My names are Namuyiga Winfred, an S6 Science Student offering Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics at Uganda Martyrs’ Namugongo.

My opportunity to attend the Science with ICT holiday camp which was organized and conducted by SchoolNet Uganda under the Inspiring Science Education for Girls using ICT project came as a surprise and was unexpected. I seized the opportunity without wasting time! As they say ‘don’t let any opportunity pass you by.’
During the camp, I benefited a lot in terms of knowledge, skills and attitude and would be willing to participate in another if another opportunity comes up.

In terms of knowledge:

• I got to learn that simulations and animations are available on the Internet can be very useful in my studies.
• I got to learn that the Internet has a lot of information on anything and can easily be used for research.
• I also found out that practical lessons can easily be carried out on the Internet and on the computers.
• I got linked to iEARN (www.iearn.org )- International Education and Resource network and now learned a lot from the youth around the world in the iEARN discussion forums. I got to know that racism and the discrimination of people according to skin color is everywhere and no one is supporting it.

In terms of skills:

• My skills in the use of the computer greatly improved. I got to learn how to use the different search engines to look for information.
• I also got more practice in using the Internet actively. The last time I had visited the Internet for academic issues was in the CHOGM time when I had to carry out a research on Botswana which was my case study during the mock CHOGM sessions.
• I got a permanent email address which I can easily sign in and out of. It has also improved my communication with my friends from other parts of the world.
• My typing skills were also greatly improved since I got a lot of practice.
• I also improved my communication skills as I participated actively in the brainstorming sessions.

In terms of attitude, the following perceptions were changed

• My attitude towards the computer changed positively. I used to think the computer was just a source of entertainment. But now I know I can use it for study purposes. My general paper teacher had once mentioned it but I hadn’t taken it seriously but now I can go back and proudly use it maximally!
• My attitude towards practical examinations has changed. I used to hate practical lessons but now I have learnt that I can easily carry them out on my own and especially for the spring constant experiments where in the normal labs one will have her masses touch the floor even before oscillating! This used to greatly demoralize my practical part of learning.
• I offer chemistry but I am one person who believed that chemistry was hard. And via practical studies the story was the same. But during the camp that attitude towards chemistry changed positively.
• Chemistry is a subject where accuracy is emphasized. With the actual practicals, some one can easily make mistakes in the proportions of chemicals to add. This will make one repeat a full experiment or get wrong results. Chemicals can at times get contaminated making one gets very different results. But with the virtual chemistry lab that we were introduced to one can easily carry out an accurate experiment without getting the above mentioned problems.
• I had got biased in some branches off Physics like ELECTROSTATICS and PROJECTILES and hence had a hard time understanding them, but with the introduction to the online simulations and animations, I was able to understand and internalize most of the matter concerning these branches.

My sincere thanks go to Mr.Kakinda Daniel who willingly allowed me to attend the camp.
I will also like to extend my sincere gratitude to all the facilitators who gave us their time and tried their level best to make sure that we learnt something without them very little would be achieved.