TMG Chandrasekara, the announcer:
We have with us the initiator and the manager of this project. We call him Wanni — Nandasiri Wanninayaka.
Wanni, there is an interesting story behind this — also it is a story of one aspect of our country. Would you tell us a bit about the start?
Wanni:
Yes, we started the Horizon School about five years ago. We are completing five years this August. We are very happy that we can have this program on Rupavahini when we are at our fifth year anniversary. When we started, we had no plans about the Internet. We had no knowledge about the Internet or computers when we started. In fact, I thought the computer is something like a big calculator. It was English language that I taught the children, when I used to work as a teacher. I saw that the children did not like the traditional ways of teaching English. So, we try new ways of teaching English. To get the children to learn writing skills, we started an English language journal called “Horizon”. All we could do at that time was to use a few half sheets and to write it by hand using pencils. We continued with our journal for some time like this. Then, after seeing the journal, the United States Embassy in Colombo gave us our first computer.
TMG
You asked for a typewriter, but got a computer, didn’t you?
Wanni
Yes, certainly. We knew nothing about a computer and asked for a typewriter. However, we got a 486 computer. At night I studied how to use it, and started teaching the children in the morning. We can next go to our History webpage.
