e-learning in S.A schools

EDUCATION-SOUTH AFRICA:From Blackboard to SMARTboardBate Tabi TabePRETORIA, Sep 15 (IPS) - The electronic board in front of the class flickers, and a periodic table is projected onto the screen. "Do you all know what this is?" booms a voice from the loud speaker. "Yes!" the students chorus, as any typical class would. Except that this class is far from typical. While the students are seated in a computer laboratory at Gatang High School in Mamelodi, a poor, black residential area outside the capital of Pretoria, teacher Ron Bayers is located several kilometres away at St Albans - a well-to-do private school in the city. The class talks and interacts seamlessly through a wireless broadband connection, which allows for high-speed transmission of sounds, images and other information. Web cameras situated at both ends of the Gatang laboratory give Bayers a clear view of the class on a screen set up at his school, while the students can also hear him and see what he does, as he does it. Both teacher and pupils make use of electronic "SMARTboards" that enable instant displays of what is written on them. In the past, students from several Mamelodi schools were bussed to St Albans to take extra lessons in a variety of subjects: there simply aren't enough teachers to instruct them in their own schools, especially in the sciences. These shortages of staff - also of teaching facilities and textbooks - are a legacy of apartheid. Under the former system of white rule, little investment was made in education for black children, who were seen as destined for the unskilled labour market. However, the bussing system limited the number of students who could be assisted. This set the stage for the electronic learning - or "e-learning" - project, which got underway in 2003 in five schools (the first class was given in 2004). The 'Mamelodi E-learning' initiative was spearheaded by Bayers.