FEW South African schools have computers that can be used in teaching, but teachers should not “wait for the perfect computer” when they have cellphones, says Bloemfontein teacher Sarietjie Musgrave.
Musgrave attended the National Educators Computing Conference in Washington , where she addressed an international audience of teachers about her conversion from
IT-shy primary school teacher to second place in the 2008 Microsoft Worldwide Innovative Teachers Forum (ITF) awards in Hong Kong.
“I love working with grade 11s and 12s. They don’t have a car yet, but they go for their learner’s licence because they hope they will have a car in the future.
“I wish teachers could have that optimism too. They wait for the perfect computer when they have a cellphone in their hands. They should be using (their cellphones as computers) in innovative ways,” says Musgrave.
Last November, the education department admitted 68% of public schools had no computers for teaching and learning. One of former education minister ’s final acts was a “teacher laptop initiative” to help teachers buy laptops, a move President ’s administration has endorsed.
Musgrave knew little about computers 12 years ago. Just back from a year’s au pairing and teaching in London, she won a post at a Bloemfontein primary school, but was not paid for months after the education department lost her appointment forms. So she signed up to teach at Futurekids , an international business that teaches school children computer skills.
“I knew how to turn on a computer, and some basic word processing and spreadsheets. I had to study, and then teach the kids what I’d just learned,” she says.
Then she was offered a job at Bloemfontein’s Eunice High School as the principal wanted to bring computing into the curriculum. Musgrave’s degree in primary education included two subjects at university level, making her eligible to teach high school. The Eunice principal was forward-looking, says Musgrave. Computing skills are often taught in isolation, not reflecting how computers are used in all aspects of modern life.
These days, Musgrave gets her pupils to use computers and cellphones, internet enabled or not, for projects, whether making a PowerPoint presentation on “globalisation in history” or recording video clips of interviews with parents and grandparents for life orientation.
“I don’t mind. As long as it extends their research skills, I am happy,” she says.
But her statement is a far cry from bans on cellphones at schools, and there is no doubt cellphones can pose a problem. Cyberbullying — using technological devices such as computers and cellphones to bully peers — is widespread, says CyberAdvice MD Daniella Kafouris.
But Musgrave extols technology’s virtues, saying she uses computers every day. “I put on (the Eunice) intranet a ‘scaffolding’ that (my pupils) can use (to frame research for a task), or I write a blog. I was in bed three weeks ago and I could monitor my class from my laptop.”
This dedication won her the 2008 SA ITF award. It began in 2006 when Musgrave realised that many Eunice teachers were not confident enough to use computers in their classrooms, and that the solution was walking about the school in uniform.
“Every learner who was good at computers adopted a teacher, and taught them how to use ICT (information and communications technology). The teachers learned how to use computers, and the kids got to feel how it is to be a teacher,” she says.
That project’s success moved Musgrave to extend it to other schools. She got the school’s grade 10 class to write a training manual for teachers, who came to Eunice on Saturdays to be taught by pupils. This second project Musgrave entered into the ITF competition.
Then came last year, and Musgrave got her pupils to explore how ICT could ease the lives of people with disabilities.
Each of the 64 pupil volunteers chose a disabled person from their community, and found a way to help simplify their life. The results ranged from the pupil who found software that allowed a person to write music on a computer, and who used it to help a deaf schoolmate to record a CD, to one who helped a granny, isolated in a local old age home, learn to e-mail and use Skype to communicate with her family in Greece.
This year’s project is “a bit challenging”, she says. Five Free State schools are collaborating with lecturers from De Montfort University in the UK via Skype to investigate the needs of vulnerable children in the Mangaung community. They hope to share their findings with social study students across the world.