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A Modern School?

I recently saw the following question posted on www.edchatsa.co.za, “Is there still place for a teacher-librarian in a modern school?”. What I find more interesting than the question itself is, what is a ‘modern’ school. There are those who believe that the biggest priority of a school, in order to be classified as ‘modern’, is [...]

Creating High Impact Learning Environments in Low Income Areas

Numeric is a South African based non-profit company interested in creating high impact learning environments in low income areas.  As the name suggests, we’re focused primarily on mathematics and in particular on how Khan Academy can be used to generate strong learning outcomes. In South Africa, as in many other countries around the world, there [...]

School grounds full of litter? Here’s an idea …

I was chatting to an NGO worker who told me the story of a local South African school that was experiencing a serious problem with trash on the school property. The learners had absolutely no concept of keeping the environment clean, and the school’s bests efforts at educating the children about the negative effects of [...]

Why proprietary sucks

It’s been a year and a bit since my personal, critical take on open source software solutions in the South African education system. Naturally, I was lambasted by the open source evangelists, and applauded by those who are vehemently opposed to Moodle – no surprise there. However, what become very apparent was that most critics of my opinion didn’t or couldn’t read my article well enough to understand what I am (still) looking for: a ​success​ story of an open source solution being used to the ​real​ benefit of learners and teachers in ​South Africa​.

Conflicts with your child’s teacher

A fellow mom was having a rant the other day about how she had to lay down the law with her little boy who was being so difficult. She said she had cancelled all his playdates and outings for the week, including the Lion Park, aquarium and playing tennis at the local club. I asked if they had planned to go to all these places as special treats. She said no, that they went to the Lion Park and other amusement parks at least once a week, sometimes they would even go to a play area at a coffee shop and then to the zoo in one afternoon.

iPads for education?

Yesterday I attended the EdTech Tablet Indaba hosted by the International School of Cape Town. This event was a thinkshop attended by various schools across the city that are currently leading the drive towards introducing mobile technology into schools. The panel included tech-experienced teachers like Karen Stadler from Elkanah House, Gail Gubb from Cedar House, [...]