Is it possible to get the screen image for the rachael plus on a portable usb hard drive? I live I in the country and Internet is not available for my children. I think rachael would be a great alternative. I already have several computers so tha is not an issue.
Providing Rachel on a hard drive for Americans such as myself could be an great way to make money to support your charitable efforts overseas.
Hi @SiamSam â RACHEL-Plus requires software, so it canât just be on a harddrive. You can of course just purchase RACHEL-Plus, which should work for you just fine!
Hi Jeremy,
Thanks for your quick reply. I saw that you offer discounts to NGOâs purchasing the Rachael serverâs and was wondering if you also offer discounts to studentâs? We live Washington County Florida where there is no cable or dsl Internet available except in the tow of Chipley. Satellite Internet bandwidth is very expensive and is outside our budget on a recurring basis.
My wife and I are considering purchasing this system for our 13 year old daughter who is a student at Vernon Middle School to assist her in her studies.
I was a teacher in Thailand for three years and have lived outside the states for 25 years of my life in mostly third world nations (about 30). Because of this I am very excited to see how far Rachel has progressed since the last time I looked. I have numerous suggestions which I will post in another topic.
Thanks again,
Carl, aka SiamSam
Hi SiamSam,
If you are looking to save cost, you and your daughter should consider building your own RACHEL Pi server following this link. This will get you up and running for under $80 and you will learn a lot in the process.
Here is a list if items I bought at Amazon. If you have Amazon Prime, the shipping will be free. The Card Reader/Writer is only needed if you donât already have a way to mount a micro SD card.
All of this is assuming that you have access to a computer and the internet to get it set up.
Parts List for RACHEL Pi Server:
Raspberry Pi 3 Model B Motherboard
Sold by: CanaKit: $34.50
KuGi Raspberry Pi 3 Model B case PC Protective Case with 2x Heatsinks
Sold by: Gambolex US: $6.95
5V 2.5A Power Supply for Raspberry Pi, Samsung Galaxy Tablet by LotFancy - Micro USB DC Charger Adapter with On Off Switch
Sold by: LotFancy: $8.50
Samsung 64GB 100MB/s (U3) MicroSDXC EVO Select Memory Card with Adapter (MB-ME64GA/AM)
by Samsung: $19.99
IOGEAR SD/MicroSD/MMC Card Reader/Writer, GFR204SD
Sold by: Amazon.com LLC: $4.99
Hi Andy,
Thanks for your suggestion. Money is an issue for me at the present. I have considered building a Rachael system as you suggested which I why I was hoping to purchase a copy of the database on a 1 tb portable usb hard drive.
I intended to then purchase a Raspberry Pi and change the startup disk to the portable usb hardrive (USB Boot Mode).
My problem remains is that I canât get an affordable Internet connection where I live and it is not possible for me to do the download at work. I checked with on of our local computer stores to see if the could do it for me. I was told that their Internet connection was unreliable so they didnât want to try. I am still trying to find solution.
I would happily pay any of the members of this forum for copy of the Rachael Plus disk image. Please let me know if someone can make this happen.
Thanks again Andy,
Carl, aka SiamSam
Hi Carl,
Go ahead and use the NGO promo code NGO20 and leave a note in the comments that you and I discussed.
For folks that are willing to contribute back with ideas, weâd love to share the discount code on our âflagshipâ hardware.
Best,
Jeremy
Thanks Jeremy,
I will take you up on that offer tomorrow and I certainly plan on contributing back to the project. I already written to the Sean at The Breaking News English website to get permission to copy and use part of his websites as a Rachael module. It is a great resource for teachers and students learning English and one I used extensively during the three years that I taught english in Thailand. I expect I will get a positive response since the subject matter is already free online.
I also have a meeting scheduled with the principal at my daughters school tomorrow to discuss what materials I can get from the State of Florida to use in another module for grades k-12. Iâll let you know back on the result of that meeting.
Living where we currently live in Florida has brought home the fact that lots of children in rural America do not or only have very limited access to the Internet. That makes it very difficult for these children to do their homework and research when they are not in school. I think the Rachael software package put together as an intranet could help bridge that gap for these children resulting in increased in learing, test scores, and grades.
I think Andyâs suggestion to turn it into a learning project for my daughter was fantastic and would equally apply to other children living in first world rural areas increasing interests / skills in computing, programing, and technology. That is certainly where the jobs of tomorrow will be.
Of course, I am only exploring possibilities and stimulating discussion. I already planned to get back with you and World Possible if I am able to open a few doors that I think would be in line with World Possibleâs objectives.
Put together right, I think a project Rachael package could result in increased funding for those third world schools and communities that are the primary focus of World Possibe! Children love helping others and I wouldnât be the least suprised if some or a lot of the "Rural Rachaelâs were donated back to World Possible if the activity were presented just right.
Sincerely,
Carl Gregory aka SiamSam
I had a very engaging meeting with Ms. Register the principle of Vernon Middle school. She became very excited about the Rachaelâs potential to he a home education resource study center for those without access in our rural areas in florida and as an education activity in school to stimulate interest in computer technology, programing, and practical problem solving skills in class at the school and others in the area.
She will also be introducing me to some key persons at our local technical college to generate wider interest, gather technical support, and hopefully turn this in to a county wide effort. I am expecting that World Possible will certainly will gather more support here in this area and thoughout the State of Florida.
She has asked me to put together a presentation to present to key players and an initial class for the students at Vernon Middle School. I plan to orientate a significant portion of the class towards the social studies aspect highlighting the efforts of World Possible in developing countries which I believe are inspirational to say the least and I think key to gathering wider support in Floridaâs mainstream educational system.
Because of this, I will be proceeding very carefully to insure success and the widest support. I will be getting back with you later with the two power point presentations I will be putting together for the initial presentation and class.
Right now I am swamped at my regular job at UPS at this moment which is why my communications with you previously were at such odd hours. Hopefully my workload will drop dramatically after the new year.
I was talking to one of the managers I work with at UPS yesterday and he was very interested in Rachael as he is going on a mission trip to Haiti in March with a group that supports an orphanage in that country. He said the group might be interested in getting a Rachael Plus for the school there and purchasing tabletâs for the students to use.
Religious mission work is not my thing but you might think about adding a religious studies section to the humanities section of Rachael if you havenât already. Places of worship are definitely areas where rural communities gather and are often a central player in remote areas with out Internet access no mater an individuals personal beliefs. Maybe a separate module for that could be added for types of organizations wanting to deploy Rachael.
I never made it to the bank yesterday so that I could deposit the money to purchase the Rachael Plus for my daughter. I will try to do so today again, fingers crossed. Heading to work now.
Carl
Thatâs all great Carl â thanks for taking such a proactive role here!
We have had some users at home school in Utah using RACHEL for a while, but I havenât kept in touch with them over the years.
Weâre careful not to default ship religious materials because of the issues it can cause in some developing world contexts. That being said, the Gutenberg âgreat booksâ module does include the major religious texts and a few folks do add quite a bit more.
Best,
Jeremy
Hi Jeremy,
I finally got to the bank as I was rushing by to go to the airport to pick up some critical medical packages for another Ups Distribution center and then I wa gone, woosh, faster than a speeding locomotive to meet someone from that center to hand off that stuff 80 miles away. The day was a complete blur supporting all the driverâs we had on the road in our area yesterday. I didnât get to stop until 11 pm last night, 12 hours later. I got home at 12 and was out for the count. I Sur am glad things are starting to slow down a bit at ups now. The whole company is working Saturday until the is nothing left in our distribution centers except maybe some milk and cookies :-).
I will have to sit down Sunday and compare the addon modules with what ships standard before I place the order for my daughter as I intend to copy it upon receipt to use sometime in January to put together the package I will be working on for the schools and to help those missionaries if necessary with the additional module they are interested in adding. I will place the order then or Monday after I have had a couple of quite moments to think about that a bit.
The last time I got caught up in a project out of the blue, I was gone for three years into the jungles of Burma, undercover, spying on, and interdicting the various human trafficking networks operating there, and abouts, in the Golden Triangle, while at the same time, training some of the pro democracy forces in Burma. (Wow, that was a long sentence, maybe a record). That is where I got the handle SiamSam , the wife, and my daughter :-).
I am a proactive kind of guy who enjoys tilting at windmills. Now if I could just figure out how to combine what the folks at Outernet are doing with their new Dreamcatcher board to some how get Rachael to integrate together seamlessly in harmony . . . Maybe I am just teasing you, Iâll have to check out what kind of content theyâve been streaming lately. Sued is projecting 1 gig of streaming data through the course of a day when it rolls out in January. It is certainly worth thinking about.
I know you are probably winding down for Christmas and I have to go off to help Santa get everything delivered.
Merry Christmas,
Carl
One last possibility would be to download one of the RACHEL-USB images from here:
The thing to be aware of is that RACHEL-USB has far less content and no interactive exercises. But it can be useful in some limited situations where you want to put a subset of the educational content on a single computer or tablet.
Hi Jeremy,
I finally got the time to place the order for the Rachael Plus we discussed.
Thanks,
Carl
Hi Jeremy, just like Siam Sam I am looking to save costs but also check in with a proof of concept. WHat I would like to do is download a few choice materials from the massive library you have amassed.
Is there any way I can cherry pick for downloads for the USB Rachel? From your entire Library?
I would like to download one set of materials for a womenâs centred based on literacy, leariinig and livelihood development
I would like to download a slightly different set of material for a health centre
I would then wish to place the materials on a hard drive or a USB as both the womenâs centre and the health centre will only have at each location one user access with a tablet/laptop a large VDU screen and a printer to help them disseminate information. So I dont have need for multiple user Wifi connectivity.
Hi Aaron,
Yes, you can cherry pick content from our entire library at http://oer2go.org
Unfortunately it is still in beta phase, so itâs not clear yet which modules you can download straight to a harddrive and which require RACHEL or a server to operate. Many of our modules require a âserverâ (RACHEL) to display content because the content is compressed or interactive and a hard drive doesnât have the brains to decode and display those particular sets of content. Some of our content is indeed âstaticâ and would work directly on a hard drive. Itâs our list to make clear which modules are which.
Best,
jeremy
Is it possible to direct message me or email me the draft list of the KNOWN WANât Work (as they are compressed and interactive) ?
Also for compressed and interactive ones if I download them to a hard drive then embed them in a Laptop or table would some of them then work?
All my best Aaron
We donât have that list yet, but if a downloadable zip fil is not available, thatâs a good indication for now. The compressed or interactive ones will require you to install and configure, kiwix, ka-lite, and a web stack with php added.
Hi siamsam
i found quite interesting conversation can you do one favor that mail to me on rimiterl@gmail.com i want to have a conversation with you right there.
thanks