MY ICT DREAM
Many years ago I realized how important Information and Communications Technology (ICT) can impact student learning when teachers are digitally literate and understand how to integrate it into curriculum. Schools can use a diverse set of ICT tools to communicate, create, disseminate, store, and manage information. This made me do what I know would support someone to make it in this life.
In 2017, I had an opportunity to support schools in SA in setting up their ICT Centres.
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THE ICT DREAM
In 2017 up to 2018, I was hired as a consultant at a private school owned by Mr and Mrs Tsotsi in South Africa called Step Ahead Primary School, where I assisted these school owners in establishing a computer laboratory and helped set up its Wi-Fi System, at first my duty was to design and fix a computer lab, help to source 40 desktops and 10 Laptops, bring in Internet service providers and work with them to install Wi-Fi system at the school which I did very well, although it was not an easy task.
After finishing designing and fixing the state-of-the-art Laboratory, another challenge came in, they did not have ICT teachers. As you may guess, I ended up being their ICT Technician and Coordinator. My new task was to train leaners and teachers in ICT skills from Grade 5 to grade 9, and I ended up training 450 students and 25 teachers in ICTs.
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As a computer scientist, pastor and human rights activist, my passion is ensuring that every village girl in Africa is connected to the internet. I believe that access to the internet will help girls to combat challenges that they face as a result of a lack of information.
From 2016 to 2018 I was engaged by Step Ahead Primary School, situated in Tsomo in rural Eastern Cape, to design and establish a 30-seater computer lab and Wi-Fi zone.
This ICT resource centre was made available to learners from the school as well as the education community at large who benefit from its resources.
My stay at Step Ahead Primary School helped them to join hands with other computational thinkers around the world in promoting the use of ICTs in imparting 21st Century Skills to learners.
Working together with the school authorities and owners, we managed to do more in one and a half years, a record which no one from this school will ever be able to break.
I am happy with the record I managed to set, I always look back and see what I did that no other man can be able to manage and smile.
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In 2018, I had to leave this school to pursue my bigger dream, I hope the Step Ahead Primary School authorities will take this project to another level
I did what I could do best, getting the school which had not been on the internet to be connected to the rest of the world, by the time I left this school on the 6th of August 2018 this school was a cyberspace
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Before I left, I created a website for my organisation and added tools that I thought would help in the continuation of this project, digital tools that any child at Step Ahead Primary School would find useful, especially now with the coronavirus pandemic that has after all sectors of the economy to include in the education sector.
SCHOOL NET SOUTH AFRICA
With this mission in mind, as the Step Ahead ICT Program Coordinator, i invited Microsoft International to bring the Youth Spark training to the school as a way to provide Step Ahead teachers with additional tools and resources to use with learners.
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After seeing posts about other YouthSpark training sessions that SchoolNet SA conducted, i approached SchoolNet SA about running Microsoft funded workshops for teachers so that they could run introductory coding and computational thinking activities for learners.
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I had attended the SchoolNet SA Conference in 2017 at Brescia House School in Pretoria and signed up as a SchoolNet SA member, and with my membership it became easy to invite SchoolNet SA to the school to train teachers from Step Ahead and surrounding schools, 30 teachers from Step Ahead Primary School and other schools in the area attended the workshop which took place on 25 and 26 June 2018.
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At the start of the workshop, all teachers were encouraged to register in the Microsoft Educator Community. They then completed the Hour of Code as participants before learning how to facilitate a session using these resources for their learners.
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My mission at Step Ahead primary school ended at short notice in August 2018. But what I did in 1 year for the school cannot be done by another man in 3 years, the school got connected to the Internet and became a cyber center, it was an amazing transformation and their enrolment went up.
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