AFRICA TREND

In addition to the great line up of three international speakers who will be presenting at the SchoolNet SA conference, we are just as excited to be showcasing extraordinary South African teachers, and their projects and experiences of using technology in the classroom. Sariejtie Musgrave of HigherEdPartnersSA in conjunction with the University of the Free State will be presenting the keynote presentation entitled “Anywhere, anytime learning from the perspective of the learner and the teacher as a lifelong learner” at the SchoolNet SA conference on Friday 6 October. In her previous role as director of the IDEAS Lab, Sarietjie worked closely with various departments of the University of the Free State in the design, development and evaluation of new digital learning initiatives that unlock engaged, personalised and lifelong learning. Having recently moved to Higher Ed Partners SA, Sarietjie will assist in the expansion of their on-line learning capability by making top quality higher ed

The SchoolNet SA conference  covers   a number of themes that focus on digital learning in the Foundation, GET and FET schooling phases. Delegates can expect to attend three days of professional development, hands-on workshops and inspiring keynotes – all of which are all covered in the ticket price, inclusive of te as and lunches and a special birthday celebration event. Whilst we are sure that the conference is going to be excellent value for money, we know that many schools battle to fund professional development for their teachers, and teachers often struggle to fund conference attendance themselves. To try to make the SchoolNet SA conference affordable to as many teachers as possible we are able to   make the following offers: Buy four – get one free SchoolNet SA is offering schools, organisations or groups of teachers who would like to attend the conference discounted tickets. For every four tickets you buy at the same time you will get one free – or put another way the five tic

After looking through all the Google posts that were shared to various subscriptions recently, these are a selection that look useful for teachers   https://goo.gl/fsGXN3 .  (The link to previous posts can be found here  https://goo.gl/CNO3M2 )

SchoolNet’s Hlengiwe Mfeka had the opportunity to attend a Women’s  Breakfast at the Golden Horse Casino in Pietermaritzburg last week.    It was a charity fund-raising event organised by the Community Chest and proved to be an inspiring morning. It started with a fun five minute body workout in the form of a dance led by one lady while the audience followed her movements.  She gave a brief talk on the importance of moving every day.  She made one statement which was memorable, "If you are judgmental to yourself so will people be towards you". She was followed by another guest speaker, Thabisile Ndlela who is a manager from Mkhambithini Municipality.   She took the delegates through her life’s journey and highlighted some of her lessons learnt from it: 1.        Put confidence in other women (someone did that to her) 2.        Take one girl child and mentor ie. will change communities 3.        Mobilize other women 4.        Give another person a space to shine (she sang prai

We are pleased to announce that our next free webinar, 'Explore the Chekhov app for online writing'' will be held this coming Thursday 31st August at 3:15pm. Our speaker will be Phuti Ragophala, well-known in many international and local education circles and also a Microsoft MIEExpert Educator from Limpopo. Phuti says, "The Chekhov is one of the free apps offered by Microsoft for educators to access and use to enhance, transform and drive teaching and learning. Traditionally authors were known to be very academic people but today, through the Chekhov app, even primary school learners can write and publish story books online. The Chekhov app enables learners to be the solution seekers of the challenges that affect their communities. Illiteracy is one of the major challenges that need to be addressed in our country.. The sooner children get exposed to the challenges of their communities, the better they learn with understanding.  I would encourage educators to start usi

On Saturday morning 27th August we had a most enjoyable GEG gathering at Grove Primary,  run by the two central GEG leaders, Peter Schutte and Che Marnwick, both from Wynberg Girls High School.   Google Educator  Groups  (GEGs) are communities of educators who learn, share, and inspire each other to meet the needs of their learners through technology solutions. The groups around the world have local teacher leaders who arrange  meetings, such as Peter and Che. A fter tea and fun at the photobooth we settled down to the fun icebreakers and the presentations of the day. Keynote and Overview: Using Social Media for Professional Development This was presented  by Peter Schutte.  Peter focused on getting oneself linked to a Personal Learning Network and growing oneself professionally. There are many good professioanl development Google communities in Google+. For South African teachers the best one to link to is GEG South Africa  https://goo.gl/hWZDs9  Peter's presentation can be access

Have you ever wanted to add a slideshow of photos as a presentation on Blogger, for example, and there seems to be no quick fix? I have tried several options, unsuccessfully, until I came across this amazing app developed by Matt Miller and Alice Keeler, two of my favourite Edtech bloggers!. It is called DRIVESLIDES. DriveSlides takes an open folder of images in your Google Drive and it creates a new Google Slides presentation in seconds and adds each photo in that folder to its own slide in the presentation. This saves hours of time! I first heard about DriveSlides on an Instagram image created by Tony Vincent, another one of my favourite EdTech bloggers. . 1. How to install the DriveSlides extension This is how i went about installing DriveSlides - in case you want to do so as well. You need to be using the Chrome browser. a) Find the extension in the Chrome Web Store Open your Chrome browser and in the Apps section look for Chrome webstore. Ask for the extension called DriveS

The Internet is currently full of posts about using Microsoft products effectively in the classroom. Here are a  The Internet is currently full of posts about using Microsoft products effectively in the classroom. Here are a number of them from this past week. The list is embedded below but can also be found at  .  The link to the back-dated posts is:  http://bit.ly/1GVLTUZ

After looking through all the Google posts that were shared to various subscriptions recently, these are a selection that look useful for teachers https://goo.gl/wYFLXc . (The link to previous posts can be found here https://goo.gl/CNO3M2 )

Here is a messgae from Peter Schutte from Wynberg Girls High School. He is one of the GEG (Google Educator Group) Central leaders in Cape Town Hey everyone it's time for another exciting GEG Event (Cape Town Central), happening on Sat 26th August from 9 -11 at Grove Primary School. Please feel free to share this invite! This is an informal event where you can connect with teachers from other schools to share. Should you have any friends at other schools that you would like to invite please do! Topic: Using Social Media for Professional Development Please RSVP on the following Google Form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdG4KtSWPC0_BEBdnHWLpKrm4eq5W9sgN4hjuz40eIOAkde9Q/viewform

The Internet is currently full of posts about using Microsoft products effectively in the classroom. Here are a  The Internet is currently full of posts about using Microsoft products effectively in the classroom. Here are a number of them from this past week. The list is embedded below but can also be found at  http://bit.ly/2vBv9gR .  The link to the back-dated posts is:  http://bit.ly/1GVLTUZ

We are so looking forward to having Stephen Reid at the SchoolNet SA conference taking place at Brescia House School on 5 – 7 October 2017. Stephen will be doing a keynote about “Emerging Technology in Education” If you haven’t booked your spot yet, be sure to register HERE,  - http://www.schoolnet.org.za/conference2017/ , by the end of August to secure the early bird rate. If you are a Minecraft: Education Edition fan you’ll definitely want to attend some of Stephen’s sessions. He is the Minecraft Guru from Scotland who presents on Minecraft: Education Edition all over the world. Across the three day conference, Stephen will also be offering a number of breakaway sessions including the Problem-Based Learning Course which encourages students to think more critically and to work collaboratively through being faced with solving ill-structured, open-ended, messy problems. Minecraft novices and experts will also have opportunities to explore Minecraft: Education Edition and the “Small

After looking through all the Google posts that were shared to various subscriptions recently, these are a selection that look useful for teachers  https://goo.gl/UwcS84 . (The link to previous posts can be found here  https://goo.gl/CNO3M2 )

The Internet is currently full of posts about using Microsoft products effectively in the classroom. Here are a  The Internet is currently full of posts about using Microsoft products effectively in the classroom. Here are a number of them from this past week. The list is embedded below but can also be found at http://bit.ly/2vB5Zz0   .  The link to the back-dated posts is:  http://bit.ly/1GVLTUZ

After looking through all the Google posts that were shared to various subscriptions recently, these are a selection that look useful for teachers https://goo.gl/QJ8C8p . (The link to previous posts can be found here https://goo.gl/CNO3M2 )

We are thrilled to announce that Ollie Bray from the UK, has been confirmed as a keynote speaker for the SchoolNet SA conference. Ollie's career in education spans over twenty years. During this time he has been a teacher, head of department, senior government adviser and school leader. In recent years this has included a four year secondment to the Scottish Government as their National Adviser on Emerging Technologies for Learning. He is currently Headteacher at Kingussie High School located within the Cairngorms National Park. He is also a Member of the Board of Management at Inverness College: University of the Highlands and Islands as well as well as serving on several other advisory boards including the BBC’s Educational Broadcasting Council for Scotland. Under Ollie's leadership Kingussie has been rated one of the most improved schools in Scotland. At a systems level, most recently, he has been responsible for co-designing the deployment of 22,000 Chromebooks across his e

Submitted by Fiona Beal Canva (canva.com) is a graphic-design tool website which has both free and paid elements. It is web-based and is available for iPads and Chromebooks. You can also use it as a Chrome extension when using the Chrome browser. After spending some time exploring Canva I found that it has an easy to use drag-and-drop interface and provides access to over a million photographs, graphics, and fonts. There are free and paid elements but I found there are sufficient free elements for one to use the program very creatively. When you explore Canva for the first time a feeling of great delight comes over you! You suddenly realise that Canva could be great to use in the classroom for various design projects. There are so many useful free Canva tools available. In this post I will give you some classroom ideas. What can you do with Canva? As I looked around Canva I found so many ways I could bring it in to my teaching. You can create professional presentations, posters, mu

The Internet is currently full of posts about using Microsoft products effectively in the classroom. Here are a  The Internet is currently full of posts about using Microsoft products effectively in the classroom. Here are a number of them from this past week. The list is embedded below but can also be found at  http://bit.ly/2x1RJQY .  The link to the back-dated posts is:  http://bit.ly/1GVLTUZ

We are thrilled to announce that Peter Rafferty from the UK, has been confirmed as a keynote speaker for the SchoolNet SA conference. Up until 2016 Peter Rafferty was a primary school teacher and digital leader at Green Park Primary School just outside Liverpool in the UK. As well as being a successful and enthusiastic teacher, he was at forefront of educational blogging in the UK starting the www.greenparkschool.org.uk blog in 2005. This early adoption of technologies to support teaching and learning continued with the introduction of G Suite (then Google Apps for Education) in 2010. With a strong background educational digital strategy, Peter moved from being a full time teacher to teaching part time as well as using his skills and experience to work with schools and teachers in the UK and across Europe. He still supports Green Park on their technology adventures as well as Redgate Primary School in Formby. The continuing and infectious enthusiasm for technology and digital skills

After looking through all the Google posts that were shared to various subscriptions recently, these are a selection that look useful for teachers  https://goo.gl/hSbnM4 . (The link to previous posts can be found here  https://goo.gl/CNO3M2 )

The Internet is currently full of posts about using Microsoft products effectively in the classroom. Here are a  The Internet is currently full of posts about using Microsoft products effectively in the classroom. Here are a number of them from this past week. The list is embedded below but can also be found at  http://bit.ly/2up3a8p .  The link to the back-dated posts is:  http://bit.ly/1GVLTUZ