Dimension Data hosts cross-continent schools video conferencing initiative

Sixty learners from Soshanguve outside Pretoria exchanged their ideas on life with counterparts in the UK during an innovative video conference held on Thursday, 22 May.

Set up by the University of Sussex, the initiative involved 250 grade seven and eight learners from the Boephathutse Junior Secondary School in Soshanguve, and the William Parker School in Sussex, UK.

Using Dimension Data`s video conferencing facilities, the school children discussed five key themes, comparing their local environments, the local journeys they take and their views on life in their own town.

"We are delighted to be involved in this worthwhile initiative," says John van den Munckhof, general manager of Dimension Data Converged Communications. "The school children have benefited enormously, both from exposure to different world views, and to technology they probably have never seen before."

The subject of citizenship has recently been introduced into the UK`s national curriculum, and involves the concepts of global citizenship and sustainable development, as well as the role of the media and the use of information technology.

"By setting this video conference up, we addressed several of these issues all simultaneously," says organiser Dr John Parry, a tutor involved with the University of Sussex`s Postgraduate Certificate in Education course. "These 14-year-olds chatted live to pupils thousands of miles and oceans of culture away. It was an exciting event for all those involved."

The learners prepared their own material for the day, which they shared with each other during two short broadcasts.

The event was set up with the help of Link Community Development (LCD), a multinational organisation that forges educational links between SA and other countries. Additionally LCD works in five provinces of SA and is considered to be a pioneer and an innovator in the business of whole school development and whole district change projects.

The organisation works in partnership with government to promote capacity building at school, district and provincial level to positively impact on schools and their communities. The school linking programme is one of the innovations that adds value to the organisation`s efforts in educational development. In fact, LCD has extended it school linking programme to include an additional five provinces in SA and two countries in Africa.

LCD CEO, Stephen D Blunden adds: "Link Community Development is currently linking 240 schools. What is so remarkable about this video conference, is that this type of intervention has traditionally been only available to advantaged schools that have access to the technology to make an exchange of this nature possible."

"We have been operating a school linking programme in SA for seven years, a project which actually originated in Soshanguve, and this event is a natural extension," says Zuneid Mayet, LCD project officer. "It will be the first time that we have used video conferencing technology to show the children a different life dynamic, and enable them to have an exchange. I believe it will be a real learning experience, and they will get quite a kick out of the technology."

"We have the video conferencing technology, and were very excited to be given the opportunity to make the technology available for educational and social responsibility initiatives such as these," concludes Dimension Data`s Van den Munckhof.