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Bottling Hope and Determination
Spreading Fellowship | What are computers for? | Bringing computers into South African Schools | Interactive Whiteboards | Visiting Free State
I’m hardly an expert on South Africa after my first visit to Free State last November … but perhaps some comments from a new comer might encourage you in the national miracle you are achieving little by little.
Almost all the news we hear in England about South Africa is about crime, Aids and despair. However, I soon found out on my arrival that our media have not been able to bottle the South African sense of hope and determination that I found amongst my Free State colleagues, despite the formidable difficulties that they face. And I think that it is that human spirit, the Mandela legacy, that will be the ingredient that carries you forward when better funded nations give up the struggle to make the world a better place.
In fact, you may be able to offer some direction to the English, especially the young people who are widely troubled by the example of our politicians who have followed the Americans into a controversial war in Iraq. For the first time in many a year millions of ordinary English people, including our school children, have been sufficiently outraged to march on the streets and protest against our government’s decision.
You will understand the kind of emotions that force people to participate in their nation’s affairs. But the English have enjoyed the warm glow of a reasonably fair society for several decades, and this is new to us. English politicians may be in danger of being complacent about what an inclusive democracy really means, whereas in South Africa you are facing this issue every day. I found the atmosphere invigorating.
Spreading Fellowship between teachers
Since the late eighties I have been working in a range of countries to bring computers into education as a means of increasing democratic participation and promoting collaborative and constructive learning and independent study.
Some of the countries where I work, which have had right and left wing dictatorships in the past, are struggling to encourage their citizens to engage in their new democratic power. The apathy of citizens is a real challenge in many countries. Many of these colleagues from education in countries like Brazil, Bulgaria, Chile, China, the Czech Republic and Russia have joined the international MirandaNet Fellowship which I founded in 1992 to draw strength from abroad.
Our specialism is to develop communities of teachers, teacher educators, policy makers and company representatives who support each other face-to-face and online in sharing cultural diversity. Teachers and teacher educators publish web based case studies about using computers to transform teaching and learning. We also run practice based courses face to face and online which give the participants formal qualifications which are internationally accredited for the work they have done in the class room and the staff room. There are now twenty five MirandaNet chapters around the world which each bring their local flavour to our organization.
Since the events of 9/11 and the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, MirandaNet Fellows have been reporting children’s growing sense of fear and insecurity as well as their concern about intolerance of others. In response we raised the money to built a web space called World Ecitizens, a safe place where young learners can work together across cultural borders. In the closed we environment they can upload resources and work on joint projects. The gallery provides a place for pupils’ voices. (www.worldecitizens.net)
Already in the World Ecitizens gallery we have Peace Posters and poems from English six year olds and a graphic novel called Living from 10 and 11 year olds who were distressed regarding the issue of homelessness on London streets. Other imaginative and creative new projects are underway. We hope that South African pupils will want to contribute, and maybe to work with their peers across the world. Every student who contributes gets a certificate to welcome them as a World Ecitizen.
What are computers for?
World Ecitizenship is a grand aim. But of course, over thirty years, we have found in England that computers in education can be helpful in more mundane requirements like coping with teacher shortages, serving special needs and raising educational standards (www.becta.org.uk/research, www.becta.org.uk/impact2).
Computers are a compulsory part of the English national curriculum (www.nc.uk.net). All our schools have broadband access to the Internet and thousands of multimedia curriculum resources to download many of them designed by teachers (www.curriculumonline.gov.uk). All these materials are free on the web to teachers from other countries so you may want to dip in.
In addition we are now engaged on a national consultation with all interested parties about what we really want from our government’s unified elearning strategy (www.dfes.gov.uk/elearningstrategy). This document will help you to understand the elearning concept better. South Africans can make a head start in defining and pursuing the best that elearning has to offer for your kind of nation where there is rural poverty and lack of access to learning materials. We have put points of community access in our local libraries. If you can organize the security issues putting the Internet in local schools and colleges for the use of local communities and businesses may help to empower them.
In our schools we are planning an exciting new curriculum for our 11-14 year olds who sometimes find traditional school approaches boring. The new challenges include computer activities that they can enjoy. To make this valuable to their working lives we are also reconsidering how we assess the ability of these young people and trying to find ways of celebrating skills other than reading and writing (www.qca.org.uk).
This is probably our most innovatory and risky step since it challenges the traditional system that has worked so well for so long. But the world needs all kinds of people now. Not just the good readers and the writers with excellent memories, but the collaborators, the innovators, the dancers, the singers, the risk takers and the peacemakers. How will we know where to find them if we do not give them a chance to shine in school and reward them with high grades? Can we go on making eighty per cent of our population feel that they have failed?
In this case the ICT in Schools division of the government is somewhat ahead of some of the teaching profession. The ICT in Schools, Department for Education and Skills report, ‘Fulfilling the Potential’ which describes what is meant by transforming teaching and learning is not yet fully understood by all the teaching profession (www.dfes.gov.uk/ictinschools/publications).
I have just completed the research into the lessons from the national ICT Continuing Professional Development (CPD) programme from 1999-2003. The £230 million cost of this national programme was funded from the Lottery National Opportunities Fund. The ICT education community seems to have moved forward after this exercise in terms of skills and understanding about computers, but there are still questions for the profession to resolve about what exactly the transformation of learning means at international, national and local levels and how teachers can be helped to take ownership of this concept. (www.mirandanet.ac.uk/tta)
Bringing computers into South African Schools
As far as computers in education go, the English situation must seem idyllic compared to South Africa. Of course I know that in the farm schools and the townships there are access challenges that have to be met full on. I have worried about my work in poor countries myself, in case I am diverting cash which is required for more pressing needs. But my colleagues on the ground have assured me that bread and water alone will not suffice. Countries on the cusp of change need technology as well as bread and water they tell me in order to catch up with the world economy and understand the issues.
What you have already in your favour is an excellent South African outcomes-based curriculum and a manifesto on Values, Education and Democracy which is much clear in its aims for democracy (http://education.pwv.gov.za). You also have some excellent computer practice and experience, especially in the Western Cape and in many ISASA schools who are leading the way. To your credit, you have already made the hardest change of all in implementing democracy without bloodshed, and you also have many friends in the world who truly want to help.
In our experience it is your teachers who will need the most support to lead the use of elearning technologies in schools. We have found that portable computers for teachers are very important to gain their intellectual commitment and allow them access to the Internet. Ownership of laptops also reduces the need for expensive basic skills training as well, but does not eliminate the need. Continuing professional development is also essential, but has to suit the learning styles of the teachers who are all different and be rooted in classroom change . Web publishing case studies shares the experience and stores professional knowledge.
Digital cameras, datalogging equipment and personal digital assistants (PDAs) are more inexpensive routes to explore to start the elearning habit. What MirandaNet Fellows have also found is the most transformational single tool is the Interactive Whiteboard (IWB) which can be used by teachers and students alike to present interactive computer technology to whole classes. The software provided by the company is a very important consideration and not easy to check for effectiveness. The English department for Education and Skills is now funding a large national project to ensure that IWBs are widely used in schools.
Interactive Whiteboards: new tools, new pedagogies, new learning?
My colleague, Dr John Cuthell, who has been a MirandaNet Fellow for about ten years explains more about the IWB project he has been developing:
During 2002 Promethean and MirandaNet have been developing an IWB project collaborated to examine the impact that interactive whiteboards had made on teaching and learning in schools. The first phase of the project was completed at the end of 2002 and published for the BETT exhibition at Olympia, London. The evidence collected was arranged thematically.
Case studies from this first phase explore the ways in which interactive whiteboards are used, and the ways in which they contribute to student learning and teacher pedagogies. They’re in no way definitive: what they offer is shared experience, and the beginning of a Community of Practice. (www.mirandanorth.org.uk/whiteboards.html)
As more schools are fitted with interactive whiteboards there is a real need for teachers to play an active role in specifying the ways in which this extremely powerful tool is installed and used. The technology can effect a profound change in the ways in which our students learn, the ways in which we teach and, more fundamentally, the ways in which we organise the curriculum and our schools.
When teachers are expected to respond to so many conflicting demands – social regulation versus radical change; transforming teaching versus raising standards: and when the audience for learning has expanded beyond the teacher – student relationship, these case studies may provide some ideas for hard-pressed colleagues.
During 2003 the work was extended, and seven teachers from schools across the country participated in an action research project funded by Promethean and directed by MirandaNet. Three workshops were held at the Institute of Education, London, and two seminars at the University of Huddersfield. The projects covered all the Key Stages. An online survey of teacher responses to interactive whiteboards ran in parallel with the action research projects.
Three distinct threads emerged from the research:
- the need for a planned approach to the infrastructure and ICT skills that were needed when interactive whiteboards were introduced;
- the identification of all of the curriculum concepts involved in the teaching;
- affective changes in staff and students engendered by effective use of interactive whiteboards.
Thanks are due to the Promethean educational teams for their support throughout the project which we believe is a good example of how companies and teachers can learn together.
MirandaNet Fellows have been engaged in working in projects over the years with other companies like Apple, Actis, BBC, Oracle, Microsoft, Toshiba and many others who pay the teachers expenses to carry out classroom research into teaching and learning. The British Suppliers Association has been particularly active in South Africa already. Teacher researcher working with companies is one of the ideas we would all like to pursue in supporting South Africa’s progress in learning.
Visiting Free State
I took two MirandaNet colleagues to Free State with me, Mark Bennison who is a deputy head in a secondary school and Mara Chrystie who headed a primary school. We hope to make many more connections and we have begun by creating a website about our observations and aspirations as a thank you for the warm welcome we received.
We
had heard before our visit that the birds fly upside down over Free State
because there is nothing to see. You will see that our web site bird thinks
differently (http://www.mrbennison.com/mirandanet)
Here’s hoping this visit will be the start of a stimulating co-operation between the MirandaNet Fellowship and South Africa ?
- More pictures on the World Ecitizens Gallery.
- An illustrated report of this visit can be found on Mark Bennison's site.
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