Comments on: Teacher laptop initiative delayed … AGAIN!

By: kvanwyk

kvanwyk — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 10:01:52 +0000

Of course, Mark, you can do that immediately, provided the particular teacher is ready for it. That is the ultimate goal: to empower teachers to use state of the art tools to create learning experiences for their learners. The use of packaged software is merely a stepping stone to achieve this ultimate objective. So, if you have teachers you feel can make the leap to Web 2.0 (and beyond!) tools … go for it!

By: Mark C

Mark C — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 05:20:27 +0000

Can we move on to use web 2.0 tools with educators already? Online repositories of information are lying on the internet which educators in disadvantaged schools are not accessing yet.

By: kvanwyk

kvanwyk — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 18:26:45 +0000

Thanks for the link, Reza

By: Reza Bardien

Reza Bardien — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 19:23:27 +0000

Take a look at the free Live Services Plug-in for Moodle: http://port25.technet.com/archive/2009/07/21/the-live-services-plug-in-for-moodle-debuts.aspx

By: Ashraf

Ashraf — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 16:24:49 +0000

I have used Moodle for a while in my Lab, about 5 years ago, and really it is a wonderful tool, I tried getting other teachers to join, but its difficult as they are so ‘scared’ or ‘lazy’, and you end up doing all the work, and it really takes lots of effort to get all the tests setup. Mark, we used Xampp and hosted Moodle on a localserver. I think that CEI have moved on to LAMS: http://www.lamsinternational.com/

I also try to expose my learners to different CMS’s to show them how easy it is to get your ideas on the web, Joomla, WordPress etc as opposed to the Facebook hype.

And coming back to the Laptop initiative, I would recommend the ASUS 1201n, a 12.1″ netbook that has got some good specs.

By: kvanwyk

kvanwyk — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 14:35:30 +0000

Thank you for your most valuable comments(and link) Reza. I agree with you wholeheartedly that the TLI can only be successfull if it is part of a wider drive to improve the quality/ability/attitude of our teachers. It’s good to know we have good partners joining in the fight!

By: Reza Bardien

Reza Bardien — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 10:04:18 +0000

Here’s the link to the McKinsey report:
http://www.mckinsey.com/locations/southeastasia/knowledge/Education_Roundtable.pdf

By: Reza Bardien

Reza Bardien — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 10:03:00 +0000

As a follow on from the comments above, what would it look like, integrating the TLI under the banner of the “Quality Learning and Teaching Campaign” with a tangible, decisive and courageous execution plan for each Provincial DoE which aligns and leads all education initiatives within each Province? Would the TLI take on a different function? Would we measure success of the TLI differently? What would teachers include as priorities in the ‘Quality Learning and Teaching Campaign? How do we address the critical issue of accountability, responsibility and leadership is such a broader campaign? What can we learn from the global experience that contributes toward ‘GloCal’ success?

By: Reza Bardien

Reza Bardien — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 08:19:08 +0000

Take a look at the McKinsey Report: “Shaping the Future: How Good Education Systems Can Become Great in the Decade Ahead” It identifies the quality and competency levels of teachers as central to ‘effective education systems’ and postures the ‘appropriate’ role of technology. Although South Africa is not included in this report, it is telling when we consider the challenges faced by the education system in this country.

How do we ensure that we hire the best and most competent teachers and school leadership into our education system, ensure tenure so that the system can gain from experienced teachers, actively promote relevant teacher professional development and ensure that teachers are supported by systems and tools to be more effective? Clearly technology has a role to play in supporting teachers as the kingpin toward a successful education system but we need to have consensus re. both the challenges as well as the priorities that need to be addressed and who carries this mandate.

We have the compounded challenge in South Africa with a ‘good percentage’ of our teachers being ‘under qualified’ to teach the subjects at the levels that they’ve been appointed to. Let’s not be confused that the TLI on its own without systemic transformation will effect the improvement that we all seek. A qualified, competent, experienced, innovative and motivated teacher in an effective and supportive school, district, Provincial and national education system, with appropriate learning and teaching resources (including a laptop) is powerful! How do we drive a multi-stakeholder partnership to make this a reality?

By: Mark C

Mark C — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 06:01:24 +0000

Some time ago I spoke to an educator teaching at an independent school. He mentioned that he uses Moodle, a content management system, to assign learners work. It is multi-platform and saves him time marking. There are various assessment modes on the system such as MCQs, matching, True-false, etc. (We do have some of this in our current software but the reporting for portfolio purposes is not always accessible). These types of testing appears in many question papers. The teacher does the normal setting up of the questions, choose the correct answers and bangs them out with immediate feedback.

I am not pushing Moodle, but I think it is worth a try. This suggestion worries me a bit in the sense of that teacherś as developers (even of tests) do not always work very well. In my earlier years at Khanya Moodle was show-cased by CEI but never really looked at as an option for schools(?).

I would also suggest we look at another platform such as Apple and Linux as many CMS are web-based. There are not a lot of viruses written for both these operating systems. On top of it, for Linux there are loads of freeware that can be downloaded and used.

The downfall is that one needs a reliable internet connection and committed PEOPLE. The skills to run a server different from the normal Windows server needs to be trained and it is not easy. Looking at the government’s commitment to signing agreements using FOSS first but then continuing the Windows way somehow does not make sense to me. So Mac and Linux do not have much impact in our schools.

The content management system has been around a long time. Have we given it a bash yet? If so, what was the outcome?