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.