Training Day: 11

Back in our favourite location: Langa, day 11. I arrived quite early at the school, did the usual rounds at the secretary's office (only experience can tell you that you need to formally announce your presence on arrival), and proceeded to set up the PCs. Only to learn, to my not-so-astonishment, that the internet was capped. Alas, one of the problems most - if not all - our schools have is that of bandwidth. They have ridiculous bandwidth caps - something like 3 or 5 GB per school per month. Just think how easy it is to reach that limit after a thousand kids and fifty teachers have visited the lab. Nonetheless, we had to make due...I've been in this situation before, and honestly, the first few times I panicked. It wasn't an option today: these teachers were motivated (could it be because the aircon was working again?), and arrived on time as well. Even the former 'class rogue' pitched up (aircon?).

I happened to notice that certain local sites were still functioning, including Google's local engine. I then decided to combine Google capabilities with that of the ever-evasive MS PowerPoint in what I shall here refer to as: the slideshow special. Oh and by the way, our Post Doc and new Doc was on-site as well, which was awesome: we had three skilled people to manage a room of six. That's hands-on right there. I first asked teachers to create personal folders on the server. Then I proceeded to do an MS PowerPoint introduction. I asked teachers to compile a slideshow that was relevant to what they taught in class (i.e. biology, math, health, etc.). This then involved searching the local Google for pics and information on those very topics. Fortunately we were able to copy pics (I should say thumbnails) from Google into our presentations. I proceeded to demonstrate how PP animation is done, and teachers were so excited by the results. All in all, I think it was a fruitful session: we combined basic internet functionality with basic presentation software, and I think such a combination can be useful if deployed well.

Several teachers asked for some kind of 'work pack': a PDF or similar which illustrates everything I taught, step by step. This is something we did during the former module as well, and it is something I still need to do (aside from the introductory one I already copied onto each school's server). Due to the fact that I've improvised - quite significantly! - I haven't really had the opportunity to sit down and condense everything into a nice PDF. That's it for today, will check back in soon!

Our doctoral candidate Patricia