MATILDA

Miss Agatha Trunchbull, also known simply as “the Trunchbull” or “Miss Trunchbull,” is a fictional headmistress of Crunchem Hall Primary school. She is a cruel, harsh educator and is later revealed to be the aunt of Matilda’s teacher, Miss Jennifer Honey.

Now most head teachers are chosen because they possess a number of fine qualities. They understand children and have the children’s best interests at heart. They are sympathetic, fair and deeply interested in education.

Miss Trunchbull possessed none of these qualities and how she got this job was a mystery. She was a formidable female and by simply looking at her you get a feeling that it was someone who bent iron bars. She had a cruel mouth and small arrogant eyes. She looked more like a rather eccentric and bloodthirsty follower of the stag-hounds than the headmistress of a nice school for children.

 We have been taught to be responsible and caring teachers in the teaching field. We have to support and nurture learners in diverse educational contexts. We have to deal with every situation that comes our way with caution. We not allowed to discipline learners physically, or to take action in accusations without any proof. A teacher has to be gentle but firm and take into account how he/she treats and punishes learners.

Miss Trunchbull is the opposite of the above mentioned teacher. She is excessively mean and rude, and she acts without thinking. The Trunchbull is totally irresponsible and has a wrong way of dealing with problems. She is that teacher that believes that violence is the answer to every problem she encounters.

The learners do not look up to Miss Trunchbull as a guardian/responsible adult/good teacher but they fear her because she always unleashes anger or violence upon them, and does not portray herself as a role mole to the children. She is not caring and she doesn’t care about the learners in her school and she has even uttered that a few times. She tells the kids she hates them whereas she has to give them love and assurance of a safety environment in the school.

Miss Trunchbull is the opposite of a good teacher. She leaves everything she touches, scarred. She should not be in an area of children because she seems like she does not like her job, is arrogant and does not act as a role model to the young ones.

The unmentioned might of a woman

 This article was written by a man who appreciates woman.

This article portrays that we still live in a patriarchal society, where men are still seen as more powerful and mighty than women. The writer does appreciate women but he also belittles their abilities. He believes that we can stand on our own but he believes that we don't have the stability or strength to do so. He sees women as backbones of men. Simply meaning that we women serve right as a silent partner to men, we give them stable homes, confidence, might and advice while we stay at our corners and watch them conquer the world.

He also says that women are like thorns and pests that infuriate their inner beings, by asking questions and starting meaningless conversations, meaning that we are troublesome and sometimes don't know what we are saying. He portrays that the only power we have over men is being able to express our emotions while they can't. In the second last paragraph clearly states that us being women just shows the superiority we have over men and that we should be celebrated everyday, not just in our month.

I disagree with the writer's portrayal f men. Men are not always superior than women. There are women who are doing very well without any men to hide behind. The writer believes that the world is ruled by men, but he forgets that we live  in a new era whereby everything is equal and even so, women are doing a lot better than most men. Another fact is that men have pillars of strength behind their well-functioning lives, which are women, while women can stand on their own. In conclusion, we need each other(men and women) to succeed. no one is superior than the other.

The writer's style of writing was effective because he was able to evoke emotions. He made women feel belittled ad made them believe that they are nothing without men, while he made men feel a sense of superiority and power over women.

http://www.wikihow.com/Celebrate-International-Women's-Day
busisiwemayaba2.blogspot.co.za

Weblogs as an emerging genre in higher education

Weblogs are genres that support the creation of an autobiographical internet presence and development of a critical intellectual voice . They consist of links to particular web materials with specific commentary, generally presented in chronological format, harkening to older, more traditional forms of expression such as diaries and travelogue.

Weblog production and consumption can help students place the various emerging hypertext variations with older media in the broader context of “media ecology”. Experimentation with and discourse on weblogs can also stimulate student interest in larger notions of the social construction of information as well as presentation of self (and perhaps make plagiarism less attractive), as student explicitly link to each other’s works in a format that fosters currency, individuality, and critical commentary. Weblogs are also serving important roles in the approaches toward knowledge acquisition of many individuals and groups in education as well as in other professional contexts (journalism).  

A number of portals have been established in higher education contexts to highlight certain web resources as well as to provide news and search services (Eisler, 2001). Weblogs provide educators with assortment of new strategies for using hyperlinks on the context of presentation of self. Weblogs provide a structure that recasts limited, text-based notions of plagiarism. Weblogs have primarily served as modes of personal expression, providing a vehicle of individuals to contribute time-bound commentary on internet material, react to current events, or relate personal reflections. Weblogs also provide selective revelations of individuals’ information gleaning and knowledge management routines.

My experiences with blogs as a student have been extra-ordinary. We can now utter our views to the world through weblogs; it is like a personal diary, opened for everyone to see. We are also able to be in contact with our lectures and share our work with them through the blogs. It makes our work/studying much easier. We study and get used to the internet world at the same time. Some students can no longer claim someone else’s work as their own (plagiarism). We are not only communicating with our lecturers through blogs, but we are also communicating with our fellow students and other people out there.

To make blogs effective learning tools, I think that there should be an online corrector or advice application, that ca help us with the work we want to post. I think there should be a sensor of plagiarism that refuses you to post anything stolen or without acknowledging the writer/owner of that specific material. Except for that for that I thing weblogs are correctly structured.

Weblogs are the future of the coming generations of learners. Internet learning tools are much easier to be used and they make our work simpler.

References 

1. Cope, B., & Kalantzis, M. (2000). Multiliterecies: literacy learning and the design of social features. New York: Routledge.

2. Eisler, D. (2001). Campus portals: Supportive mechanisms for university communications, collaborations, and organizational change. Journal of Computing in Higher Education, 13(1), 3-24.

Unit 1.2: 11 August 2016

Service learning is defined as a course-based, credit bearing educational experience whereby students participate in an organised activity like identified community needs.
In my own understanding, service learning is a way of learning through teaching and giving back to the community by participating in certain service activities that are put together by the learning area you in.
In my first year, a Carnival Day was organised. We as the first year students were given a task to prepare this day. Learners from a neighbouring primary school were invited to take part in this day. We had to give this children a fun-filled day, while we ourselves were learning. We contributed to the community by giving this children a save place, to play without anyone being worried about what would befall them. At the end off the day the children had smiled on their faces, their teachers were happy and the lectures were proud of us for pulling the day off. What I am trying to say is we give back to the community while studying/learning.

TECHNOLOGY IN MY SCHOOLING YEARS

My final school year at Kwandebele Science Combined School, Mpumalanga

My name is Kgaugelo Mogashwa. My previous school is situated in Siyabuswa Township, in the dry fields of Maganagobuswa section. It is a high school which had grade 7 to grade 12 classes with a population of plus or minus 1200 students. The school strictly dealt with the Sciences stream of learning.  I started attending the school in 2009, when I was enrolled in grade 9, at the age of 15. I studied there for the whole of my high school years.

It was one of the Naledi schools in the Mpumalanga region. Even though it did not have all the resources/studying materials it produced the best results/students in the area. I was doing seven subjects which include Mathematics, Physical Sciences, Life Sciences, Life Orientation, Sepedi, Afrikaans and English. I was one of the students who matriculated there in 2013, with a bachelor certificate.

Our school usually hosted camps in June and September holidays for matriculates. In some of our classes we would use the smart board to conduct lessons. We would sometimes have lessons in the computer lab. We did not really have educational technologies.

BARRIERS IN ICT IN SCHOOLS

Order barriers still exist. Examples of these barriers are insufficient ICT resources for the large classes that have to be taught, lack of project leadership within the schools, and a need for ongoing training and support. These barriers appear to have not allowed the teachers and schools to go beyond an initial integration phase. The data generated, the literature consulted, as well as the involvement of the authors in the ICT implementation and training process over a period of two years, underpin the suggestions made for consideration when attempting to implement ICT focused interventions, particularly in schools with limited infrastructure and support. An implementation heuristic is proposed for consideration by those involved with ICT implementation in comparable situations

Internationally there are calls by students for technology to play a more integral part in their learning. However, in South Africa, Africa, Southern-Asia, and other less developed countries, schools may have great difficulty in providing children with access to computer hardware and internet connectivity. In the South African context the majority of learners are disadvantaged as their schools are situated in poor township areas where basic amenities are lacking.

Types of integration While the term ‘technology’ includes digital cameras, mobile phones, dvd players, iPod, etc., only traditional desktop, laptop or netbook technology are implied in this paper. Also, the use of the term ‘integration’ does not refer to the mere placement of computer hardware in a classroom where the focus is primarily on technology per se, nor does technology integration refer to using computers to support traditional or prevailing methods of teaching, for example learning ‘from’ the computer through tutorials, drilland-practice, simulations and hypermedia applications. Three types of integration are prevalent are prevalent in South Africa. The first type is ‘Learning about computers’, focusing on implementation without integration. This approach often results in ‘computer literacy’ that merely involves using computer applications without any link to what is happening in the classroom. The second type refers to ‘Implementation with integration to achieve traditional goals’. Barriers to ICT implementation can be categorized as first order barriers and second order barriers. First-order barriers are extrinsic to teachers and include aspects such as (1) lack of access to appropriate resources (software, hardware and internet access), (2) lack of time, (3) lack of support and (4) lack of training. Second-order barriers are intrinsic to teachers and refer to (1) attitudes, (2) beliefs of teaching, (3) beliefs related to learning, (4) practice and (5) inherent resistance in teachers. While access to hardware, time and support are fundamental, attention to second-order barriers are equally important as teachers’ pedagogical beliefs about teaching and learning are ingrained and of a personal nature. These beliefs result in a dogged persistence in terms of teaching as they have been taught, and if the positive attributes noted above do not already exist they are difficult to inculcate and strongly militate against attempts to successfully integrate technology in schools.