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Themba Dlamini

End User Computing NQF3 learnership on 3 June 2013 - 0 views

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    End User Computing Learnership NQF Level 3 Pax Careers (Pty) Ltd. - GP End User Computing Learnership NQF Level 3 Ref: JV-NQF3-B R2500 per month Basic Salary for 12 months... following areas for End User Computing (very little...
Teachers Without Borders

INDIA: 100-Dollar Laptops Bring In Distant Kids - IPS ipsnews.net - 0 views

  • Responding to the lack of computer training in Mukteshwar’s schools, Veena Sethi, a retired Delhi University professor, set up two used personal computers in the basement of her home with the aim of bringing the basics of computing to school children.
  • UDAAN, however, moved on. A partnership with Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University made it possible for the NGO to introduce the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) programme in selected schools in Mukteshwar in May 2010. OLPC’s stated mission is to provide a means for learning, self-expression, and exploration to some two billion children in developing countries with little or no access to education.
  • "The XO machine is ideal for children in remote places where the classroom may be no more than the shade of a tree," explains Satish Jha, who heads OLPC in India. The XO laptop’s wireless connectivity and free, open-source "Sugar" operating system allows children to reshape, reinvent, and reapply both software and content. "The laptops grow with the children," Jha said.
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  • Ashish Garg, country director for the United Nations Global e-Schools and Communities Initiative, told IPS that she sees little difference between students emerging from India’s schools today and those who did so 20 years ago when the country first announced plans to introduce ICTE in its 1.2 million schools. "They may as well have been working on typewriters.
  • Nanyang University is already preparing an evaluation report based on tests in three areas of cognitive empowerment - computer self-efficacy, academic self-efficacy, technological literacy and functional literacy.
Teachers Without Borders

Tatarstan Seeks High-Tech Edge in School With Help of Intel | Business | The Moscow Times - 0 views

  • KAZAN — Google has become a classroom tool in Tatarstan as the republic, already ranked by Forbes as Russia’s best region for business, invests heavily in digital technologies for its schools in hopes of becoming the best region for education as well. Tatarstan's annual budget for education has doubled over the past five years to 36 billion rubles ($1.2 billion), and it is spending 1.92 billion rubles over 2010-11 to develop computer-based education, the republic's education and science minister, Albert Gilmutdinov, said at the Electronic School 2011 conference in Kazan. In addition, 103.2 million rubles in federal funding is being used. Gilmutdinov recalled the Russian saying "a miser pays twice" as he explained the republic's hefty investment in education. To be commercially successful in the 21st century, Tatarstan will have to be well-educated, he told The Moscow Times at the conference last week.
  • The microprocessor producer has donated Intel-based computers to a Kazan classroom and conducted free teacher training in Tatarstan, said Sergei Zhukov, the Russia and CIS director of Intel's World Ahead Program, which works with governments to increase access to technology. The program's work in Tatarstan is one of  its largest projects in Russia, he said.
  • The republic's educational development strategy for 2010-15 includes installing computers and high-speed Internet in all of Tatarstan's 1,940 schools, purchasing digital educational content and training teachers to use the new technology. All schools will offer services such as school web sites, text messaging for parents and digital records and schedules. The region is working with partners including Intel, Google, Microsoft and the Tatarstan IT company ILC-KME CS.
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  • Tatarstan has already purchased laptops for all of its 42,000 teachers at a cost of about 1 billion rubles, and equipping its 380,000 students with computers would cost about 10 times as much, he noted. The region has also already purchased 16,739 desktops computers for schools and 6,360 laptops for students.
  • Some experts, however, have voiced concern over the level of technology in schools. Although the Internet provides students with access to a far greater range of resources, left unchecked it can breed dependency, said Vadim Meleshko, deputy director of development at the Teachers' Newspaper.
Martyn Steiner

Student teachers' thinking processes and ICT integration - 1 views

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    This study centers on the impact of Chinese student teachers' gender, constructivist teaching beliefs, teaching self-efficacy, computer self-efficacy, and computer attitudes on their prospective ICT use.
Martyn Steiner

MIT OpenCourseWare | Urban Studies and Planning | 11.127J Computer Games and Simulation... - 0 views

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    In this project-based course, students learn how we learn from interactive computer environments, and delve into the process of designing and understanding simulations and games for learning.
Teachers Without Borders

India announces $35 tablet computer to help lift villagers out of poverty - The Washing... - 0 views

  • NEW DELHI — India introduced a cheap tablet computer Wednesday, saying it would deliver modern technology to the countryside to help lift villagers out of poverty.
  • Developer Datawind is selling the tablets to the government for about $45 each, and subsidies will reduce that to $35 for students and teachers.
  • “This is not just for us. This is for all of you who are disempowered,” he said. “This is for all those who live on the fringes of society.”Despite a burgeoning tech industry and decades of robust economic growth, there are still hundreds of thousands of Indians with no electricity, let alone access to computers and information that could help farmers improve yields, business startups reach clients, or students qualify for university.
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  • The Android 2.2-based device has two USB ports and 256 megabytes of RAM. Despite hopes for a solar-powered version — important for India’s energy-starved hinterlands — no such option is currently available.
  • India, after raising literacy to about 78 percent from 12 percent when British rule ended, is now focusing on higher education with a 2020 goal of 30 percent enrollment. Today, only 7 percent of Indians graduate from high school.
Teachers Without Borders

Laptops for teachers? - The Teacher (South Africa) - 0 views

  • However, teacher unions have warned that training on the use of the computers is imperative, while analysts emphasise that the education department must monitor benefits to the system or the money will be lost.
  • He said the department wants to give teachers the tools to develop and to make the revised outcomes-based education (OBE) system work. Many teachers have been inadequately trained under the OBE system and some do not understand the content they are expected to teach, resulting in learners performing poorly.
  • Patel said it could take 10 years to retrain teachers at great costs but, through the use of computers, ­training could be accelerated and materials could be made available. "They could have access to lesson plans, for example."
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  • He said: "Every qualifying teacher (public paid and permanent) will be entitled to a computer on application...Investigations are under way around whether the computers will be an outright purchase, a monthly subsidy for a period of five years, or an allowance."
  • One model could entail teachers receiving R1 500 annually and choosing their laptops according to their needs, but there would be norms and standards. Depending on the package they choose, teachers might have to top up from their own funds.
  • He said the allowance or subsidy will cover internet usage through a data card or fixed line, while the marketplace has wind-up generators or solar-powered batteries to accommodate teachers in the rural areas.
  • No face-to-face training is envisaged, but the use of software to assist training is being investigated.
  • He said laptops alone will not turn the situation around. "There are other issues that also need to be dealt with, such as poor infrastructure, lack of textbooks and proper teacher training".
Stephanie Lill

Internet's memory effects quantified in computer study - 0 views

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    Computers and the internet are changing the nature of our memory, research in the journal Science suggests.
Teachers Without Borders

Locator chips keep track of students in Brazil - World - NewsObserver.com - 0 views

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    Radio frequency chips in "intelligent uniforms" let a computer know when children enter school and it sends a text message to their cell phones. Parents are also alerted if kids don't show up 20 minutes after classes begin with the following message: "Your child has still not arrived at school."
Teachers Without Borders

Bangkok Post : Apple approaches Education Ministry - 0 views

  • Computer giant Apple has expressed interest in making a deal to supply its tablet computers to the Education Ministry for use in Thai schools.
  • The minister said Apple and his ministry would form a working group to test how Apple products could serve the project. If the test proved positive, the ministry would be interested, despite the high prices. If not, the ministry would choose an Android operating system, Mr Woravat said.
  • The distribution of tablet computers to students was one of election campaign promises of the governing Pheu Thai Party.
Teachers Without Borders

Education |P6 in Uganda pupils cannot do fractions - report - 2 views

  • Although the introduction of Universal Primary Education (UPE) has boosted enrollment in primary schools (Uganda boasts 8.3 million children in primary schools compared to 2.3 million before 1997), numerous pupils continue to perform poorly at one of the most important aspects of basic education.
  • The report stated that, “Few primary six pupils demonstrated skills in other competences of ‘measures.’ Only about a third of the pupils (35.2 per cent) could for example tell the time shown on the clock face and merely 4.1 per cent of the pupils could apply the concept of capacity in real life situations.”The tests sampled pupils in 1,098 schools from all the districts in Uganda between the ages of nine and 15 and over.
  • Findings indicate that the main reason why pupils cannot practically apply what is taught in class is the teachers failure to identify the weakness of the pupils in the various areas of study.
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  • The report says: “the cause of this is failure to use assessment to diagnose pupils’ and to guide teaching and inadequate practice as these pupils do their work. Primary Six pupils, whose teachers had a university degree or Grade III teaching certificate, performed better than those whose head teachers had a Grade V teaching certificate. Pupils with head teachers who reside at school performed poorer than those whose head teachers live outside the school.”
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    It is evident that the sources of these problems must be sought in earlier grades, and even in the experiences of Ugandan pre-schoolers. Compare them with what I describe at http://replacingtextbooks.wordpress.com/2011/07/25/higher-mathematics-for-children/ for children in the US. There are excellent materials on fractions online. See http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Open_Education_Resources for links to some sites that have as many as 100,000 e-learning resources available. Even if students do not have computers, teachers who can access these lessons can adapt them for the classroom or for individual practice, and share them with teachers who do not have Web access. On the issue of fractions, see also http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/TurtleArt/Tutorials/Fractions for an approach that requires no computers, but will be enhanced with software activities fairly soon. If your students have trouble with these exercises, and you can tell us why, we will work with you and them to develop materials that meet their needs. You will also have to tell us if there are circular Ugandan foods that we can use in lessons for children who are not familiar with European/American cakes, pies, and pizza. ^_^ When you have a 4.1% success rate on a particular topic, and thus a 95.9% failure rate, it cannot be said that individual teachers have failed to recognize individual difficulties. This is evidence that the entire curriculum is misdesigned. I assume that this is some part of the holdover colonial education system from before independence, designed originally for European children, with no relation to the prior experi
Teachers Without Borders

Ontario forges stimulus plan to boost financial literacy in teens - The Globe and Mail - 0 views

  • Lest history repeat itself, Ontario has laid the educational groundwork for a new generation of students who appreciate the perils of interest rates and debt, and know the real cost of borrowing money.The province’s Ministry of Education has released comprehensive teacher guidelines that identify places in the Grade 4 through 12 curriculum where financial literacy can be inserted into classes as varied as mathematics, computer science and native studies.
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    Lest history repeat itself, Ontario has laid the educational groundwork for a new generation of students who appreciate the perils of interest rates and debt, and know the real cost of borrowing money. The province's Ministry of Education has released comprehensive teacher guidelines that identify places in the Grade 4 through 12 curriculum where financial literacy can be inserted into classes as varied as mathematics, computer science and native studies.
Martyn Steiner

MIT OpenCourseWare | Media Arts and Sciences | MAS.714J Technologies for Creative Learn... - 0 views

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    This course explores the design of innovative educational technologies and creative learning environments, drawing on specific case studies such as the LEGO® Programmable Brick, Scratch software and Computer Clubhouse after-school learning centers. Includes activities with new educational technologies, reflections on learning experiences, and discussion of strategies and principles underlying the design of new tools and activities.
Teachers Without Borders

Ghanaian Teachers Discuss Computer Use at ICT Forum - International Institute for Commu... - 0 views

  • One of the things that came up during the meeting is that it is hard to find qualified tutors to teach ICT in primary schools.
Teachers Without Borders

How Cheap Computers Can Provide an Invaluable Education | GreenOpenFair - 0 views

  • Our goal at Cherrypal is to help educate children all around the world so that the digital divide is no longer a divide but a global community of knowledge that everyone has access to.
Teachers Without Borders

StreetWise - MobileActive08 Chris Williamson - 0 views

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    Chris Williamson MobileActive08: Chris Williamson Category: Nonprofits & Activism Tags: MobileActive08 Chris Williamson ICT4D
Teachers Without Borders

Mosoko - NRCC Wiki - 0 views

  • Two recent examples show how mobile phones can improve peoples' access to information in developing economies. Robert Jensen studied the effect of the growth in mobile phone use in fishing villages in the Indian state of Kerala. As cellular coverage grew from nothing to 100% from 1997 to 2000, the fish market became more efficient: fishermen knew where that days' catch would fetch a good price, price fluctuations between villages diminished, and fewer fish were discarded at the end of each day. A second example shows how markets for agricultural goods -- accessed via phone -- aided farmers in East Africa. The Kenyan Agricultural Commodity Exchange makes nationwide prices available through text messages. Prior to the Exchange, the main source of pricing information was the middleman to whom the farmers were selling -- people who were motivated to buy the commodity as cheaply as possible. Armed with better pricing information, farmers can now sell their goods for prices closer to market rates.
  • Billions of people have mobile phones but only a small fraction of those people have access to the Web. We are focusing on three main types of services that are widespread on the Web, but are absent in developing regions: classified advertising, social networks, and information sharing through Wikis. In all three service aspects, we seek to provide an intuitive and dynamic infrastructure for user-generated content. Craigslist, in the US, and similar free classified services in other developed countries have created marketplaces for exchanging goods and services where none existed before. Their web-based access cannot be brought to developing countries in the near future. Instead, what if we could assist people in forming similar types of connections using only their mobile phones?
  • Short-term goals: Focus on one domain: apartment listings. Build a prototype and deploy it for a month in Nairobi for free.
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  • Provide more powerful interfaces to users who do have Internet access. These interfaces will be both through standard computer web browsers and through customized applications that run on higher-end phones. Currently, the vast majority of phones in developing regions are not capable of running customized applications (e.g. Java). Use speech recognition to improve matching process.
  • This project seeks to develop an "audio wiki" -- an open platform (like Wikipedia) that people can freely access and contribute to, but rather than using a desktop computer, they use a cell phone. This means that all content will be spoken rather than written, and there are a host of interesting challenges in user interfaces, speech recognition, and audio processing that need to be tackled.
Teachers Without Borders

allAfrica.com: Rwanda: Free Basic Education Increases Enrolment - 1 views

  • Kigali — Early last year, the government introduced the 9-Year Basic Education (9 YBE) programme, which offers six years of primary education and three years of secondary education to all Rwandan children free of charge.The idea was to have school-going children unable to access education in the past to do so, and be able to compete in the job market regionally. The Ministry of Education also hopes that the programme will reduce the dropout rate in schools.Information from the Ministry of Education indicates that already, the current enrolment rate stands at 97 percent for boys and 98 percent for girls.
  • According to UNESCO, this is the highest enrolment rate in the region. So far, many countries are implementing free primary education. Few, however, have put in place a programme for post-primary education.
  • Several Headteachers say the programme has gained momentum following a recent schools construction campaign that has seen thousands of new classrooms built across the country. Nearly all the classrooms have been voluntarily built by parents, teachers, university students or government officials. They say the strategy of free education for all is beginning to pay off. The enrolment rate has increased as more children go to school.
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  • The goal is to reduce the teacher-student ratio from 74 to 45 students per teacher. Though headteachers commended the government's effort to equip schools with the basic teaching materials like books, they noted that lack of computers and the insufficient lab materials for practical lessons hamper the success of the programme.
  • Electricity also remains a challenge especially for schools and students in rural areas. This has a great impact on students' performance.
Teachers Without Borders

How do you evaluate a plan like Ceibal? | A World Bank Blog on ICT use in Education - 0 views

  • n many ways, Ceibal can, and perhaps should, be seen not so much as an education project, but as a larger societal transformation project (of the sort often associated with e-government initiatives), with the education system as the primary and initial dissemination vector.
  • Under Plan Ceibal (earlier blog post here), Uruguay is the first country in the world to ensure that all primary school students (or at least those in public schools) have their own personal laptop.  For free.  (The program is being extended to high schools, and, under a different financial scheme, to private schools as well).  Ceibal is about more than just 'free laptops for kids', however.  There is a complementary educational television channel. Schools serve as centers for free community wi-fi, and free connectivity has been introduced in hundreds of municipal centers around the country as well.  There are free local training programs for parents and community members on how to use the equipment.  Visiting Uruguay last week, I was struck by how many references there were to 'one laptop per teacher' (and not just 'one laptop per child', which has been the rallying cry for a larger international initiative and movement). 
  • There is no doubt about the numbers (over 380,000) in Uruguay -- the laptops are not sitting in boxes under an awning at the Ministry of Education collecting dust.  You see them everywhere you see school children.
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  • Notably, and tellingly, Plan Ceibal rolled out first in rural and poor communities, with schools in the capital city of Montevideo reached only in the final stage of deployment.  This stands in stark contrast to the way educational technologies make their way into schools and communities pretty much everywhere else in the world, where urban population centers and wealthy communities are typically first in line (and in many places, the line may end with them!)
  • Standing amidst the computer-enabled hubbub of activity that now characterizes the standard learning environments in Uruguayan schools, there can be no denying that something new and different is happening in a big way. Every student in every classroom in every school (and, just as importantly, in every home) is different by multiple orders of magnitude
  • What might the consequences be if young people in Uruguay have what is essentially an 'extra' ten years of technology literacy -- what might happen during those ten years (and beyond) as a result? No one knows, but it will be quite interesting to watch.
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