The CM Vellem School computer lab in Rhini is as full as can be expected at 2pm on a Thursday: Twenty Grade 8 pupils sit in front of their screens, filling Word Documents with their assignment for the week.
The CM Vellem School computer lab in Rhini is as full as can be expected at 2pm on a Thursday: Twenty Grade 8 pupils sit in front of their screens, filling Word Documents with their assignment for the week.
So far, so normal – they are all here during school hours a few times a week anyway, to research or type out assignments.
Today, though, there are ‘visitors’. A man and three women are only slightly too old for school uniforms, weaving between the desks to correct spelling mistakes, answer questions or just to discuss the work.
One clutches a notebook, while two carry expensive-looking cameras and shoot pictures every so often. All four are Rhodes journalism students, and they are leading the computer sessions usually taken by the NGO Village Scribe Association’s (VSA) awareNet computer literacy programme.
I was the one with the notebook. Back in April, the Journalism, Democracy and Development (JDD) course required all third-year students to create a ‘civic map’ of the players and problems falling under a social issue. Stephanie Papini, Jason Cooper, Savannah Wilmot and I – together with Nicole Glover, Madien van der Merwe and Kiera-Marie Loughrey who would take the Friday session at CM Vellem – chose computer literacy, and the research began.
What we found were some schools with computer labs but nobody to open them; internet which was riddled with problems in the few schools which were supposed to be connected to it; and pupils with no access to computers outside school. We also found organisations like the VSA, whose community coordinator Terri-Lynn Penney works tirelessly to increase access to school labs and spread computer literacy.
Penney spends her days facilitating community projects with the pupils – anti-littering and fitness campaigns are just two examples – and teaching them how to navigate and write about these on the awareNet ‘social network’ for schools.
However, there are eight schools she works directly with, the classes are often too big for her to effectively help the pupils, and there is always so much going on at the schools anyway that her schedule is constantly changing.
Luckily, our course required us to help. So, for the past three weeks, we have opened the labs on Thursdays and Fridays and given short lessons which led to the pupils taking photographs and writing poems, news stories and pieces about themselves.
All of it will be published on our website, along with articles about computer literacy, reflections charting the pupils’ progress, and everything computer literacy organisations need to know about one another – and what potential volunteers and funders need to know about them.
After all, there are many organisations doing similar things – like the Telkom Centre of Excellence and Ikamva Youth – that could share ideas.
They could also coordinate their efforts, as the Department of Education’s Rejoice Batye suggests.
As the Grahamstown District coordinator of e-learning, Batye installs curriculum-enriching programmes on to schools computers and holds training workshops showing teachers how to use them.
Since many teachers do not even have basic computer skills though, Batye has begun to hold basic computer literacy workshops for them too – and it is in this area where she fears overlap with the work of NGOs.
“I’d love to know who they are, what they are doing, and how can we work together,” says Batye.
Our website will be the first step in answering those questions, extending beyond just one of the two CM Vellem grade 8 classes (awareNet does not have the capacity to teach both).
Those pupils, although only four of the 20 have access to computers outside the school lab, remain the lucky few. With about 1 000 children from grades R to nine, CM Vellem is one of only eight schools in the township with a proper computer lab: the Department of Basic Education donated their shiny black computers in 2009. They have an internet connection from Rhodes, which is working again after some months.
The computers are all working, and are being used by skilled teachers to enrich their curriculum – although some teachers are still “reluctant to changes”, says the Grade 3 teacher who received e-learning training, Phindi Makinana.
Grade 8 teacher, Vatiswa Frank, represented the school’s intermediate phase at the training workshop.
There is no doubt that computer literacy is crucial. “[Computer literacy] is the best skill that we can give to learners because that is what is needed in the business world and also to make them employable. If we just give them theory, theory, theory, and then we let them go… go where? And do what?” asks Batye.
Yet our programme also follows awareNet’s in enriching language skills. Even though this is their first year with Penney, Frank can already attest to seeing a massive improvement in the pupils’ reading and writing skills. Their English teacher,
Nompumelelo Frans, adds that even just being exposed to English, writing in English and following instructions helps the pupils’ comprehension.
For Thomas Mihlali and many of his Grade 8 classmates in fact, the best thing they have learnt from the Rhodes students and from awareNet is how to speak English. Thanduxolo Royi says, “[I want] to learn more about English things, like similes and onomatopoeia.”
Like all the aspiring doctors, journalists and policemen in the lab, Royi has big dreams.
“I want to learn about computers, so when I am at university I can be able to work with computers.
"When I finish university I want to use computers in my office… I want to become a social worker, so I can help poor children and those who don’t have a home.”
It will take more than two years of awareNet and improved English skills to achieve those dreams.
Much more than a small group of student writers, designers and photographers can do in a few weeks. What we can do, though, is show them what other kinds of technology, like cameras, can do, and how empowering converting writing into other media can be. What we can definitely show them and anyone who will listen, is that journalism can be used for good: for the development of the pupils, sure, but also for the development of the journalists themselves.
For more information, see the Rhodes students’ website: http://nicoleglover13.wix.com/ruaware
AwareNet
AwareNet is a social network designed for schools, developed by NGO the Village Scribe Association to enable to schools to not only access, but to share resources. Servers create their own wireless network, meaning no internet connection is needed.
On the network, each pupil has an account, where they set up a profile, enter blog posts and upload pictures. They can also access all other content posted by pupils from other schools, and interact with them via instant messaging and email.
Most schools in the Eastern Cape have profiles on the website. However, it is only the learners in grades seven to 10, who have weekly awareNet sessions, who have full profiles on the website (awarenet.eu).
The Telkom Centre of Excellence
All 16 Centres in the country aim to improve the competitiveness of the multimedia industry by conducting research into improving ICT systems and the skills of students and professionals in the field. The Centre hosted by Rhodes University (in partnership with the University of Fort Hare) in particular, has a number of research and development groups which fall under it.
The Rhodes Telkom Centre of Excellence provides internet to 10 local schools – a process which is difficult given technical issues and problems to do with funding over the past months. Since a key part of their mandate is using new findings in ICT towards social development goals, researchers and volunteers first tested their findings in marginalised rural environment of Dwesa, setting up an ICT 'hub' in one of the schools, and training people of all ages to use the lab.
Their work has also branched into coordinating computer literacy sessions with postgraduate volunteers from the Department of Computer Science and pupils at Joza school NV Cewu Public Primary. The Centre is working towards building relationships (consisting mainly of sourcing equipment and infrastructure) with other schools as well, to eventually expand the scope of their sessions.
