John Schinker's Posts - Education Beyond Borders2024-03-29T12:16:13ZJohn Schinkerhttp://www.educationbeyondborders.org/profile/JohnSchinkerhttp://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2526548435?profile=RESIZE_48X48&width=48&height=48&crop=1%3A1http://www.educationbeyondborders.org/profiles/blog/feed?user=2hain2dg1zfa1&xn_auth=noA Drop in the Oceantag:www.educationbeyondborders.org,2009-08-09:2213732:BlogPost:93412009-08-09T11:34:14.000ZJohn Schinkerhttp://www.educationbeyondborders.org/profile/JohnSchinker
For the first week in Mbita, I kept asking myself (and others), "what are we doing here?" We're supposed to be teaching technology integration -- helping teachers use technology effectively to complete projects and improve learning in other curricular areas.<br />
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But as we made our school visits, it became increasingly clear that they're not ready for that. Of the ten schools we visited, none had electricity. One had computers in a lab, but no reliable way to power them. Many of the schools had…
For the first week in Mbita, I kept asking myself (and others), "what are we doing here?" We're supposed to be teaching technology integration -- helping teachers use technology effectively to complete projects and improve learning in other curricular areas.<br />
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But as we made our school visits, it became increasingly clear that they're not ready for that. Of the ten schools we visited, none had electricity. One had computers in a lab, but no reliable way to power them. Many of the schools had dirt floors. It was rare to see anything but the most basic of teaching materials. Student desks. Chalk. Sometimes paper and pencils. That's about it. How are we going to help these teachers use technology effectively?<br />
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We decided to take a two-pronged approach. On the technology side, we focused on personal productivity. Classroom technology projects are so distant on their horizon that it doesn't make sense to dwell on them. So we focused on gathering resources for preparing instruction, basic computer operations, and very simple use of productivity tools. On the pedagogy side, the emphasis was not on how technology affects classroom instruction, but on classroom instruction that better meets the learners' needs while setting the stage for later technology use. So we (and, by "we", I mostly mean iZAC and Jody) offered sessions on cooperative learning, backwards design, assessment with rubrics, and differentiated instruction.<br />
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The response was very positive. They liked the mix of pedagogy and hands-on practice. They didn't mind the technological problems caused by unreliable equipment and unsteady electrical service. They were just happy to be using computers, and thrilled that we were there trying to help them. Many of the teachers will be sad to see us go.<br />
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I worry about the sustainability. We're here for a couple weeks, and then gone. In South Africa, we built in sustainability through our NGO partners. We also invited the teachers to participate in a Ning, so they can network with one another and collectively support one another. In Kenya, though, the vast majority of the teachers in our workshops don't have access to the Internet. They don't have computers at home. They don't have computers at school. Their only option for accessing the technology is going to the Suba center. It's also apparent that Suba doesn't have the resources to effectively support that many teachers. While they have a dedicated, hard-working group of teachers working at the center, they're volunteers with many other responsibilities.<br />
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The good news is that the teachers themselves see the value in professional learning networks. So they'll keep in touch with one another despite the challenges. Suba will continue to support them any way they can. They've already set up a new committee to focus on technology in education, and it's made up of a district education official, two teachers, and a Suba representative. And Teachers Without Borders - Canada will probably be back next year for the second year of capacity building. We may not meet our four year target for self-sustained professional development, but we've made great strides this year, and this group may actually have a sustainable professional development model for educational technology in place before they even get the technology.Road Constructiontag:www.educationbeyondborders.org,2009-08-03:2213732:BlogPost:92032009-08-03T15:02:19.000ZJohn Schinkerhttp://www.educationbeyondborders.org/profile/JohnSchinker
It's no secret that Kenyan roads are a bit difficult to navigate. I can't speak to the cities too much -- we've done most of our traveling in rural areas. But you really have to pay attention when driving in Kenya.<br />
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The roads themselves are generally dirt or dirt mixed with stone. In many places, there are concrete culverts under the road to allow water to pass across and improve drainage. Between these culverts, though, the road has eroded over time, making them enormous speed bumps. Add to…
It's no secret that Kenyan roads are a bit difficult to navigate. I can't speak to the cities too much -- we've done most of our traveling in rural areas. But you really have to pay attention when driving in Kenya.<br />
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The roads themselves are generally dirt or dirt mixed with stone. In many places, there are concrete culverts under the road to allow water to pass across and improve drainage. Between these culverts, though, the road has eroded over time, making them enormous speed bumps. Add to that the occasional deep ruts, basketball-size stones laying in the middle of the streets, and the odd utility pole popping up in the middle of everything, and you have some challenging driving situations.<br />
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Honestly, it took me a while to figure out whether we were supposed to be driving on the left or the right. In reality, most drivers take the path of least resistance, and only move over to the left when there's oncoming traffic.<br />
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Kenyans have also apparently not figured out that it's much easier to build roads when people aren't driving on them. There's very little effort to manage traffic in areas of road construction, and we had to be careful to avoid graters, rollers, and other construction equipment on our way to Mbita.<br />
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I also haven't mentioned the wildlife. We have regularly had to wait for cows and goats to get out of the way. There are always people on the road, sometimes very young children who quickly learn to stay out of the way. In the southern part of the country, we've also had to wait for zebras and wildebeests in the road, though that hasn't been a problem in the Lake Victoria region.<br />
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The amazing part in all of this is how the drivers handle it. They don't slow down for cattle. The cows will get out of the way. They take the bumps in stride, and just try to find the best path through the minefield. In particularly rough patches, they just drive around that part of the road. There are some places where there are two different alternate paths around bad stretches of road. No worries. They just do what they need to in order to get through.<br />
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So after four or five days of bouncing around Kenyan roads, you'd think we'd be ready for anything. You'd think wrong. While visiting schools on Thursday, we came around a bend and saw an enormous pile of dirt. They're working on the road. Behind that pile was another pile. And behind, that, another one. There were about 20 piles, each clearly a dumptruck load. The material looked like a combination of dirt, stones of various sizes, tree roots, and whatever else happened to be around.<br />
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On top of the piles were about five guys with shovels. They were rebuilding the road, by hand. Our thought, riding in the back of the truck, was, "Great. There's no road. Now what?" The driver, though, just turned left. Who needs roads? This is Kenya. He just went around the construction, and we continued on our way.<br />
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Kenyans have a remarkable way of dealing with adversity. It seems like nothing bothers them. They just continue on and face the challenges. No electricity? No problem. They have battery backups for the critical stuff, and candles or oil lamps for light. Too many kids and too few desks? That's all right. They can share. No safe drinking water? They collect rainwater and use it for drinking.<br />
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In North America, we learned from <i>The Lion King</i> that "hakuna matata" means no worries. I'm learning, though, that the attitude is more one of "there aren't any problems we can't overcome" than one of "we're going to ignore our problems." Let's hope they can apply that same attitude to some of the education challenges they're facing.Educating the Girl Childtag:www.educationbeyondborders.org,2009-08-01:2213732:BlogPost:91812009-08-01T18:30:00.000ZJohn Schinkerhttp://www.educationbeyondborders.org/profile/JohnSchinker
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I knew, before arriving in Kenya, that there were differences in education between boys and girls. Most girls don’t complete school. Of the few that do, practically none pursue higher education. Of the 51,000 students enrolled in the Suba district last year, 134 enrolled in university this year. Assuming an equal distribution of students among the grades (which is not at all the case because of dropouts), this would be about 3%. Of these, six were girls.<br />
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So, roughly speaking, one…
<img style="float:right;" src="http://staff.bbhcsd.org/schinkerj/files/2009/08/dsc_4250a.jpg"/><br />
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I knew, before arriving in Kenya, that there were differences in education between boys and girls. Most girls don’t complete school. Of the few that do, practically none pursue higher education. Of the 51,000 students enrolled in the Suba district last year, 134 enrolled in university this year. Assuming an equal distribution of students among the grades (which is not at all the case because of dropouts), this would be about 3%. Of these, six were girls.<br />
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So, roughly speaking, one out of every 1,000 girls in this area goes to university. In reality, most don’t finish high school. At the early grades, the distribution between males and females is about even. As they get older, though, the number of boys in school far outpaces the number of girls.<br />
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When the girls are in school, their performance is much worse than the boys. At the first school we visited, the top performing girl had a 51% (C+). The top boy had a 91% (A). While you can’t compare the percents between the two cultures (North America doesn’t really use the lower half of the percent scale), the difference between the performance among girls and boys is staggering.<br />
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The reasons for this are many. This is a fishing community. The fishing is done by men, and they do most of the fishing at night. The women go to the docks around 4:00 AM to buy fish. They take these to market, where they have to sell all of the fish before going home.<br />
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Meanwhile, the girls are left to run the household. They have to gather water, make breakfast, wash dishes, and take care of the younger children. Consequently, they are frequently late getting to school, and there’s no one at home to make sure they go at all. Those who do go also have to stay home whenever a younger child in the family is sick, or when they are needed at home. They quickly fall behind their classmates. In Kenya, students are not socially promoted — it’s possible to see students who are 13 or 14 years old in grade three. More often, it’s the girls who fall into these situations. They don’t have much in common with their academic class, and tend to drop out.<br />
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Another reason girls drop out of school is an economic one. They’re not having their basic needs met. They’re not getting proper meals, they don’t have access to basic hygene products, and they don’t have basic clothing and reasonable shoes. They quickly find that there are other ways for a young woman to get money, and they involve a different skill set from the ones taught in school. We’ve heard about this problem from at least three different sources while we’ve been here. Once the girl gets pregnant, dropping out of school is inevitable.<br />
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These aren’t isolated problems in Kenya. In nearly every school we’ve seen, dropout rates are high for both boys and girls. At least 80% of the students who start grade one don’t make it though grade eight. But for girls, the numbers are much worse. In the lower grades, the ratio of boys to girls is about even. By tenth grade, two-thirds of the students are boys.<br />
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As you would expect, there aren’t any easy solutions. The biggest problem is probably the cultural role that women take. They are responsible for the maintenance of the household. They are subservient to men, and are totally dependent on them economically. In families, most of the resources are used to raise and educate the male children. Until these things change, it will be difficult to truly reach gender parity in the schools. At the same time, though, until the schools can reach and empower the girls, the society won’t change.<br />
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In <i>Three cups of Tea,</i> Greg Mortenson talks about how valuable it can be to focus on the education of girls. Women are the caretakers of a culture. The traditions and roles are passed down by the mothers in the family. When boys are well educated, they frequently go off to seek their fortunes elsewhere. But girls tend to stay home. If we can reach them, we can affect the culture of the whole community.<br />
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Until then, some are suggesting boarding schools. By removing the girls from the home environment, they can more easily focus on their studies instead of being sidetracked by the expectations of managing the household. In many cases, though, parents can’t afford to send their daughters to boarding schools, so this approach has limited effectiveness.<br />
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I’ve been trying to think about how the gender roles changed in North America. It’s been ninety years since women got the right to vote in America. It took another 20 years or more before women were common in the workplace, and that was because many of the able-bodied men were fighting in the war. Twenty-five years later, we were still struggling with the role of women in our society. Twenty years after that, it was acceptable for women to have professional careers, but many kept bumping their heads against the glass ceiling in a world still dominated by men. While there’s evidence that this is changing, many would argue that it isn’t changing fast enough.<br />
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In the mean time, we’re trying to talk to as many of the girls and their teachers as we can. We’re encouraging them to stay in school, to set goals for themselves, and work hard to realize their dreams. It’s certainly inadequate, just a drop in the ocean. But it’s a start.It's Not About the Toolstag:www.educationbeyondborders.org,2009-07-22:2213732:BlogPost:89022009-07-22T19:02:32.000ZJohn Schinkerhttp://www.educationbeyondborders.org/profile/JohnSchinker
As we wind down our stay in Cape Town, we're visiting teachers in the schools and working with them individually to try to take the next steps after the workshops. I haven't really blogged much about the actual workshops. We started with five days of sessions for teachers at Liwa Primary School in the Phillipi township. The teachers represented 20 different schools, with at least two teachers from each school.<br />
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<img align="right" src="http://staff.bbhcsd.org/schinkerj/files/2009/07/noble1.jpg"></img> A big emphasis was on moving away from basic instruction on using the…
As we wind down our stay in Cape Town, we're visiting teachers in the schools and working with them individually to try to take the next steps after the workshops. I haven't really blogged much about the actual workshops. We started with five days of sessions for teachers at Liwa Primary School in the Phillipi township. The teachers represented 20 different schools, with at least two teachers from each school.<br />
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<img src="http://staff.bbhcsd.org/schinkerj/files/2009/07/noble1.jpg" align="right"/>A big emphasis was on moving away from basic instruction on using the tools in favor of more help with planning and integration. We started with the basics -- why would anyone want to use technology in education? What are the barriers to effective technology use in schools? Starting with these questions, acknowledging some of the challenges, and focusing on the "why bother" aspects of technology in education helped set the tone for the week. The teachers also took a skills assessment on that first day to see where their technology strengths and weaknesses are.<br />
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Throughout the week, the emphasis was on technology integration. What does effective technology integration look like? Too often, we use technology to "automate" something without adding any real value. If there's no clear benefit for using the technology, we can all save ourselves a lot of time by sticking to the traditional methods. We also addressed unit and lesson planning for technology. What do we need to do to prepare for an effective lesson using technology? Since computers are very scarce, the need for preparation work in the classroom was addressed. If students outline and storyboard and plan ahead, they can make the most of the valuable computer time.<br />
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With the notorious unpredictability of the technology resources, it's critical that teachers do contingency planning. What if things don't go the way we hope they will? How do we manage to meet our instructional objectives despite technology shortcomings? It's clear that these teachers have a much higher tolerance for technology problems than the teachers I work with back home. It's common for the Internet access to not work, or a printer to be broken. We discussed a lot of strategies for working around these challenges, and we ended up modeling a lot of them throughout the course of the workshops.<br />
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About halfway through the week, we changed the focus to more hands-on work with the tools. We were getting feedback from the teachers about their expectations and impressions about how things were going, and they needed more time to work with the tools. We taught the office productivity suite, but with an emphasis on student use of the tools, and effective instructional integration for them. We wanted to avoid teaching them to use Powerpoint solely as a means for lecturing in class, for example. Instead, we emphasized how students could use the tool for digital storytelling, or to create presentations for the class.<br />
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Meanwhile, interactive whiteboards are a hot topic. Many schools have a couple boards, but the teachers haven't had a lot of help in learning how to use them. Fortunately, we have two team members who use them extensively, and they facilitated several sessions focusing on the "interactive" component of the boards. The goal, again, is to get students involved in the process, and not just use it as a presentation tool.<br />
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In the second week, we spent one day at a principals' boot camp organized by Edunova. With that group, we focused on technology committees and technology planning. It's important to get input from all of the stakeholders, and to not let a single group (teachers, school leaders, community members, etc.) take over. We also spent time on prioritizing needs and creating action plans for achieving them.<br />
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For the next four days, we had a workshop for Edunova and Khanya facilitators. These are people who work for government and non-government agencies. They provide support for technology use in the schools, though their roles are very different. Khanya oversees implementation of technology projects, while Edunova provides most of the day-to-day support. Khanya is also a much larger organization, responsible for educational technology in the entire province. Edunova works in 20 schools in the black townships, providing support and working with teachers.<br />
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With this group, we focused on technology support from the perspective of helping teachers integrate technology. Some of the topics were similar to the first week, but with a twist. In the technology planning area, for example, these people would likely take leadership or advisory roles. They still need to be familiar with the process, with the added responsibility of being able to lead the sessions as well. On the tool side, we spent some time on social networking tools, Google Docs, and tools for building learning networks. Some of these aren't really practical for the teachers yet -- the security settings, bandwidth issues, and software versions prohibit their practical use. But with this group, it's more achievable. They typically don't use school computers, so they don't necessarily have the same imposed limitations. They also have the capacity to improve the situation in the labs. If they buy into the promise of these tools, they have the ability to make their use practical in the schools.<br />
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So far, all of the workshops have been really well received. The teachers, principals, and facilitators all found them to be very valuable experiences. I was very impressed at the skills of my team mates, all of whom are incredible professionals. This week, we're following up with the teachers in some of the schools to work on sustainability and take the next steps toward integration.Teachers and Laptopstag:www.educationbeyondborders.org,2009-07-17:2213732:BlogPost:87822009-07-17T19:00:00.000ZJohn Schinkerhttp://www.educationbeyondborders.org/profile/JohnSchinker
There's a movement in South Africa to equip every teacher with a laptop. The plan has undergone a number of major changes over the last year or so, but in the current incarnation, teachers are eligible for a stipend from the government if they purchase a laptop to use in preparing and delivering instruction.<br />
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<img alt="" height="375" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2541424995?profile=original" style="float: right;" width="300"></img> In the schools, computers are scarce. A school might have a computer lab or two, but there aren't any computers in the classrooms. In many cases, I've seen SMART Boards and…
There's a movement in South Africa to equip every teacher with a laptop. The plan has undergone a number of major changes over the last year or so, but in the current incarnation, teachers are eligible for a stipend from the government if they purchase a laptop to use in preparing and delivering instruction.<br />
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<img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2541424995?profile=original" alt="" width="300" height="375" style="float: right;"/>In the schools, computers are scarce. A school might have a computer lab or two, but there aren't any computers in the classrooms. In many cases, I've seen SMART Boards and mounted projectors, but no computers connected to them. It's unclear whether there are laptops available for the teachers to sign out and use with the boards, or if they're expected to find their own computers.<br />
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Every teacher having a laptop makes a lot of sense on the surface. It would solve the problem of not having computers in the classrooms. It would alleviate the security concerns that would result from leaving computers in the rooms (Khanya spends R40,000 -- about $5,000 US per computer lab on security, and that doesn't include what the schools spend on security systems and additional protection measures). And, laptops for teachers would solve the problem of teachers not having computers at home.<br />
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Yesterday, one of our sessions with the Khanya and Edunova facilitators was on instructional uses for the laptops. If a teacher were to have one laptop available in the classroom, how would that change instruction? What could they do with it that couldn't be done without it? The participants were mostly former teachers who are now employed by these agencies to work with schools and teachers on technology issues. I get the sense, though, that their focus has primarily been on hardware and operational technology, and less on instructional integration. We're trying to fill some of those gaps this week with our workshops.<br />
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Working in groups, they brainstormed innovative ways to use a laptop with students. Most of the suggestions involved using the computer to provide some sort of direct instruction. With a computer and projector, they could project math tutorial software, and have the students complete the exercises at their seats. Or, students who are behind can use instructional software for remediation. In primary schools, the use of a laptop as a center was popular, though few people actually identified what the students would be doing in that center. There were also some suggestions of using the Internet to look up information online. With some prompting from Jody, they were also able to come up with some more innovative uses that promote problem solving and collaboration.<br />
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But the individual conversations told a different tale. During the exercise, there was some confusion about the other technologies needed to do these things. The likelihood of having a projector, for example, is pretty low. The same is true for network access. The schools don't have wireless networks, and the classrooms aren't wired for internal wired networks. So the teachers would have to use cellular Internet service, which is pretty expensive. In many classrooms, it's even difficult to find a working electrical outlet, a situation that reminded me more of home than I'd like to admit.<br />
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The issue of support is also a big one. Last week, teachers indicated that technical support was one of the major barriers to effective technology use in the schools. When problems occur, there's no one to fix them. It can take weeks to get even the simplist problems resolved. And that's with very tightly controlled computers in labs with standard configurations. Let the teachers go out and buy laptops from multiple vendors and manufacturers, give them complete access to the systems to install software and change configurations, and add the problems inherent with mobility (accidental damage, theft, battery life), and you have a support nightmare. It seems clear that the schools need to double their technology support efforts to meet the existing demand. If they add laptops to the mix, they're going to need dedicated tech support people in each school. I don't know what the details for support plans are, but I'm pretty sure they're not even close to having a tech person for each school.<br />
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Laptops are an attractive option. Their portability solves a lot of problems. But I'm not sure the necessary groundwork has been laid to make this a successful project. And they're really expensive, with a total cost of ownership about double that of a desktop. It will be interesting to see how Khanya and the schools overcome these challenges.