Welcome to our November 2015 newsletter. Firstly we thank our teachers for their hard work during 2015 educating our South African youth, and we wish you a restful and refreshing end-of-year break. In this issue we are excited to bring you the names of the new 2016 Microsoft Innovative Educator Experts. We also update you on information about our many interesting professional development projects around South Africa and abroad. Please remember to register to become a SchoolNet member if you haven't already done so so that you can be made aware of our various offerings for educators. If you are not sure whether you are a SchoolNet member please click on 'Sign up for SchoolNet membership' on our website home page athttp://www.schoolnet.org.za/and join today, so that you don't miss out on our many offerings for teachers.
Congratulations to the new 2016 Microsoft Innovative Educator Experts...
SchoolNet SA would like to congratulate the South African and Lesotho Microsoft Innovative Educator Experts who have been selected to be part of this programme for 2015-2016. This year we have a total of 61 MIEs - 46 new MIEs as well as 15 MIEs who were selected in 2014 who have opted to remain in the programme.During the course of the year, all Microsoft Innovative Educator Experts will have an opportunity to:
test new Microsoft products whilst they are in beta form;
participate in exclusive professional development opportunities
and participate in focus groups to give feedback to development teams at Microsoft.
Most exciting of all is that SOME of the South African and Lesotho MIEs will be selected to be amongst 300 MIEs from around the world who will attend the Microsoft in Educator Exchange Event (E²), in Budapest, Hungary in March 2016.To read more about the Microsoft Innovative Educators program, please visitthis link
Find out the details of the 61 new MIEExperts for SA on our bloghere:
The 2015 SchoolNet Annual Report
2015 appeared to be as eventful as ever for SchoolNet South Africa, at least for the first half of the year. Many new projects arose at the start of the year that showed serious potential. However quite a number of these did not materialise. For example it was most unfortunate that after an excellent start, the Anglo Platinum initiative was curtailed due to the down turn in the platinum market. Fortunately the majority of ongoing projects continued while some of our existing partners initiated new interventions. These included: Intel, Microsoft, Google, Vodacom, CSIR, The Commonwealth of Learning, Telkom, DBE, and the DG Murray Trust. National planning in the Operation Phakisa initiative is predicted to result in teacher professional development that focuses on the most impactful aspects of ICT integration as from 2016 onwards.
SchoolNet SA presents Learning Gains through Play project at an International Conference in Italy 12-13 November 2015
About 140 delegates from 48 countries around the globe gathered at the Grand Hotel Mediterraneo in Florence, Italy on the 12th and 13th of November to attend the 8th Edition of the ICT 4 Language Learning International Conference. More than 70% of the delegates were university representatives. Hlengiwe Mfeka attended the conference as a SchoolNet SA representative to present the DG Murray Trust project "Learning Gains through Play" paper on how Intel tablets and the Xbox Kinect develop foundational literacies skills in Grade R and 1 through play-based learning.
Read more about this great experience on our websitehere:
Anglo Platinum supports teachers around its mining operations
The initial project involved supporting communities by commissioning SchoolNet to provide training to two teachers in each of the 266 secondary schools around Anglo Platinum mining operations. This project has now been extended to provide eight deserving schools with a hardware solution which includes a charging trolley of thirty Intel 2- in -1 devices, a content access point and professional development for teachers in the use of tablets for teaching and learning.
Telkom Foundation, in collaboration with SchoolNet continues it professional development programme in 36 schools in the Free State, Eastern Cape and Western Cape. The Senior management teams in each of the participating schools attend monthly workshops in our Change Leadership for ICT Integration course. This course outline has been influenced by literature on the key elements of change management and the debate about change leadership which is underpinned by Michael Fullan's work on Learning to Lead Change; the idea that change needs energy, ideas, commitment and ownership rather than a controlling management.
Read more about the Telkom Schools Connectivity projecthere.
Learning Gains through Play project - KZN Change Leadership workshop develops a culture of evaluation
The Change Leadership workshop for the final module was facilitated on 22nd
and 30th
October 2015 to eight School Management Teams from four KZN schools. This is a longer module compared to the other six and therefore was conducted over two afternoons. Before the facilitation, one of the principals Ms Thembi Mbanjwa from Qhamukile Primary School was awarded with a Microsoft Surface tablet for commitment and outstanding support she gives to her project teachers. She was the 3
rd principal in the KZN province to receive an award.
Development of Online B.Ed Arts and Science (B.Ed) Modules, Kenyatta University
The Commonwealth of Learning (COL) recently contracted SchoolNet SA to facilitate two workshops for School of Education lecturers at the Kenyatta University, Nairobi, Kenya. SchoolNet's Omashani Naidoo facilitated these workshops which will produce, by January 2016, seven online modules for the School of Education. Each workshop had a different focus and the first served to build ICT integration skills and the second workshop concentrated efforts on affordances for writing online modules with ICTs intrinsically infused in the learning. SchoolNet is now providing virtual support to lecturers whilst they write their online modules.
Read more on each of the face to face workshops - Workshop 1 and Workshop 2 on our website
Learning Gains through Play - KZN Scavenger Hunt
Module 8 is the scavenger hunt teaching strategy that allows learners to go out of class to have real experience that is related to any subject content area.
The scavenger hunt template provided for the teachers can be adapted for use on field trips or as part of other classroom activities across a range of subjects.
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