Capricorn Primary School, based in Cape Town and funded by the Vrygrond Community Development Trust, has installed 12 interactive Smart whiteboards in classrooms from Grade 1 to Grade 4 to support teaching.
Educational technology has been deployed at the disadvantaged school to help students from poor homes to catch up on lost time in their education.
The learners' education is about two-to-three years behind that of their contemporaries. The school says its goal for students, after four years at the school, is to be on an educational level appropriate for their age by using cutting-edge technology.
Participative learning
School principal Siddieka Hassen says the interactive whiteboards have had a significant impact on the children's confidence and ability to become involved in their own learning.
“As a visual method of teaching, the interactive whiteboards are exciting and hold the learners' attention, particularly those who are disadvantaged, says Hassen. “Because the lessons are participative, they are valuable for struggling learners who can answer questions in a non-threatening environment. The lesson presents itself as a self-correcting game.”
“The educational technology is helping them shed the disadvantage of poverty by equipping them with the knowledge and confidence to take their rightful place in a future of their own making,” she says.
Skills development
While the language medium of the school is English, many of the children come from Afrikaans or isiXhosa speaking homes, so teacher assistants help out with translations.
Apart from learning the basic skills of reading, writing and numeracy, the learners use the Smart Board interactive whiteboards for extra-curricular activities such as music and chess.
The school falls under the umbrella of the Western Cape Education Department, which, in turn, has been included in the department's Khanya Technology in Education Project. This initiative was started in 2001 to use technology to address the shortage of teacher capacity at the province's schools and assist in teaching the curriculum.
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