Calling Mpumalanga teachers who want to learn coding
The Mpumalanga ICT Club is a community of practice established by teachers to empower other teachers, learners and the community of Mpumalanga to develop their digital skills.
SchoolNet SA has worked closely with the club to present a range of opportunities for teachers to learn basic computer science skills that they can pass on to their learners. We look forward to co-hosing three Train the Trainer Coding Workshops which will be taking place as follows:
11 August 2018 at Waterfal Boven TVET Campu...Read more
Matthew Hains has entered the “Global Teacher Prize” – which annually presents a one million dollar award from the Varkey Foundation to recognise an exceptional teacher. We are happy to support Matt’s nomination for this award as he is always willing to share his expertise on using digital tools effectively in the classroom with other teachers.
You may have seen Matt in action at the 2017 SchoolNet SA ICT in the Classroom conference where he presented a session on “T...
Many employers expect employees to have some basic knowledge of Word, PowerPoint and Excel, yet many school leavers have not had an opportunity to acquire these skills. Microsoft, in partnership with the Gauteng Department of eGovernment, is on a mission to train one million young people with basic Microsoft Office skills to increase their chances of finding employment and to upskill workers and learners.
In a previous post we encouraged youth to access ThintiMillion and to complete the free onlin...
As a computer scientist, pastor and human rights activist, Elfas Mcloud Zadzagomo Shangwa’s passion is ensuring that every village girl in Africa connected to the internet. He believes that access to the internet will help girls to combat challenges that they face as a result of a lack of information.
Elfas, who holds a diploma in Computer Science, currently heads up the ICT program at Step Ahead Primary School, where SchoolNet SA recently ran a YouthSpark workshop on basic coding skills. As a co...
SchoolNet SA staff recently participated in a workshop for SACE endorsed training providers that offer courses in digital learning to teachers. The intention of this workshop was to raise awareness of the Department of Basic Education’s Professional Framework for Digital Learning and to ensure that courses being offered to teachers align to the Framework. Whilst teachers are expected to complete professional development activities as part of their SACE registration, ideally these activit...
Even if your school does not offer Information Technology as a subject, and even if you have no formal training in computer science, you can still introduce your learners to basic computer science concepts as part of their digital literacy lessons or perhaps as an extra-mural activity.
Recently Bonolo Sedupane featured in a Microsoft Virtual Academy encouraging teachers to ‘Step up to Computer Science’. She gave a range of tips for setting up a computer science class for younger learners, ...
Step Ahead Primary School, situated in Tsomo in rural Eastern Cape, used its own funds to establish a 30-seater computer lab and WIFI zone. This ICT resource centre is made available to learners from the school as well as the education community at large who benefit from its resources. Step Ahead’s mission is to join hands with other computational thinkers in the world in promoting the use of ICTs in imparting the 21st Century Skills to learners. With this mission in mind, Elfas Mcloud, the Step Ahead ...
Bonolo Sedupane recently featured in a Microsoft Virtual Academy entitled ‘Creative coding through games and apps’. In the webinar, Bonolo gives some ideas for secondary school teachers who want to introduce programming to a broad range of learners, including those who may never have considered programming before.
Bonolo makes the point that even if learners are not taking Information Technology as a school subject, doing some simple programming as part of computer literacy lessons or...
The ICT Skills for Teachers course remains one of SchoolNet SA’s most popular offerings and with the addition of tip-sheets for the latest versions of Microsoft Office, the course has just become even more useful.
Teachers enjoy learning how to use digital tools such as Microsoft Word, PowerPoint and Excel – but in contexts that are useful and meaningful to them as teachers. For example, instead of learning lots of Excel functionality that they are unlikely to use again after the training, ...
Just because your school doesn’t offer Information Technology or Computer Applications Technology as subjects, doesn’t mean that you can’t expose your learners to a basic introduction to computer science and careers that use technology.
On 15 June 2018, sixteen teachers and four technology support specialists from Gauteng Telkom Connected schools tried their hand at basic coding at MH Baloyi High School. This session, facilitated by SchoolNet SA, forms part of the Microsoft YouthSpark p...
