Teacher in a Box (TIB)
TIB is a project of the Rotary Club of Paddington. Since this project was featured in the February 2020 edition of Rotary Down Under, it has continued to go from strength to strength.
They now have a 20-member team led by founder and project manager Jeanette Johnstone, technical lead Patrick Hackett, and John Lawrence, who is the Rotary district chair of TIB. They are supported by Lyn Maddock from Paddington Rotary, who is the project’s liaison officer. They also have regional and international representatives, IT support and technical officers, project officers, an event officer, a media officer, a network officer, a program developer and an educational adviser.
The TIB server is designed to operate without the internet and provides a Local Area Network (LAN) that enables nearby devices to connect via Wi-Fi. Users then receive access to the huge interactive library of community and academic resources. The TIB server is highly adaptable. Not only can it be connected to laptops, tablets and mobile phones, it can be used with a projector or TV to help facilitate classroom learning.
In August, Rotarian Wayne Slattery and his wife Ravy Leang-Slattery delivered a TIB to their Dreams Come True Community Education Centre (DCTCEC). The centre is located in the Prey Veng Province on the east bank of the Mekong in Cambodia and provides classes to children who previously had no opportunities to learn. DCTCEC is supported by the Mekong Disability Employment and Mobility Trust, a registered Australian charity.
Not only are the units being utilised in developing countries, orders are currently being prepared for isolated communities in Outback Queensland, where the nearest school is over 100 kilometres away.
TIB continues to expand and make a huge and positive impact where there are few classroom resources and teachers with little training.
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