Jazz

Project Narrative
Project Category
Project Title: Jazz
URL of Project Website:
URL of School Website:
Date Project Was Finished:
School: Opoku Ware School
District: Kumasi Metropolitan
City: Kumasi
State/Province: Ashanti
Country: Ghana

How many students worked on the project: (3)
Ages of participants: Isaac 17, Selassie17, Sean 17
Project contact Email:okatakyie@gmail.com

Description of “Our Community”

The geographical name of the community we find ourselves in as members of the jazz project is Santasi, a suburb of the Kumasi Metropolis. Our school, Opoku Wre School is situated here and this is where we did most of the project. Though it is not exactly at the pinnacle of development, our school’s environment is much more endowed than downtown Santasi. Still, there are quite a number of internet cafes a market a lorry park and one or two pharmacies. There are also some junior high schools in the vicinity with two senior high schools.

Summary of Our Project
Our project is aimed at enlightening people and on jazz, which is more than just music. When you consider the winding and colourful history and origin of jazz, you would know that it has the power to link people in such a special such as cannot be achieved by any other genre. That jazz originated out of Africa many centuries ago, out of something as abominable as the transatlantic slave trade is more than enough to whet the appetite of any lover of music. It reminds you of the legendary phoenix, which rises out of ashes, yet is so wonderful. Thus we wanted people the world over to know this, and find out how much they share in common with other people across the globe, just as a result of jazz. With this in mind, we sought to bring out to light those factors that make jazz so unique and binding, and how it can be made use of directly or indirectly to solve issues the world over. Thus the aim is to create awareness on the forms of jazz and how jazz is helping bring people from all walks of life together.

Our Computer /Internet Access
A) Percentage of students using the Internet at home: none
B) Number of work stations with internet access in the classroom: none
C) Connection speed used in the classroom: -
D) Number of years your classroom has been connected to the internet: 0

Problems We Had To Overcome
The hindrances that came our way in the course of the project were enormous. Internet access was not readily available. Internet has been in Ghana for quite a number of years but it still is not available everywhere. Our school had no internet access and we had to go in and out of school campus (it is a boarding school, and going out is always a bit of an inconvenience).We had access to computers though, so we worked on these whenever we had to. But even with that, we had to deal with another paramount problem: frequent power outages. This wasn’t easy because at times we had to sacrifice money meant for other things to visit the café just for facts for the project. And when your PC goes kaput when you are in the heat of work and you forgot all about the save button, well it really doesn’t help out your situation at all. Another great challenge was that we are in school and in our third and final year. With a crucial exam looming over, it was sometimes difficult to forfeit study time for project work. But then sacrifice must be made if you really want something, and sacrifice we did. After all, this project is an important part of the education process. Such equipment as digital cameras and stuff was limited and thus we put in extra effort so as to get a hold of these as often as they came away. A very troubling period in the undertaking was when about two weeks to the completion of the project, our sole digital camera, which was provided for us by the teacher supervising our project, was stolen. It hurt, and we wondered how come people did such things, but in the end we had no choice but to sign it off as one of those things. All in all it was one wonderful rollercoaster ride: it had its ups and downs, but in the end we were all very happy we successfully undertook it.

How did your activities and research for this International Schools CyberFair project support content standards, required course work and curriculum requirements?

Our project addressed music, which is one of the subjects of study in schools in our country. What we worked on is aimed at enlightening students who study music and all other interested parties about a form of music(jazz)

What information tools and technologies did you use to complete your project?

Two Pentium (3) computers
A digital camera
A disposable camera
The internet

These tools and technologies went a long way to help us in the accomplishment of this dream. We had to borrow a digital camera from our I.T instructor, Mr. Harry K Tetteh. The said camera got stolen in the course of the project and that was a very heavy blow to us. Our partner school abroad, John Muir School also donated some disposable cameras to us .The most valuable of the tools we used was the digital camera because it was something we could come across easily it is also very expensive in our part of the world to buy. Our most helpful technology was the internet because we had most of our information and facts from the net.

What has been or will the impact of your project on your community
Our project is aimed at helping people appreciate music and come to interact with each other much better .Even though the benefits of our project might not be seen now we believe that some day to come people will trace the roots of this music (jazz) and in this vein seek to invest and develop such places. This would go a long way to upgrade the standard of living of my community since it falls under the geographical jurisdiction of the roots of Jazz

How did your project involve other members of your community as helpers and volunteers?
Our team needed advice to be able to go through the project. One person whose tremendous help cannot be overlooked is Mr. Harry K Tetteh our Information Communication Technology instructor. We were also given help by our partner school, John Muir School in the field of the designing of the website. They also provided us with disposable cameras. We also told friends about his project and they sometimes chipped in a helpful word or two.