Alignment with the Dept of Education vision
Roy said that the project is in line with the vision of Mr Gonza (the Ex District head and now the SG) of the Mnciba district being that of it being a technology district. This project belongs to them.
The importance of developing policy
– What the teachers do is guided by policy.
– Roy mentioned that policy comes from the top. Strategy is not influenced from the bottom up.
– The school TOC is developing policies (at Maggie’s request, but also at their own initiative?)
How does learning at the school level influence policy and strategy development? What are the accepted channels? How do we start engaging the right people?
Reciprocation
The principal mentioned that they need to do their bit, be committed, because we are investing in them.
– What happens when we leave? Will district play the “investment”/”supportive management” role?
It takes time…but there are very encouraging signs
Merryl mentioned that Mrs Booi ( a science teacher) was very afraid of the tablets but has grown in confidence so much that Merryl thinks she should be on the technical committee (which is 3 males at present).
We interviewed Mrs Booi.
Mrs Booi mentioned eTextbooks and movies (and how to pause movies and explain the experiment’s process up to that point). That was encouraging signs of innovative use of the video. (I wonder if Maggie gave that as a tip for the educational use of video?)
In the interview with her it was difficult to pin down what the benefits of the tablet are. Why did the Grade 12 results in Natural sciences improve from 44 to 80+ %? Physics is more difficult than chemistry due to the maths involved. She has liaised with the Maths teacher (!!).I f maths improves the physics marks improve too? Chemistry is easier and she tells learner that they can pass based on their higher chemistry marks compensating for low Physics marks. It seems as if any improvement in Physics results would really boost overall results.
The videos of experiments was one concrete benefit (they have to do only 1 chemistry and 1 physics exp a year!! And she only does those… She said they do have equipment, but did not say why only the minimum gets done ). The other major win is that there are more “activities” in the eTextbook than in the equivalent paper textbook. They learners also have access to more exam papers and can work at their own pace on the paper they want to work on. She used to make copies of Paper 1 and then discuss that with the class. Now they can access Paper 1 and Paper 2 and ask her questions about it. When asked why she did not make more paper copies previously it seemed that there were no constraints re. paper usage, but that her time might have been the constraint? (but doesn’t admin do the copies for the teachers?). Or did the availability of all of these papers on the tablet open up this way of working?
It seemed to me that some of the teachers are still struggling with connecting to the wheelbarrow. Some struggled to sign in to the chat application.
There are lead users among the teachers – the Indian teacher has a whole bag full of technical goodies is he a lead user.
The learners referred to use of eTextbooks and exam papers mainly. Or did they mention other uses too?
The teachers organise an hour long session the next school day after the training session to reflect on what they’ve learnt and to help each other understand (GREAT!!!). Would be great if they could let Maggie and us know after that meeting what are the aspects that they struggle with.
Learner feedback
Benita has more info.
It seems that they are finding the exam papers and answers useful. They have only been using the tablets for a week. They have devised covers for the tablets (plastic mostly).
There are negative impacts
The principals teaches four classes and he has done no teaching in the week due to the many visits. He will teach on Saturday to make up for the lost classes.
The principal said that teachers are worried that they do not know what the learners are doing on their tablets in the classroom. The can ask the learners to go to page x of the textbook and see that they have their books open at roughly the right page, but know they cannot see this! We wondered if there was a way of locking tablets to (for example) eTextbook use only during school time. I guess the answer lies in tablet etiquette and policy and teachers walking about to keep and eye on what is happening.
Comments on the CSIR’s approach
– You are the experts and we are learning and we do not know everything seems a good approach.
– Merryl repeated the mantra that you are doing it for yourself and not for us. Teachers do want to please us.
– It is inevitable that we are creating dependencies. Do we know what these are? Are we developing plans to deal with it? Or, even better, are we developing plans with the school?
Maggie’s training:
– Using 21st century approaches in training seems to be a very good approach.
– In session 7 she used the Flipped Classroom principles to teach Flipped Classroom and collaboration in groups.
– Maggie checked their understanding and then asked one of the teachers to explain Flipped Classroom.
– In the session I did not hear critical thinking? Nobody challenged Maggie.
Use of the school server
Seems limited at present. The server response time from the staff room was slow, maybe due to weak wi-fi signal there (one to maybe 2 bars).
Maggie has been using the wheelbarrow because the server has not been usable?
The teachers did know the URL of the server (the TLB)
I could not access the server – needed an ID and password.
Use of apps on the school server to assist M&E
– Limeserver for questionnaires
– Pop quizzes.
Maybe ask the Technical committee to help us load new surveys and email us results.
How to get regular feedback from the schools?
– Feedback on “Learning as it happens” is important. How? (Twitter, WhatsApp using their phones?) Regular phone calls from the M&E team to the principal and teachers?
– Reflective feedback – ask them to do Progress Journals every month and Maggie collects and discusses the results with us? And the M&E team discusses results with the teachers and Maggie. How?
– How to use the local M&E resource from Fort Hare to get us monthly feedback. That person could do monthly interviews, surveys, collect server usage statistics, ….
Overall Programme
It seems common sense to me that the basics should be attended to at every school. In other words the “tablet” schools should also have stable electric power, new toliets, nutrition programmes, eHealth, so that the synergistic effects of all of these can be seen. AND the management support required to do keep all of these aspects running gets surfaced and addressed. If lots of innovative technologies are to be tested that is all fine, but it does not address the question of what are the key constraints limiting the enabling teaching environment.
The one block did not have power while we were there and they were “waiting for ESKOM”. They may wait a couple of weeks? The weak link seems to be the ESKOM service providers. Merryl said that they phone ESKOM who refers them to the local service provider who may not be contactable. No ownership by somebody at ESKOM? This feedback should be passed back to the Energy WG. They should not only look at technological solutions but also management and maintenance processes.
Requests:
Maggie wants to be able to share content with the tablets from her laptop.
The principal mentioned that earphones would be good since there is too much noise in a classroom if everybody is watching a video. (Henry of DBE said that accessories are the schools’ responsibility and that they need to find the money for it).
The school needs more screens and projector so that all the classes can project the screen of the teacher’s tablet or laptop. HDMI equipped of Wi-Fi capable projectors are required or ? ( 5 screens and 5 projectors currently?)
We need to observe what happens in the classrooms. It was mentioned by Merryl that she can ask Nicola to spend some time at the school again.
Can we download logs of application use from the tablets? From the school server for the apps and content being accessed?
Can we load self-assessment apps on the tablets for the learners and teachers to use?
Can we improve the content navigation on the school content server?
Maggie says Awarenet is not very usable as the school Facebook? Why? It seems that it is because it is slow. Why? Signal strength or???
