Why is image so important?  Principals want their school to be the one of first choice in an area so that the best learners are drawn to the school.  A good image attracts desirable learners, as well as good teachers.

ICT often serves as a draw card.  In the belief that technology skills will put them in an advantageous position when they are looking for jobs or when they are about to enter tertiary institutions, parents want their children to be exposed to technology. They are not wrong feeling this way.

The image of a school is further enhanced when ICT is seen to achieve educational outcomes.  For example:

If a school has an arts focus, graphic design technology will give it an edge over schools that do not have this type of technology.

A school’s image will be boosted when it uses technology to improve literacy and numeracy results.

A school offering computer subjects is seen to be preparing learners better for the future than schools that don’t.

The time is approaching – in many areas it has already arrived – when it is no longer a matter of technology improving the image of a school, but rather one where the absence of technology detracts from its image.

While an enhanced image is a welcome bonus, it should not be the main motive why ICT is brought into a school; the aim of technology must always be to improve teaching and learning.

ICT makes it easier for teachers to build a personal learning network (PLN) with fellow teachers, subject experts and gurus.

The payback for the investment a teacher makes in time to learn ICT must be measured in terms of improved teaching.

Explore the way teachers in other schools use technology – you will get ample tips for your own classroom.

It may also help to remind teachers who find it hard to change to the use of ICT of the technological changes with which their learners must contend.  It is their duty to prepare children in their care for life in the twenty-first century.

Purists argue that this is a paradox: in a universe that allows for an irresistible force, an immovable object cannot exist, and likewise, in a universe where an immovable object is possible, an irresistible force cannot exist.

If, however, we ignore the laws of physics, this question becomes a useful metaphor.  Is it not an apt description of an encounter between a mother and a determined toddler or of what happens when a besotted man pursues an uninterested woman?  And does it not help to paint a picture of what happens when technological innovation tries to enter the ultra-conservative sphere of education?

The advance of technology is relentless.  It has penetrated most areas of human activity.  Medicine, engineering and commerce did not prove to be immovable but allowed technology to transform them for the better.

If technology continues on its unstoppable course (which is inevitable), and education continues to be unmoved by technology (which will be a tragedy), a disaster is inevitable … one that will leave South Africa with a digitally illiterate cohort of learners.

What can you and I do to avert this catastrophe?

The Schools eNetwork Trust (SENT) is a non-profit organisation, which was established  in 2011 to provide free internet access and other services to schools. The pilot project has started in the Western Cape, and has achieved sixty applications and over twenty-five installations of schools. The vision is that in time, depending on input and assistance, this service will become available to schools in other provinces.

The initiative is a blue print for the implementation of a provincial schools Wide Area Network (WAN), which we have called the Intranet. The intranet is not designed to take over the administration of the schools networks although it should help; it is designed to connect the schools with service providers and enable appropriate services.

We understand that many of our schools do not have the necessary technical skills, or the finances, to employ these skills directly to run networks and manage complex technical services. SENT supports this process and provides the resource base that directly improves productivity and reduces operational costs.

SENT provides a WAN connection into which schools are connected for internet access that also includes various secure services including email, web proxy and remote backup.  An amount of 20gb of bandwidth is provided with up to a 5mb synchronous speed.

A message from the CEO, Dave Couves:

As the CEO of Comtel Communications, we support SENT with all the resources we can provide, as connecting schools is a very realistic goal.

At this stage the entire project is financed by a commitment from Comtel Communications, which has pledged R1 million in resources, with the assistance of Scoop Distribution Cape Town, who has supplied R40 000 worth of wireless equipment. Other keen stakeholders are welcome to contact us at info@sent.org.za .

For more information or to register your school in the Western Cape, please visit our website for a free Line of site and installation.

An opportunity for schools

The wise teacher who gets stuck with technology never hesitates to ask a colleague for assistance or for advice.

While some teachers are comfortable exploring and creating ICT content on their own, others need it in neatly packaged format.

Your ICT equipment manual – though of limited value in learning how to use the tool – is a quick reference when needed.

What makes it easier for some teachers to come to grips with ICT? 4 things: prior exposure, effort, aptitude and attitude.

Once teachers have become computer literate they must be given the opportunity to keep up to date with the latest ICT releases.

It is useful if a teacher has basic computer skills before attempting to learn how to use an interactive whiteboard.

A big difference exists between a teacher receiving training to use ICT in the classroom and a teacher being skilled to do so.

Teachers don’t have to understand the underlying technology of ICTs – all they need to know is how to use them for teaching.

Teachers who want to make a difference in the lives of learners recognize that technology is already a part of learners’ lives.

When ICT is introduced into a school, a teacher can succeed, but the teaching style of teachers has to change … and that’s not as easy as you may think!  But if there is a will, there is a way!

A few examples of cartoons that I’ve created are:

Mobile phones for teaching?

Do you fear change?

Avoid jargon …

Cyber-bullies are cowards.

New literacies required for the twenty-first century.

A new version of the software, with many exciting addtions, was launched yesterday.  Bill writes as follows:

Dear Reader

In its goal to provide more literacy resources for educators, MakeBeliefsComix.com has significantly expanded its offering of writing prompt printables, organizing them by subject categories to help students write and express themselves.

The free online comic strip generator now features more than 250 printables in 50 subject categories, ranging from Bullying and Peer Pressure, to Elections and Political, to Environment and Ecology, to Writing Prompts. These are found at: http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/Printables_Categories/

In addition, MakeBeliefsComix has introduced new comic characters with physical disabilities to reflect the diversity of users, including those with special needs. Among the 128 characters that students can now select in creating their comic strips are a boy and girl in wheelchairs, a soldier who lost an arm in war and wears a prosthesis, a blind person with a seeing-eye dog, and an older woman who uses a walker. Each character shows a variety of emotions – happy, sad, angry, thoughtful. Educational therapists increasingly use the online comic site for students with autism spectrum disorders to help them understand social concepts and to communicate. There is a Special Needs section to help educators and parents.

The 250 graphic writing prompts encourage writing and thinking in a quick and imaginative way and foster classroom discussion . A student’s efforts to complete a printable can then become the first step in writing longer essays, poems or stories on the same subject. The printables also can be used with students enrolled in literacy and English-As-Second Language programs, and provide an educational resource for teaching language arts. They are taken from the many interactive books of the site’s creator, Bill Zimmerman, who for many years edited the nationally syndicated Newsday Student Briefing Page, which was twice nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.

More than 200,000 educators and students from more than 180 countries visit MakeBeliefsComix.com each month to build their own comic strips and practice language, writing and reading skills. The site was selected by Google as UNESCO as among the world’s most innovative sites to encourage literacy and writing. And the American Library Association chose it as a Great Web Site for Kids.

We hope that you will share MakeBeliefsComix.com with your colleagues, students, friends or readers of your publications and favorite listserv groups. 
As always, we welcome your suggestions and ideas to improve our site.

Sincerely,

Bill Zimmerman

I am proud to be associated with MakeBeliefsComix and will continue to use this tool to get e-learning messages across to the readers of this blog.  Have a look at the product … you are sure to find innovative ways in which you can use it for the advancement of education.

Touch typing is an example of such a useful skill.  Once you’ve acquired the ability to type without looking at the keyboard you’ll type faster and more accurately.  If you are using a computer to type things, such as test papers end memorandums, or if you have to enter lots of data, your life will be so much easier if you can touchtype.

Touch typing is a valuable skill for teachers

Knowing all the features of a word processor will likewise make working with text easier.  Word processors have so many features specially designed to help you when you are creating any type of document.  The more familiar you are with these features, the easier your life will become.

The use of a spreadsheet can save you many hours of calculating and recalculating learner test marks.  It can work out averages for you and the possibilities of producing statistics and other valuable information are endless.

Invest some time in developing ICT skills.  It will relieve you of many admin burdens and allow you to focus on what you’re good at and what you are really there for: teaching.

Unsubscribe to those newsletters you don’t read.

Don’t even open junk-mail  items – make a habit of simply deleting them.

Handle a piece of email only once: read it, treat it and trash it; don’t leave it for another time.

If you are the target (victim) of recycled jokes and other emails sent to you by friends and relatives with long mailing lists, ask them kindly to remove your name from their lists – tell them to send those items they feel would be of particular interest to you in a private email.

If you’re inundated with emails, try standing while attending to them; it prevents you from being too leisurely about the task.

Here are a few points for teachers to ponder:

Use your ICT devices to impact positively on learning; otherwise they’re a waste.

The mere presence of technology in your classroom won’t bring results –you need to apply it as a teaching tool.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating – you will only know the value of technology in the classroom when you try it.

Different degrees of white-elephantness occur in classrooms relative to ICT, ranging from under-utilization to total non-use.

Don’t allow technology to hinder teaching and learning – it remains a tool, albeit a powerful one in the hands of enthusiastic teachers.

Technology is most successful in the classroom when the focus is not on the technology but rather on teaching and learning.

Also bear in mind that technology in the classroom will only empower a teacher if the teacher powers it “on”.

In the field of technology many abbreviations and acronyms are used and they can be confusing particularly if you don’t know their origin.

ICT is the abbreviation of Information and Communication Technology.

In the past, information was available almost exclusively in printed form.  Teachers used books to teach and learners used books to learn.  Modern technology makes it possible for information to be stored and accessed in other ways.

All these tools are available to teachers

Information technologies refer to electronic tools on which information can be made available.  A computer or laptop used to be the most common form of information technology but tablets and other mobile devices are now used widely.

Communication technologies refer to electronic tools used for communication.  The telephone and cell phone are examples of such technologies.

A few decades ago different information and communication technologies were represented by separate tools.  For example, a computer and a telephone were distinctly different tools and they were used separately.  Today, many information and communication tools have converged on single devices: you can make Skype calls from your computer; you can also use your cell phone to perform operations that you would normally associate with a computer, such as sending an e-mail. It should therefore be clear why the term ICT is used to include all information and communication technologies that are available for communicating information in the modern world.

ICT includes any tool that can receive, retrieve, store, manipulate and transmit information electronically.  It enables you to use tools such as Skype, Facebook, Twitter, Mxit, Whatsapp, the internet and email to share and communicate information around the globe.

The potential of ICT in education is great – it is up to you, the educator (teacher or principal), to explore the many ways in which it can help you in your school.