Chronicling Africa Part 1 with TWBC09
(Simul-posted on wearejustlearning.ca)
I have been on the road now for nearly a week now after finishing a crazy academic year of much travel and one of the best teaching years I can remember. The last few weeks have been a flurry of submitting reports, packing for a conference in DC and Africa, saying goodbye to staff and students at one school and meetings and introductions to a new school. When I return from Africa in late August, I will officially begin my new job of directing the technology program and direction at Hebrew Academy in Montreal.
Two days ago, I boarded a plane with four other teacher team members of Teachers Without Borders (Canada) in New York City and after many hours of travel and interesting incidents, we arrived yesterday in Cape Town, South Africa. For Jody Meacher (Quebec), Zac Chase (Philadelphia), John Schinker (Ohio) and Ian V. (Toronto), this will be their first visit to Africa. This will be my second year in Africa and even with such limited experience, I will do my best to be a team leader along with Noble Kelly (TWB-C president, Vancouver).
It is now early morning and I am the first of the team to rise, offering me a rare opportunity to finally sit back and reflect on the last year and what is ahead in the next few weeks. The National Education Computing Conference in Washington D.C. had left me exhausted (not surprising!), but I am feeling my energy return. Many thanks to those of you whom I met at NECC! I learned a lot from our conversations! However, it is now time to turn my focus on our tasks in Africa.
After a bit of relaxing last night, we hit the ground running today. We will first visit the primary school in Gugulethu Township where we will be offering workshops this week to about 50 teachers. We will sort out the computer lab connections and print out our materials for the week while we check out the venue. For our new team members, it will be their first experience of the stark realities of Township culture and setting. Later this afternoon, we will have a guided tour of Langa Township - the first Township created during the era of apartheid. I vividly recall our tour last year; this will give our team members an excellent opportunity to be exposed to the history and issues of Township living. I expect it will be an exhausting day for them.
We are working with facilitators from Edunova, a non-profit organization that provides ICT training and hardware to schools in the Townships. We are also partnering with Khanya, the ICT arm of the ministry of education in Western Cape. Both organizations have offered phenomenal support in logistics and provision of long-term sustainability and capacity-building. I am very much looking forward to our reunion with some of the facilitators whom we met and worked with last year. They impressed me very much and I have thought of them often in the last year.
Between Monday and Friday, we will offer ICT integration workshops to teachers who are relatively new to using technology to support learning. Many do not have email accounts, so we expect they will be very new to using computers. Internet connectivity in this part of the world is not entirely reliable and can be quite expensive. Our workshops offer a blend of technical procedures (file management and navigation) and pedagogical theory and practices of integrating ICT into education. We will try to offer primary and secondary/ subject-specific approaches as well as general topics - quite a challenge!
Hopefully throughout the next few weeks, I will be able chronicle our experiences and offer glimpses of the some of the very special teachers and situations we encounter along the way. Stay tuned!
I have been on the road now for nearly a week now after finishing a crazy academic year of much travel and one of the best teaching years I can remember. The last few weeks have been a flurry of submitting reports, packing for a conference in DC and Africa, saying goodbye to staff and students at one school and meetings and introductions to a new school. When I return from Africa in late August, I will officially begin my new job of directing the technology program and direction at Hebrew Academy in Montreal.
Two days ago, I boarded a plane with four other teacher team members of Teachers Without Borders (Canada) in New York City and after many hours of travel and interesting incidents, we arrived yesterday in Cape Town, South Africa. For Jody Meacher (Quebec), Zac Chase (Philadelphia), John Schinker (Ohio) and Ian V. (Toronto), this will be their first visit to Africa. This will be my second year in Africa and even with such limited experience, I will do my best to be a team leader along with Noble Kelly (TWB-C president, Vancouver).
It is now early morning and I am the first of the team to rise, offering me a rare opportunity to finally sit back and reflect on the last year and what is ahead in the next few weeks. The National Education Computing Conference in Washington D.C. had left me exhausted (not surprising!), but I am feeling my energy return. Many thanks to those of you whom I met at NECC! I learned a lot from our conversations! However, it is now time to turn my focus on our tasks in Africa.
After a bit of relaxing last night, we hit the ground running today. We will first visit the primary school in Gugulethu Township where we will be offering workshops this week to about 50 teachers. We will sort out the computer lab connections and print out our materials for the week while we check out the venue. For our new team members, it will be their first experience of the stark realities of Township culture and setting. Later this afternoon, we will have a guided tour of Langa Township - the first Township created during the era of apartheid. I vividly recall our tour last year; this will give our team members an excellent opportunity to be exposed to the history and issues of Township living. I expect it will be an exhausting day for them.
We are working with facilitators from Edunova, a non-profit organization that provides ICT training and hardware to schools in the Townships. We are also partnering with Khanya, the ICT arm of the ministry of education in Western Cape. Both organizations have offered phenomenal support in logistics and provision of long-term sustainability and capacity-building. I am very much looking forward to our reunion with some of the facilitators whom we met and worked with last year. They impressed me very much and I have thought of them often in the last year.
Between Monday and Friday, we will offer ICT integration workshops to teachers who are relatively new to using technology to support learning. Many do not have email accounts, so we expect they will be very new to using computers. Internet connectivity in this part of the world is not entirely reliable and can be quite expensive. Our workshops offer a blend of technical procedures (file management and navigation) and pedagogical theory and practices of integrating ICT into education. We will try to offer primary and secondary/ subject-specific approaches as well as general topics - quite a challenge!
Hopefully throughout the next few weeks, I will be able chronicle our experiences and offer glimpses of the some of the very special teachers and situations we encounter along the way. Stay tuned!
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