SchoolNet has been providing the training to various countries in the Caribbean as part of the The Commonwealth Certificate for Teacher ICT Integration (CCTI), an online course that SchoolNet developed for the Commonwealth of Learning. The course comprises four core modules and six electives and it takes place over a two year period.
At SchoolNet we were absolutely delighted when we received an invitation to attend a graduation virtually! The first Caribbean country to complete the full qualification of all modules in The Commonwealth Certificate for Teacher ICT Integration is Antigua and Barbuda, and they held a grand graduation ceremony on March 24th 2014. The Minister of Education and much of the senior ministry staff were present and the Director and the SchoolNet tutor team were invited to attend the ceremony virtually via the streaming facility of a live Google Hangout.
From here…
…to graduation on 24th March 2014
The Director of SchoolNet and the SchoolNet tutors and staff members responsible for mentoring in this course were invited to send MP3s or videos of congratulations to the students and these were presented during the graduation ceremony. These were also uploaded to YouTube by one of the graduation committee members.
Janet Thomson, our SchoolNet Director says, “Learning on your own via distance is never easy. Staying committed is the difficulty, with little to keep one focused and nobody forcing you to complete the work. I am amazed at their dedication especially as this course is rigorous with LOTS of reading. They are definitely the most dedicated teachers we have ever worked with.”
A devastating hurricane took place during the time period of this course and many of these students experienced extreme hardships as a result. Nevertheless they continued with great perseverance and determination to finish what they had started. We admire them immensely. Many of these graduates have been selected as future tutors in this course and they will now pass on the baton and train other teachers in the Carribean.
The full graduation (lasting nearly two hours) can be viewed on YouTube.
