Local students thrive on innovative computer skills programme

A group of St Stithians College learners is well on the way to developing the computer skills needed to thrive in the modern information society, creating innovative games in standard desktop applications as part of the Microsoft IT Academy Programme.

Three learners - Andrew Bayliss, Justin Mullin and Kabelo Matabane - were named as winners of the gaming competition by a panel of judges from Microsoft SA, Intersoft and the school's own IT department.

More importantly, all 140 pupils in the 2007 Grade 8 class will have written Powerpoint Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS) examinations by the end of March. The MOS certification has since been opened up to the rest of the school, with an overwhelming response.

The Microsoft IT Academy Programme is available to schools worldwide to bring IT training to the classroom, and offers learners the chance to gain industry-recognised accreditations. This will ultimately raise IT skills levels in school leavers, making them more work-ready and employable.

The competition was created by teacher Debbie Jutzen, who was looking for innovative ways of teaching Economics and Management Sciences and make learning more exciting by integrating computer literacy.

Students were given the opportunity to develop their own project manuals on gaming using PowerPoint. They worked in their own teams of two or three, with each team member being responsible for a separate portion of the game. The students created and developed different types of games, ranging from strategy to shooting to racing games. The strategy games included how to find hidden objects on various slides and then use these objects to progress further.

Andrew and Justin created Jester Justice, a game based on both strategy and skill. Kabelo worked alone to create CSI, a game based on the TV series of the same name.

"By making their learning part of a game and a competition, I found that the students were prepared to put in the extra time and effort required to make this into a huge success," said Ms Jutzen.

"I found that the students with published content were always prepared to help each other. An important rule of the competition was that if any student discovered something new, they were not allowed to use it in the game until they had taught at least one other person or group. We called this the 'play it forward' concept."

Reza Bardien, academic programmes manager at Microsoft SA, says that computer systems today underpin daily life at school, in the workplace, and across the wider community.

"We live in a technological world and to be able to teach students at school level the benefits of computer literacy is phenomenal," said Bardien. "We are looking to encourage as many local schools as possible to join the Microsoft IT Academy Programme, which will go a long way towards improving skills levels and providing employment opportunities in our society."