbps
connected to the Internet Service Provider (ISP) - ATLAS, at 2 Mbps
on an ADSL link. The outgoing Internet bandwidth out of Seychelles is
only 512 Kbps.
As we were using the training
facilities at VCS, the computers were correctly configured and we only
had to run a routine check and install the necessary SIDSnet components
before the workshop. During the course of the workshop, we had a few
minor computer failures but VCS proved to be very efficient as they
had a technical person at our disposal for the 3 days.
Course Content / Participants
Only 6 participants had no prior
experience using a computer and this proved to be a slowing factor for
the whole group. At the end of the first day, these participants managed
to grasp the basic elements of a computer and this allowed us to move
on with the rest of the workshop. It should be noted here that SIDSnet
in this case did not only provide the tools for better communication
and interaction but also brought the knowledge to the people that can
help make a change and participate in SIDS issues.
The rest of the participants
were either involved in daily email checks, network maintenance or in
charge in developing the website for the Ministry / organisation.
With the experience of the
first workshop, a few changes were made in the teaching process:
- Online / Offline version
of the SIDSnet website - why do we need both?
Before going through the SIDSnet
website, I performed a presentation on the concept and services of the
Internet in order for the participants to clearly understand what happens
when one gets connected to the Internet and eventually how one can minimise
online costs.
After explaining the information
flow between a web server – SIDSnet (computer in New York) and
a client browser (Internet Explorer / Netscape in Seychelles), we went
straight to the SIDSnet site. The various themes of SIDSnet were presented
to the participants and elements of each theme were shown to them. The
participants could appreciate the effort put into the classification
of the information according to each theme and found it very resourceful.
Following the same techniques
as used in Mauritius, we went into the Interactive Discussion page and
then into the Mailing list/forum page. Again, emphasis was laid on the
fact that these tools were put to the services to the SIDS stakeholders
and one of the ways to promote the SIDSnet is for them to use these
tools.
An overview of the SIDSnet
CD was presented to the participants at the end of the day.
- Email - why go to the
post-office?
Hotmail was used to demonstrate
the powerful service of email on the Internet. Email accounts were created
for the participants not having a personal address and the mailing list
facility was used to demonstrate its ease of use. The list of participants
was added to the "mu-training@sidsnet.org" list. In the future,
I believe that we should change this address to a more appropriate one
like "ima@sidsnet.org".
- E-Room - the power of
working in a group!
Going on the concept of a server
- client relationship, I explained the technology used in the E-Room
tool. I also pointed out that the financial investment performed by
the SIDSnet project by offering this tool on the Internet cannot be
found for free elsewhere on the Internet. The idea of working in a group
using the Internet technology was new to all the participants and some
of them even wanted to look into setting up a similar local (Seychelles)
service.
Using the default set of login
and password provided by the SIDSnet team in New York, the participants
spent about 2 hours exploring the possibilities of the E-Room tool.
- HTML - anyone can be a
publisher!
In order to be consistent with
the workshop in Mauritius, the same software was used, namely AceExpert,
for the HTML session. I was made to understand that most of the participants
were mostly interested in this aspect of the workshop, as one of their
office tasks was to promote information concerning their Ministry or
organisation. Following the dynamics of the group and having much more
time than in Mauritius, we went into a second package - FrontPage.
At the end of the HTML design
session, each participant uploaded the web pages in the E-Room (temporary
storage) in order to be able to retrieve them remotely (at the office).
Overall appreciation of
the workshop
The training room proved to be
quite small for the 18 participants and 2 trainers. On the other hand
the computing facilities and the technical support at VCS were very
good.
The presentation made by the
representative of the ISP was not appropriate to this workshop and caused
confusion in the thought process of the participants. That person is
not "technologically" orientation nor does that person understand
the concept of development. I would strongly recommend that the trainers
(or myself) be consulted before inviting representatives from ISP or
other computer businesses in order to be in accordance with the objectives
of the training of SIDSnet.
On the organisational aspect,
I would personally like to thank H.E Mr Peter Sinon of the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs in Seychelles, Mr. Roland Alcindor and Ms. Chantale
Vanchard of UNDP Mauritius for providing the appropriate logistics throughout
the workshop.
The participants were present
at all time and were very attentive and eager to assimilate all the
information that was given to them. According to the evaluation sheets,
they were all pleased with the training and the way this new emerging
technology was presented to them. On the other side, they found that
3 days were not enough and would definitely like to have a second workshop
on a higher technical level be organised in Seychelles.
To my understanding and through
the feedback from the participants during the workshop, I personally
believe that we have again achieved our goal in this second session
of the SIDSnet workshop.
www.sidsnet.org
