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Cape Town – The growth of digital education has motivated Via Afrika to offer training courses for teachers.
The development has been spurred by the growth in digital classroom tools such as data projectors, white boards and tablets.
“As we've seen in the past year, digital education is being embraced more and more in South African education. It is a helpful tool when used correctly, but it is a mistake to view it as a panacea for all educational ills,” Micheal Goodman, group content manager at Via Afrika told Fin24.
The publishing house developed the courses to help teachers use technology tools in the classroom.
“The key to unlocking the power of digital education lies with educators. If you train teachers only to use the equipment and content without addressing the teaching methods, it won’t be effective,” Goodman added.
Practice sessions
The courses are structured in both face to face and online sessions and teachers are incentivised to complete them. Face to face courses of 36 sessions cost R500 per two hour session and online sessions cost R400.
“All sessions have been endorsed by Sace, the South African Council for Educators. Teachers will earn five Professional Development (PD) points per two-hour session they complete. It is not just about attending the session, though. The teacher has to successfully complete an assessment task to qualify for the PD points,” Goodman said.
The course received a thumbs up from Kobus Van Wyk, former head of the Khanya Project in the Western Cape.
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In the decade that the project ran, he trained 27 000 teachers to use digital tools in education, and focused on the importance of teacher training.
“As a rule of thumb, I advocate that only half of an available technology budget be allocated to the purchase of technology itself (hardware, connectivity and content); the other half should be spent on the professional development of teachers,” he told Fin24.
Via Afrika’s courses are designed to cater to teachers at different levels of ICT skills and online sessions are managed to allow teachers to practice.
“When 10 educators have registered for it [online session], we will notify them of when the next live online session (also two hours) will be held. The online recorded webinar training allows educators to log-in online and do the course at their own pace,” said Goodman.
Do you think teachers need speciality technology training? Let us know.
* Fin24 is part of 24.com, a subsidiary of Media24, which is in the Naspers stable. Via Afrika is a subsidiary of Naspers.
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