Johannesburg, 27 Feb 2012
In light of the increasing challenges faced by SA's education sector, listed ICT company Jasco is encouraging schools to keep abreast of developments in technology that can assist both teachers and students.
The Critical Links Education Appliance, says Jasco, is the world's first purpose-built education server comprising three main components: a learning management system, student information system, and an IT management system for administration.
Jasco divisional MD, Paul Fick, says teachers need an updated curriculum to help learners achieve an education that is relevant to the current economy. “By embracing technology, certain areas such as the curriculum and flagging interest by both pupils and teachers can be addressed and resolved. In doing this, education can be made relevant again by giving the pupils and their teachers the skills needed to become productive members of a highly technology-driven society.”
Fick says the Education Appliance places all resources centrally on one system within a school, which is accessible to teachers both at school and after hours, enabling teachers to create lesson plans and structures with the help of built-in wizards and other tools. “Together with core curriculum materials developed by Critical Links' partner LearnThings, teachers have access to a powerful bank of materials that can be used as is, or can be customised to meet specific needs.”
The learning management system is linked into Moodle (Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment), a global open source e-learning community designed to help educators create online courses with a focus on interaction and collaborative construction of content. “Teachers can use this to learn from the experience of educators from around the world and collaborate in creating new, dynamic lessons by connecting and sharing ideas,” says Fick.
Social culture
Fick says the Education Appliance represents the learning of the future now, embracing the 2.0 culture of today's world and giving learners “an edge” when it comes to their education. “It helps children to learn by providing education on a platform that appeals to them, which is interactive and will improve not only their marks and pass rates, but also the learners' real-world technology skills.”
He says the blackboard, although practical and useful, has its limitations, and the curriculum for teacher training needs to be updated with advances in technology in mind. “Teachers need to be trained and given the skills to not only use technology, but interact with teachers from other schools around the world in an increasingly social-media-driven world.
“The Education Appliance helps teachers to regain their passion for education and harness the power of technology to improve their learners' results,” concludes Fick.
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