Popping the bubble: 10 Things I have learned about Global Thinking

I will carry with me many special memories and lessons learned of the two years I lived and worked in Mozambique. The experiences have profoundly affected the way I view government, democracy, education, privilege, taxation, corruption and standard of living. Along the way I have met unsung heroes who strive for change in their communities, be it rural, urban, privileged or extremely poor. Along the way, many of my students impressed me with their understanding of global citizenship and empathy for different cultures.

The past five years have flown by quickly since I initially began building relationships with Africans in an educational context. I am still groping to understand and make sense of the place of educational technology in developing nations. But I am coming away with a firm conviction that we educators must find a way to challenge our students to be doing more with technology than merely keeping up with the latest gadgets, games and gimmicks. We must be facilitating opportunities for our students to use technology for meaningful purposes that will serve to address so many of the global issues our world faces. I also believe students must have opportunities to see firsthand those initiatives who are striving to make change in their environment or society and to also, more importantly, roll up their sleeves and pitch in.

No matter where in the world we are, those of us who work in an educational technology context are often in contexts where our students live in a bubble protected from exposure to extreme poverty, filthy environments, human trafficking (including child slavery and prostitution) and high risk of exposure to health issues.

We have an opportunity, through service learning, as one example, to pop the bubble.

This year I experienced a sort of existential crisis of my faith in educational systems. It may have been a result of some kind of re-entry culture shock after spending two summers in Africa working with teachers and visiting many rural schools. But I don’t think I am alone in this experience. If you follow the blogs and listen to the conversations at education conferences, you can’t help but notice a certain sense of urgency and even despair regarding the state of education in North America (some might even say the Western world).

This crisis in faith took on a personal note as I watched my youngest  child flounder aimlessly in school, unengaged, disengaged and tuned out – and yes, he was attending a top-rated independent school. This year we moved him to a public school, where he is a little happier, but even he is very much aware that the quality of his education is lacking.

I began my own informal quest for “schools that work”. As I have traveled a fair amount recently for conferences, I have often sought out peers in my network and asked if I could visit their school. Of course, I read some excellent books recommended by other educators (see below for list of Dangerous Books to Read). Because I have hosted a webcast for the last three or more years, I have also had many thoughtful conversations with educators from around the world.

Of course there is no such thing as the perfect school which can accommodate every student. However, there are some common denominators that “successful” schools seem to share. Here are my observations:

• Positive school culture where student leadership and initiative are overtly and implicitly valued
• Reality-based learning is valued and included as part of the core curriculum and is integrated with community service
• Professional learning communities are established where colleagues share wisdom, knowledge and mutual respect
• Innovation and new ideas are embraced; failure is “permitted” in non-threatening atmosphere
• Teachers have sense of autonomy over their courses in order to permit creativity and innovation
• Teachers collaborate on inter-disciplinary projects
• Parent involvement is valued
• Sense of global citizenship and responsibility is fostered
• Place of technology is seen as a tool to undergird practices stated above

It is my belief that the key to the creation, development and maintenance of any of these common denominators is school leadership with a strong vision.

So what do you think? What have I missed?

In late June I will be working with a team of international teachers (volunteers with Education Beyond Borders) in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. We will be facilitating ICT (Information, Communication Technologies) workshops for thirty-five top level administrators in the province whose mandate is to implement an ICT programme in their province – the largest by population size in the country – and the poorest. Most of the schools lack a fully functional computer lab. Some of the schools lack even electricity. The government leaders recognize the necessity of ICT training to prepare students for the 21st century in a rapidly recovering nation. Yet, the chief problem identified by the head of this programme (with whom we are working) is lack of support by the principals of the schools. We have a daunting task ahead of us.

After our time in the Eastern Cape, we move to Cape Town for three weeks to work with our NGO partner to facilitate workshops for teachers in the townships. Our partnering NGO has recognized the importance of school leadership in the process of ICT integration and offers a three-day “Bootcamp” for principals which is followed up over time with visits and support. We are trying to share this model with the initiative in the Eastern Cape.

Last August, I had the incredible opportunity to work in a very rural district in Western Kenya where our team helped to facilitate ICT workshops for the local teachers. Before the workshops began, we visited many schools and on one day we hired a boat to visit schools on the remote islands in Lake Victoria. Although the District Education Office arranged our boat trip, we did not contact the schools before our visit so that we could catch them in action. Our first stop was Kibuogi Island – so remote you will not find it on Google Earth. We landed on the shore and walked up the hill to the primary school. In spite of the fact that it was barely 10 AM, the principal was so drunk he could barely walk. His staff of teachers (five or so thoroughly disgusted men and women), sat with him in his “office” for our conversation. It was pretty clear that morale was low. The teachers clearly felt forgotten and very discouraged in their jobs. We finally managed to persuade one of the teachers to join us the following week for the workshops. Erick joined us and would later prove to be one of the most enthusiastic teachers of the more than fifty teachers who participated. Using his cell phone he occasionally texts me from his remote island to let me know how he is doing. In December he shared that our workshops inspired him to return to university for further studies. The drunken principal has been replaced this year.

Visiting the Primary School on Kibuogi Island

We gave Erick a Flip camera. The children on the island (which has no electricity) have never seen even a car or bicycle before. With the Flip, Erick can take footage when he visits the mainland and show his students such things. We also encouraged him to use the camera to document his students’ experiences so that we can appreciate this tiny forgotten island.

The drunken principal of a school on a remote island will remain with me as a powerful analogy of the necessity for school leadership with vision in order to empower students and teachers to greater possibilities and learning opportunities.

As I have sorted out this existential crisis, which is gradually moving from cynicism to optimism, the issue of leadership has become critical. How do we, who may not be in leadership positions, become change agents to promote “schools that work”? How can we encourage vision for change in our school leaders? How do we support our leaders who do promote change but who may be unpopular (change is not easily embraced by all, after all). How do we know when it is time to move on?

In some ways, this blog post is my swan song to the NAIS. Reading Sir Ken Robinson’s The Element is a dangerous thing. After four weeks in South Africa in June and July, I will move to Maputo, Mozambique to follow my passion and join the staff at the American International School of Mozambique. After only one year of public high school, my son is very much looking forward to completing his high school education in the IB programme of that school with students from 50+ nationalities. I am thrilled that I will be able to continue my volunteer work with community service and education in Africa.

Other Dangerous Books and Essays to Read (which have greatly influenced my thinking, practice and this blog post):

The Global Achievement Gap by Tony Wagner

Disrupting Class by Clayton Christensen, Michael B. Horn & Curtis Johnson

The World is Open by Curtis Bonk

Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky

What Matters Now (compilation of short essays with proceeds going to “Room to Read”)

Drive by Daniel Pink

And, of course, Three Cups of Tea, by Greg Mortensen (Stones Into Schools is on my list to be read)

Kenyan teachers at TWBC Workshops in Mbita Kenya (credit: Sharon Peters)

On many occasions in 2009 I described myself as an ordinary teacher who has had extraordinary opportunities. I am very thankful for those extraordinary opportunities and for the many, many inspiring teachers and visionaries I met over the course of the year.

Top Ten Special Moments

Take2 videos - footage shot in Sudan

1. Working with Karin Muller of Take2 videos:

Karin Muller, who created Take2 videos non-profit organization, has definitely been one of the most inspiring people to personally touch my life and my teaching practice. Karin skyped into my classroom to provide assistance to my students to first understand the documentary process and then create their own short documentaries based on the footage of Darfur refugee camps that she provided. Her stories and those of whom she chronicled are unforgettable. We have shared many rich conversations; I would love to meet her face to face someday. More about my students’ work with Take2 and the sites where you can learn more can be found here and here.

2. Selecting team for Teachers Without Borders Canada

From start to finish, the TWBC (now EBB) team that I led while in Africa was top shelf. The team was comprised of Jody Meacher (QC), John Schinker (Ohio), Zac Chase (IL/PA), Lois McGill-Horn (Manitoba), Ian Vailingitham (ON) and Noble Kelly (BC). Belonging to a team that collaborated so well at a distance and even better on the ground in Africa was a rare opportunity. My teammates were professional, hilarious and big-hearted – a fantastic combination. I returned from Africa with a hunger and a drive to work full-time with such a team. I am still looking….

3. Students working with XOs and Doctors Without Borders

I have had a particular fascination with the XO laptop and have not only brought a few with me to Africa, but had a few more donated to me over the course of the past year which my students were able to appreciate. My students were asked to develop educational content using the programs on the XO and then we were able to ship several of them over to Nepal and Kenya. Unfortunately, they never reached their destination in Nepal due to customs restrictions (possibly corruption), so I learned the hard way to work with trusted NGOs who are working on the ground. Nevertheless, the student learning from experience of developing content for a real audience was very valuable. Another authentic learning opportunity came about when my students working on the Darfur video project were able to skype out to an administrator of a Doctors Without Borders Camp in Sudan (who was in Canada at the time). They later used some of the audio from the interview and incorporate it into their documentary.

4. Kiva

It seemed like one day I was showing the Kiva video - A Fistful of Dollars - to my grade seven advisory class and the next they had taken charge of a plan to approach the Students Council to donate money to Kiva. They worked for several weeks on a multimedia slideshow presentation to persuade the Student Council to provide a loan and follow it through their high school career (four more years). I was very proud of their initiative, dedication and enthusiasm of their undertaking. They truly owned the idea, the process and the vision.

5. NECC – winning award

It was an iffy project and one of my students thought it would never take off and go anywhere, but the Darfur Video Project ended with a big bang in spite of many false starts. The pairing of a terrific idea (Karin Muller’s amazing video footage of a Sudan refugee camp and with her unwavering support) and engaged and hard-working students was the recipe for success for this initiative. I knew that overall the project had significant educational merit, but I was stunned and delighted when it was awarded first place for the Online Learning Award by ISTE. The recognition entirely belongs to Karin and to my students.

6. Partnering with two NGOs in South Africa

We have terrific NGO partners in Africa and these partnerships make all the difference in cross-cultural initiatives. A good deal of communication and coordination is required. For several months ahead of time, we were in regular communication with our partners, Edunova and Khanya. Communicating online with anyone in Africa is always challenging, but their dedication helped us to contextualize our preparation for our visit with teachers in South Africa. I thank John Thole (Edunova) and Kobus van Wyk (Khanya) especially for their roles in this initiative. I learned a lot through our interactions; they were excellent cultural interpreters who understood the challenges of their educational system and the teachers themselves. I look forward to another season of working with these fine people and hope our partnership will be even stronger this year.

7. Twitter moment

Sharon explaining XO to Dan Otedo

Probably my favourite twitter story for 2009 was when I took a chance on my twitter network and asked if there was anyone out there who would be willing to donate an XO laptop to a teacher in Kenya. The story begins when I asked Dan Otedo, a leader of our partnering NGO in Kenya (African Centre for Women, ICT), if I could bring him a souvenir from Washington DC, knowing that Kenyans, in general, are big fans of Obama. I was expecting him to ask for a baseball cap or tshirt. To my surprise, he responded, “I would like an XO laptop”. Now one generally cannot just pick up an XO in any of the Washington DC souvenir shops, so I was in a bit of a quandary. So I put the request out on twitter. To my great delight, a follower of a follower responded! She shipped the XO to one of our team members and so Dan was able to get his hands on one of these amazing machines. The generosity of others never fails to touch me. And the power of twitter is not to be underestimated!

8. Visiting the islands of Lake Victoria, Kenya

Visiting any part of Africa is special – having the opportunity to visit remote communities – those on hard-to-reach islands, is particularly special. Our team was able to spend a day visiting 3 islands in Lake Victoria. On two of those islands, we visited at least one primary school. Just as most other schools we visited on the mainland, these schools were very poor and lacked electricity and resources. However, the children on these islands also were affected by the remoteness; they had probably never seen electrical powered devices or automobiles until they have opportunity to leave the island. The conditions on the islands are very bad. On one of the islands – the one furthest from the mainland, I felt as though I was in the wild west or in some surreal Star Wars movie (remember that bar scene in the first movie?). It was the closest I felt to being in danger of my time in Kenya.

The final island we visited, Mfangano Island, was remarkably special and stood out from the other two. There we met Chas Salmen, a graduate student completing his thesis in medical anthropology (now a medical student in the US), who had studied the spread of HIV/AIDS amongst the fishing communities due to prostitution. He, and many Kenyan nationals, were fund-raising to build a community centre that would house an amphitheatre, testing clinics, an Internet centre, and a radio station. The official opening of the building was in December 2009. The computers for the centre were held up in customs, but soon this remote island of 19,000 would have a fully functional community centre. The vision for this project was staggering and one of the most inspirational I have encountered. To my great delight, our organization has been invited back to Mfangano to provide ICT training for its teachers using the resources now available in this incredible initiative. Truly, this was one of the high points of not just my visit to Kenya, but to my entire year!

Chas Salmen on Mfangano Island

9. Meeting Mama Sara

It was a completely serendipitous and unexpected meeting. We had been told that the Obama homestead was within a half hour of our travels between Mbita and Gilgil, our next destination. I asked our American team members if they were interested in making a small detour so we could visit the homestead. Receiving a positive response, I asked our Kenyan drivers to make the detour – they were thrillled! I promptly fell asleep in the “way back” of the mutatu to be awakened a short time later… on a Kenyan farm. I was a bit confused. We stepped out of the van, showed our passports to the Kenyan soldiers and went out to look around the basic Kenyan farmyard – no one else seemed to be around. We found two gravestones – one each for Obama’s father and grandfather. While we were taking photos of this, a woman stepped out of the house and informed us, “She is taking breakfast and will see you soon.” Okay, who was “she”?? “She” was Obama’s grandmother – actually, the stepmother of Obama’s father. In a little while, she did join us. A guest book was passed around which we signed. She answered of our questions through a translator and we had our photo taken. About 7 weeks prior to my visit to Mama Sara’s farm, I was in Washington D.C. The difference between those two locations was vast. And yet, there was that one connection….

Mama Sarah - Obama

10. Special conferences

Last year, I had the privilege of attending a few conferences. The three that stand out were Educon, NECC and CCK09 Online. My daughter attended Educon with me again in January and was warmly welcomed by the staff and students at Student Leadership Academy. I recall many good conversations that shaped my thinking for the future. It was also my opportunity to talk to Zac Chase about Africa; he later was selected as one of our team members. Attending NECC had not been in my original plans. The timing was too close to my departure to Africa. But when our Darfur Video Project won first place, I decided to attend to accept the award. The three and half days were a blur of meetings, presentations and running around to find resources to bring to Africa. I left from Washington to New York to catch my flight to South Africa. Though my experiences in Africa eclipsed the conference, it was an unforgettable intense 3 days of very fine conversations and reunions with special friends. It was indeed an unexpected blessing to attend NECC. And finally, the opportunity to share the podium with John Thole (Edunova) for the CCK09 online conference was very special because it gave an opportunity for an African to use an online platform to a global audience about technology advancements in that continent.

John Thole admiring the Cape Town sunset (credit: Sharon Peters)

Final Thoughts

Here are some final thoughts summarizing some key ideas and insights from my year:

Having the opportunity to return to Africa brought about better understanding of differences in culture and how culture influences the adoption of technologies. Africa is ahead of us (in North America) in using mobile technologies in resourceful and innovative ways. This is borne out of necessity and accessibility. We could learn much from them.

Working on a team of like-minded, passionate, dedicated, and deep-thinking educators is an invaluable experience that has changed my perspective on education. A team like this can accomplish a great deal and I deeply wish I can have that experience again in the future.

Taking risks as an educator or as a student is under-valued in our current system. Some of the remarkable experiences of my year were not due to expertise or especially superior intelligence on my part (I wish!), but to the risks I was willing to take to pursue projects and relationships.

Reality-based learning projects offer excellent opportunities for students to learn 21st c skills as they become empathetic global citizens. I have become a strong advocate of these kinds of projects.

We have entered the second decade of this millenium. I am more excited than ever. We live in exciting times to be an educator and I have high hopes and optimism for 2010. I wish the same for you.

Usually, I know a bevy of the teachers who will attend the conferences or workshops and have a fairly good idea of what the venue will be like. So when it was suggested to me that I attend the inaugural BigIdeasFest conference in Half Moon Bay, I had to take a serious look at the line-up of speakers and check out my “network” to see if anyone knew anything about it. And the responses were scant. However, the venue was very close to some family members and the description was sufficiently enticing that I decided to take a chance and signed up for the conference.

When I arrived at the conference, I only knew one person who was also attending. It was pointed out to me at the first dinner that it seemed to be a conference where the majority of the people knew only 1 or 2 other people and that made it an unusual sort of event.

On the one hand, so far the conference has pushed me out of my comfort zone – which was surprising to me, because I really hadn’t realized that I had had a comfort zone. After asking so many *other* educators to step outside their comfort zones while in Africa and at other workshops I have led, it is a good idea occasionally to place myself in that position of trying something new and taking a risk in a new social situation.

Of all the conferences I have attended in North America, I have to say that I find this conference to be the closest to the model we are using in Africa – participatory and constructivist. We have been divided into smaller groups of “action collabs” that have been given the task of creating a new model of education at either the classroom, school or systemic level. My action collab is msde up of a wide range of persons spanning from high school students to policy makers to NGO leaders to educators – young and old. We have already had many lively debates about how we are going to go about addressing the question of what we are designing.

About half of the conference time has been devoted to either keynotes or listening to rapidfire presentations by notable innovators in education such as Dennis Bartels of Exploratorium, Marco Torres, Dr. Erin O’Connell, Gever Tulley, Founder of the Tinkering School, and Tony Jackson, VP for Education of the Asia Society. Fifteen minutes per rapidfire presenter just didn’t seem like enough for these very worthy educators.

You can follow the twitter list I created for the conference for more “in the moment” reactions to the conference.

A GREAT book that I read in preparation for this conference was The Global Achievement Gap. Everywhere I turn I hear other educators echoing many of the thoughtful ideas expressed by Tony Wagner in his book. I should have read this book ages ago – it has been incredibly galvanizing to me.

I look forward to learning and stretching even more in the next few days!

Early last week, I had the opportunity to use prezi again for a 3 hour workshop about how and why to use multimedia tools for education:

Then late in the week, I was challenged to a cool tool duel against two other IT facilitators in Montreal. Below I relate my approach as I shared it in the CAIS community ning:

I also wanted to share the outcomes to the Cool Tool Duel that took place between JP Trudeau (Selwyn House), Vince Jansen (LCC) and me, Sharon Peters (Hebrew Academy).

As a way in demonstrating the power of an educator’s Personal Learning Network, I asked six global educators to hop aboard a FlashMeeting during the duel and share *their* cool tools. I had heard Alan November (the keynote) state many times the importance of including global collaboration as a way of promoting the skills our students will need in their learning careers. It seemed appropriate to demonstrate this to our audience of educators.

To that end, I invited John Thole (director of Edunova in Cape Town, South Africa), Derek Wenmoth (director of CORE-Ed, Christchurch NZ), Chris Betcher (independent school educator, blogger, author, podcaster, Sydney, Australia), Lucy Gray (U of Chicago, moderator of Global Collaborative Ning), Dr. Cheri Toledo (Illinois State University, author, researcher, webcaster), and Brad Ovenell-Carter (independent school educator, asst head, Island Pacific School) into our cool tool duel. With the time zone differences, this took no small effort, but I was very very pleased when all of them accepted the invitation unhesitatingly and enthusiastically.

A special outcome of the FlashMeeting (now recorded) was that these six educators had an opportunity to meet each other and grow their own networks. In fact, they were so excited about meeting, they started a Google Wave where their conversation continued!

Here are the tools that were shared between all of us during the “duel”:

John – Ning

Chris – Screentoaster, Layar, Wikitude

Derek - eXe, QRCodes for Droid

Lucy – Screenr.com, PlanetFoss, Planetfesto

Brad – Tweetie2 Tweetie 2 Review: The Best iPhone Twitter App, Period – Tweetie 2 …
, Kaltura – Open Source Video Platform

Cheri – The Differentiator

Sharon (I had a few lined up as backup plan):

FlashMeeting

Twitter Lists

Forty-Two Interesting Ways to Use Pocket Cameras (care of Tom Barrett)

Complete Guide to Google Wave

VUE: Visual Understanding Environment (I think Brad showed me this)

Google Fusion Tables

Personas

The other folk (Vince and JP):

OpenOffice

FramebyFrame

Moodle

Mathnet.net

Animoto

graphic organisers

Pixlr

Xmind

Visuword

The Prezi I used for the Duel:

Sharon showing Dan the XO machine on Lake Victoria, Kenya

Screenshot of eGranary in Mbita Kenya

Originally uploaded by sharonpe

After weeks of reflection, I have finally composed and submitted a final report as team leader for TWBC ’09 (now renamed to Education Beyond Borders) and our trip to Africa.

Below are some of the highlights of the trip.

Schedule:
July 3 – arrival through Johannesburg to Cape Town

July 6-10 – Workshops offered by Teachers Without Borders Canada (now Education Beyond Borders) team partnering with Edunova to 40 E-learning superintendents of the ministry of education in Eastern Cape (cancelled)

Revised:

July 6-10- Workshops offered by TWBC and Edunova to teachers in Philippi Township at Liwa Primary School. Approximately 50 in attendance

July 13 -”Bootcamp” Workshops offered to Townships’ Principals and ICT leaders hosted by Somerset College (independent boarding school) by Edunova; TWBC team members provide background facilitation and a brief panel session at lunch

July 14-17 – Workshops offered by TWBC to Khanya facilitators (50+) and Edunova facilitators (about 10).

July 18-25 – Visits to schools/classes + additional workshops for Edunova facilitators; requests for visits from various schools (John Pama Primary, Siyazhaka Junior Secondary, Mkhanyiseli Primary School, Phakama Secondary School)

July 26- Arrive in Nairobi

July 28- Arrive in Mbita on shores of Lake Victoria – 2 concurrent sets of workshops offered to teachers in the area; partnering with The African Center for Women, Informations and Communications Technology(ACWICT); ICT workshops for about 50 teachers. Participating teachers are hand-picked by the District Education Officer.

August 10 – Arrive in Gilgil at Utumishi Academy for 1 week of workshops for 75 selected teachers in the Naivasha District; partnering with the Kenyan Ministry of Education. Workshops in maths, science, English and ICT will be offered. Participating teachers are hand-picked by the District Education Officer.

We head home on August 17th.

ICT Team Members 2009

Lois McGill-Horn: Background with Microsoft Certified Teachers Program and high school multi-media. (independent school, Winnipeg, MB)

Zac Chase: Secondary English teacher with background in online environments, PD and integrated ICT skills (public school, Philadelphia, PA)

Jody Meacher: Elementary teacher with a large variety of subject areas and strong skills in ICT integration (public school, Granby, QC)

John Schinker: Secondary teacher; IT administrator with a solid background in networking and hardware (public school, Stow, OH)

Ian Vaithilingam: Secondary maths and science teacher with solid background in SB integration (public school, Toronto, ON)

Sharon Peters: ICT integration, Secondary English, co-team leader (independent school, Montreal, QC)

Noble Kelly: co-team leader (president and founder, TWBC)

Preparation
The team began to meet once a week over Skype (VOIP application) beginning in April ’09. At the time, we believed we would be providing elearning workshops for Eastern Cape facilitators during our first week in South Africa. A good deal of time was spent on familiarization with the moodle environment and discussing best approaches for delivering content.

We created a moodle environment and used it to collect and store digital content.

While there was some frustration expressed that our time could have been used in a more efficient manner as we planned, the commitment to the weekly meetings was taken very seriously by the team members and it fostered team-building that served us well once we were in Africa.

When Charles Robert Adjah contacted us in late May with the unfortunate news that we would not be able to go forward with the elearning workshops during the first week in July, we had to change our plans and rebook our tickets to go straight to Cape Town. Noble Kelly, John Thole and I made a perhaps hasty decision to change the timing of the workshops and advance it by a week to July 6-10th. This added additional pressure to Edunova who was only in process of training a new leader whose was responsible for organizing the workshops on the ground in Cape Town.

Week 1 – July 6-10 2009
Our first full day in Cape Town was spent providing background culture and context to the new team members. We spent some time at the primary school hosting the workshops so we could familiarize ourselves with resources and the stability of the school computer lab and Internet access. Two SmartBoards were also in other classrooms.

The logistics of registration and refreshments were handled very well by Edunova.

Workshop content included basic computer skills, ICT strategic planning, effective presentation skills (PowerPoint), Internet search skills, lesson-planning and evaluation of ICT. In general, feedback from the participants was that they desired more time for hands-on practice and thought that one week was too brief. We received many enthusiastic responses from the participants. Since we have returned to Canada, I am very pleased to say that I have heard from a number of those South African teachers. This year is a marked difference from last year when we heard very little from them. The ning site we created for the teachers (http://ictchamps.ning.com/) remains active – this in large part to the efforts of Khanyiso Tose and Quinton Davis from Edunova.

Week 2: July 13-17 2009

The participants to this week’s workshops were Edunova and Khanya ICT facilitators from across the province. About 70 facilitators participated representing a large number of schools.

Workshop content included social networking for professional development, moodle training, building ICT vision, modeling ICT integration, emerging technologies, and laptops for teachers. Again, a ning site was created for the Khanya facilitators (http://capefacs.ning.com/).

Week 3: July 20-25 2009
The final week was spent in debriefing meetings with Edunova (Monday) and Khanya (Friday), school visits and additional ICT workshops to the Edunova facilitators (SmartBoard, multimedia and moodle).

The debriefing meetings were valuable times for communication and clarification about frustrations, disappointments, expectations and communication.

School2School Classroom Connections
Each TWBC team member had been encouraged to be on the lookout for potential school2school classroom connection teacher partners. Several teachers were approached and agreed to try to maintain contact after the Canadians returned home. To date, some emails have been exchanged. As well, several video skype meetings have taken place between two teachers in particular, Mncedisi Soga (Siyazhaka Junior High, Cape Town) and Ian Vaithilingam (Toronto). Plans are in the works to maintain contact even after the change of academic year for those in the southern hemisphere. A donated Flip camera was given to Mncedisi, Maxwell Foma (Phakama Secondary School) and Zoleka Mzonyane (John Pama Primary School) in order to support the potential of video and photo exchanges between classes and students. The Edunova facilitators were asked to provide some support to this initiative.

Again, feedback from participants was very positive. Reflections posted throughout the week in the ning forum discussion areas show insight and enthusiasm from the workshop participants.

Mbita Kenya Workshops

A special note of thanks to Dan Otedo, our awesome NGO partner and cultural interpreter!!

Venue:
The Suba Resource Centre is a unique establishment and, for the first year of TWBC’s visit to Kenya, I think it was the most appropriate choice. By having it there, we recognized the accomplishments of those volunteers who had worked so hard to create and maintain it. The choice of venue did not go unnoticed by the DEO who felt a school would be far more appropriate. The success of the workshops in an establishment outside of the reach of the ministry of education underscored to the ministry the need to become more involved in this initiative.

July 28th-July 31st – School Visits
Visits to the following schools were made during a three day period:

Waware Secondary School (George Okeyo – Principal)
Kamasengre Secondary School (Okomo Peter – Principal)
St. Joseph’s Kakrigu Secondary (William Obwaya – Principal)
Nyandenga Primary School (Reuben Ogwang – Principal)
Obalwanda Special School (Reuben Molo – Principal)
M.A. Academy (Charles Okiki – Principal)
Kombe Primary School (Iscar Okombo)
Kibuogi Island Primary
Rembo Island Primary

These visits were absolutely invaluable in providing the team with deep insights into the issues and challenges facing the education system in the Mbita area and in Kenya in general. We were also able to make face-to-face connections with teachers who later came to the week of workshops. Without that personal contact, I am certain those teachers would not have come to the workshops. I think of two teachers in particular – Hellen Odenga and Erick Omondi Ojwala who were persuaded to come to the workshops only as a result of our visits to their schools.

Workshop Content
It was apparent that most teachers had little access to computers and were very beginner users of computer technology. It was also apparent that the teachers faced grave challenges of basic resources and access to professional development opportunities. We therefore thought it best to provide a good deal of methodology and teaching strategies that they could incorporate into their teaching practices with or without ICT tools.

Daily Schedule:

7 – 8:30 – Suba Centre open for Practice

8:30 – 10 – Session 1

10-10:30 – tea (practice)

10:30 – 12 – Session 2

12- 12:45 – Lunch (practice)

12:45- 2:15 – Sesson 3

2:15 – 3:45 – Session 4

3:45 – 4:00 – Reflection

4:00 – tea (practice)

4:30 – Open for Practice

Monday:

Session I – get to know you session – ice-breaker

Session II – Why integrate technology? What is ICT?

Session III – Basic trouble-shooting of a computer -

Session IV – Use Word to model

Tuesday:

8:15- 8:30 Review – Multiple Intelligences quiz

I – Info Literacy – eGranary

II – Info Management in 21st c

III – Using Info Lit – search strategies in lab

IV – Multiple intelligences -

Wednesday:

Skype chat with teachers in North America – very powerful!

I – Cooperative Learning -

II – Basic PPT –

After Lunch – “How are we doing so far?” Check in

III – ICT Vision + Planning

IV – Finding Teacher Resources -

Thursday:

Review

Backwards Design -

Storyboarding and Digital Storytelling Pt 1

Rubrics + Evaluation -

Storyboarding and Digital Storytelling Pt 2

Friday

Storyboarding – Finished Products

The Way Forward – Dan Otedo

A debriefing meeting with the newly installed local DEO, John L. Ololtuaa took place on the final day before the awards ceremony. He appeared to be an enthusiastic supporter, though very new on the job.

Challenges:

Fragile and faulty equipment paired with unanticipated power outages (of which there were fewer than expected!) made the week challenging. The team was very flexible in changing plans, sometimes in the moment, and we would carry on in spite of power interruptions. Fortunately, having the Flip cameras, cell phones and laptops with powered-up batteries helped us to just continue on. By doing so, we also showed the teachers that they did not have to rely on a computer lab in order to use ICT tools for educational purposes. The Kenyan teachers were amazed at how much could be done with such simple tools.
eGranary:

The installation of the eGranary was a highlight of our visit to Mbita. It seems like such a simple concept, yet it is such a powerful resource for people who have so little access to educational resources. My hope is that power can be restored soon to the Suba Centre so the computers can be turned on again and the eGranary be used. An issue to be raised now is how much we should get involved in making certain that this resource be used to its full potential.

In closing, I just want to reiterate the phenomenal outstanding job the team members contributed to this initiative. It was not just that the content and even the delivery of the workshops was, in my opinion, world class, it was their generous spirits and the way they could relate to the Kenyans that made our visit such a success. They were willing to take risks, make sacrifices and form relationships in a demanding situation. We did not experience conflicts or disagreements. Without a doubt, these individuals were outstanding professionals even after we returned “home” every night, hot, dusty, and sometimes overwhelmed by the needs we saw around us. We laughed together quite a lot.

My experiences in July and August stretched me beyond what I had expected. I learned a great deal from my colleagues on my team and quite a bit from South African and Kenyan educators as well. It is not a trip that would be advisable for future team members – two countries, three venues and four sets of workshops meant too many people to meet and keep up with! However, I have no regrets about my decision to do the long haul this time around. It meant being able to witness the return of teachers from last year to report how much TWBC workshops had a lasting impact on them. It was a remarkable and gratifying life moment. It would be a privilege to serve as team leader again in the future – thank you, TWBC for this incredible opportunity!

I am using some of our precious bandwidth to share some of my favourite photos from Kenya so far! More to come when I can.

Tomorrow we begin our workshops for fifty local teachers from about fifteen schools in the Mbita area on the shores of Lake Victoria. This region faces the greatest incidence of HIV-AIDS infection in Eastern Africa with an infection rate of up to 40%. The consequences from this are devastating for every sector in the community.