Annual Report to AGM
25 November 2010 - Executive Director
1. Overview of 2010 2
2. Project highlights in 2010 2
2.1. Intel Teach 2
2.2. Microsoft Partners in Learning 4
2.3. INSPIRE 7
2.4. Commonwealth of Learning 8
2.5. Teacher Laptop Initiative 10
2.6. Academy for Educational Development: New Futures 11
2.7. Other SchoolNet SA projects 11
3. SchoolNet SA Finances 15
4. SchoolNet SA Staff 15
5. Summary of projects 18
6. Projects 2010 21
1. Overview of 2010
SchoolNet was commissioned to undertake a number of new projects during the course of 2010; some had been in the pipeline for many months such as the Vodacom initiative and the AED New Futures Youth Employability programme, some were continuations of existing interventions such as training for KZN and Free State Departments of Education and some were completely new initiatives such as the Mlambo Foundation project with Intel and a range of new work from The Commonwealth of Learning. In 2010 SchoolNet has been far from short of work. Another bonus was that early in 2010 the Limpopo Department of Education paid their debt to SchoolNet which had been outstanding from 2007. This provided a great deal of relief for SchoolNet SA.
2. Project highlights in 2010
2.1. Intel Teach
Intel Teach: Getting Started
Intel Teach Training of Trainers at Wits
Intel requested that SchoolNet introduce Intel Teach: Getting Started into South African schools in 2010. This course has been rolled out in other African countries but South Africa has only ever offered the higher level, more pedagogically-focused Intel Teach courses. The localisation of the Getting Started course was negotiated by Gerald Roos with the Intel curriculum team in the USA during the latter part of 2009 and some positive amendments were made that resulted in a more balanced basic ICT literacy course. Senior trainers from all provinces attended a training course at WITS University in April 2010. Since then Intel has devoted a considerable amount of budget to the Getting Started roll out. We have managed to train the following numbers of teachers in their respective provinces but the teachers’ strike and catch up programmes have hampered our progress: a total of 1429 teachers have completed training: The provincial breakdown is as follows: Eastern Cape -360; KwaZulu-Natal - 211; Limpopo - 420; Gauteng - 90; Mpumalanga - 184; Free State - 95; North West - 56; Western Cape – 13.
Intel® Teach: Teachers Engage
Intel® Teach: Teachers Engage is an online interaction space that is used by senior Intel® Teach trainers worldwide. South African senior trainers have been participating and have received some interesting interaction with other countries, particularly the USA.
Intel® Teach Evaluation
This year is the first year since 2003 that we have not contracted an external evaluator for Intel Teach. Instead the evaluation team in the USA has instigated an online evaluation using an interactive online evaluation tool that is completed by teachers after training. SchoolNet had to customise the online survey for South African teachers and then request them to complete it online. At present this evaluation instrument is only designed to evaluate participation in the Intel Teach Essentials course.
Intel® Teach Elements
Intel® Teach: Elements is a new range of flash-based materials introduced by Intel that are designed to be self study materials. “Project Based Approaches” was the first course that was developed and a few thousand copies of the CD were distributed to teachers in South Africa. SchoolNet felt that the model for delivery for South Africa should not be completely self study but rather be a blend of face to face and online support with courses spread over longer periods of time than recommended by the USA model.
Two new courses have now been released in this Elements series and SchoolNet hopes to include these as from 2011. They are called Collaboration in The Digital Classroom and
Assessment in 21st Century Classrooms.
All Intel Teach as well as Intel Learn courses are going to be made available by Intel on a DVD. This is a new and positive departure for the Intel curriculum team who have always preferred to distribute materials only to teachers during training.
Intel® Teach ICT in the Classroom Conference
Although SchoolNet SA did not run a conference in 2010, E-Schools Network ran a conference in September 2010 where SchoolNet staff and trainers presented sessions. Financial assistance was provided by both Intel and Microsoft to this conference although the main funder to ESN was Uniforum. In July 2011 SchoolNet SA will be holding a conference in Gauteng at St John’s College, Parktown. SchoolNet is indebted to Intel who will be the main sponsor of this conference again, as they have been for the past several years.
The Intel management for Middle East, Turkey and Africa would like SchoolNet SA to organise a curriculum roundtable conference for the region in 2011 which will focus on the various Intel® Teach curricula. SchoolNet SA will be tasked with sensitizing other countries to the more advanced Intel® Teach ICT integration courses because most of the other countries have only conducted Intel’s basic course, “Getting Started”. The strategic learning pathway to reach Intel Teach Essentials will be one of the main objectives of this curriculum conference.
2.2. Microsoft Partners in Learning
SchoolNet has now trained more than 25000 teachers through the Partners in Learning programme in South Africa as well as a further few hundred in Lesotho. In some cases Microsoft has funded the training of teachers, but increasingly provincial departments of Education and corporate sponsors such as Vodacom and Multichoice are commissioning SchoolNet SA to conduct training using the Partners in Learning teacher training materials, often as a result of successful interventions that Microsoft has sponsored.
We are grateful to Microsoft for continuing to provide funding for enhancing and adding to the training materials and for building capacity amongst our growing pool of trainers. We are further grateful to Microsoft South Africa and particularly Angela Schaerer, Reza Bardien and Vis Naidoo for continuing to recommend SchoolNet to other corporates and indeed to other divisions of Microsoft.
Microsoft Innovative Teachers/Education Forums
This year, SchoolNet once again project-managed a range of Innovative Teachers Forum events for Microsoft. The first of these events was the Lesotho Innovative Teachers Forum which took place in June at the Lesotho School Technology Innovation Centre. Ten teachers presented projects at the Forum which were of an impressive standard considering the lack of access to resources faced by many of the participating teachers. It was pleasing to note that most of the participants had been through training at the Lesotho STIC – a centre that SchoolNet supports through offering training and logistical support.
The South African Innovative Teachers Forum took place at the Africa School Technology Innovation Centre in Newtown in August. At this event, twenty innovative projects were presented, with one winning project being presented by a group of four teachers from the Free State, pictured right with the MD of Microsoft SA, Mteto Nyati – who spontaneously pledged to find sufficient funding to send the team of four to Mombasa for the Pan African finals.
Almost all of the winning teachers had been through an Innovation workshop and / or other Microsoft or Intel training and whilst this proves the effectiveness of these courses our challenge remains to get more teachers to integrate ICT at the level expected of an Innovative Teacher.
At the end of August SchoolNet SA coordinated the Pan African Innovative Education Forum in Mombasa, Kenya. This event took place at the Aga Khan Academy, a Microsoft Innovative Mentor School and combined tracks for both Innovative Teachers and Innovative Schools. In total sixteen different African countries were represented at the Forum. All of the participants enjoyed the opportunity to network and learn from their colleagues, and the Southern African teachers performed exceptionally well in the judging process.
In October 2010 the Worldwide Innovative Education Forum was held in Cape Town which meant that we were both participants and hosts for the event. In addition to the 10 Southern African teachers who qualified to participate in this event through the Pan African Innovative Education Forum, Eunice High School participated as an Innovative Mentor School and St Cyprians was selected as an Innovative Pathfinder school. SchoolNet was delighted to be asked to help coordinate the entry and judging process for this event and to coordinate a series of school visits for delegates.
Mouse Mischief Competition
SchoolNet administered another competition for Microsoft in which teachers from throughout Africa were invited to develop a lesson using Mouse Mischief (a PowerPoint add-in that enables teachers to set up interactive lessons using more than one mouse). This involved developing a scoring template, selecting winners and distributing prizes. The overall winner was a South African teacher who attended the Pan African IEF as part of her prize.
Left is Hafeeza Mayet the winner of the Mouse Mischief Competition
Microsoft Partners in Learning Materials Development
SchoolNet SA continues to be involved in developing courseware for the Microsoft Partners in Learning courses. In 2010 new scenarios were developed for the ICT Skills for Teachers and One Step Further courses to show teachers how Microsoft offerings such as Auto-Collage and Worldwide Telescope, to name just two, could be integrated into teaching and learning. The HelpDesk course was updated to reflect the Master Trainer’s experiences of what worked well during training sessions and to be in line with evolving technology. SchoolNet SA has developed materials to help schools provisioned with Live@Edu accounts to use the Windows Live features more effectively. SchoolNet has also been involved in developing a presentation on the Microsoft Learning Suite of free resources for schools and making teachers aware of these through presentations at the University of Pretoria and at conferences.
Microsoft – Case Studies and Evaluation
After the 2009 Pan African Innovative Teacher event, SchoolNet SA was asked to develop two case studies that showcased two African innovative teachers or success stories. Case studies were subsequently written documenting the journey of the Lesotho teacher who won the educator’s choice prize at the Brazil WW IEF as well as a former Ugandan WW IEF winner who is now mentoring other teachers. In 2010, SchoolNet was commissioned to conduct a review of the Partners in Learning Network and how it is being used and perceived by African teachers. SchoolNet also conducted a review of materials developed by Mindset that had been commissioned by Microsoft. We were excited to be involved in these projects as the assignments extended beyond South Africa and our usual role of developing materials and conducting training.
Support for the Microsoft School Technology Innovation Centre
In 2010 the move from the original STIC location at the Johannesburg Central College to the Sci Bono centre in Newtown was completed. SchoolNet assisted with the setting up the new centre and we are delighted to have such an exciting space so close to our own offices. SchoolNet has benefitted from the STIC in that we have been able to use it and its resources for a number of projects, most notably the AED New Futures project. We continue to support it by helping to coordinate training events at the STIC, and overseeing the ICT Skills for Teachers training that is conducted by Sci Bono. The centre manager, Victor Ngobeni provides expertise and support to all SchoolNet programmes run at the centre and has been one of SchoolNet’s best trainers since 2005.
Microsoft Xbox and Kinect
An interesting project to be started in 2010 in a rural junior primary school in Vryheid, KwaZulu-Natal emerged from Microsoft headquarters in Redmond. The intervention aims to find out whether the use of gaming using Xboxes and Kinect technology has any effect on English language acquisition in junior primary learners. It is evident that the teachers at the school are a very dedicated group and it is clear that they are excited but somewhat apprehensive about this very technological pilot. SchoolNet has been tasked with end to end project management which includes installation of security and hardware in 6 classrooms, development of a teacher training guide, training of teachers and management of the evaluation. This initiative is an exciting departure from the norm and we are all eager to scrutinise the findings.
Microsoft Peer Coaching
In 2010 Peer Coaching took place in clusters in Bloemfontein, Port Elizabeth, Durban and Pretoria. Whilst it is challenging to attract suitable teachers and to get teachers to commit to a programme that lasts nine months, Peer Coaching remains a highly successful professional development model that makes a sustained impact in the schools that participate. Peer Coaching also helps to get clusters of teachers involved in other training opportunities and works well with the approach of offering a range of courses to teachers in selected areas and to thereby build up pockets of excellence as opposed to spreading the training budget thinly across more schools.
Microsoft Teacher Training and Provincial Capacity Building
The Microsoft Partners in Learning funding model works on the assumption that while Microsoft will fund initial training and capacity building, it is hoped that Provincial Departments of Education will pay for mass training rollouts. During 2010, Microsoft sponsored selected training opportunities to showcase the courses and to offer provincial officials the opportunity to experience training. A number of meetings were also organised with provincial officials to discuss possible roadmaps for training.
2.3. INSPIRE
The Limpopo Office of the Premier and Provincial Information Society Strategy Development Programme in the Republic of South Africa (INSPIRE) in collaboration with the Limpopo Department of Education and funded by the Finnish and South African governments wished to establish an information society strategy and model. The intention was to roll out a pilot in one district of Limpopo with a view to replicating the model in other districts, other provinces and ultimately in other SADC countries. SchoolNet was contracted to conceptualise the project, to appoint and train facilitators and to monitor the quality of training. The implementation of the project was the responsibility of the district officials. Although this project was intended to build capacity within the district a range of problems arose with infrastructure, software, connectivity, capacity of the district based project staff and poorly selected district schools. Many lessons were learnt and many teachers and trainers were trained but further analysis has to be conducted before the model can be replicated or scaled.