Tag: eastern cape

Computer said no

Part of getting on the ground here is encountering new surprises. It’s part of what I love/hate.

The Eastern Cape project has offered a special challenge.

I must first state I’ve had only basic formal moodle training. Everything else has been figuring it out as I go. The fact that it’s an integral part of daily life at SLA definitely gives me a leg up on many others, but I’m no moodle maven. (I don’t even own the scarves, robes and crystals I’d imagine such a maven would possess.)

When Charles, our main liaison with the Eastern Cape Department of Education, asked for training integrating the Learning Objects different e-Personnel and teachers have built into moodle, it fell to me.

Super.

I’m up to a challenge.

The idea is to create intranets within the schools in the province with computer labs, install moodle and have the LO accessible to all teachers within the school.

Some initial roadblocks: the intranets don’t exist, a plan for moodle installation hasn’t happened yet, there may be others.

Still, I sat in the dining hall yesterday working with the sample LO Charles had given me.

I wanted to claw out my eyes.

Here’s what I learned:

The objects were created in a free Microsoft software called Learning Content Development System. They pull in video and graphics and text. They create interactive guided lessons. They export into SCORM. They don’t play nicely with moodle. (That last one was a bit of a bugger.)

Awesome.

I spent hours trying to figure things out.

My favorite piece of research brought this reply from a MSFT Moderator on the forums:

Hi Takabanda,

LCDS is designed to create content that can be hosted in the SharePoint Learning Kit (SLK).

In addition, we continue to test the content in other Learning Management Systems. We’ve heard varying reports about issues with Moodle and we do not have steps to resolve the issues some course authors are encountering with Moodle at this point.

Unfortunately, we don’t have specific steps to for Moodle.

Thanks,

Stephanie

I had some bad news for Charles.

I sent this tweet out:

Minutes later, I got this response:

@Microsoft_Cares attempted to help, as did @mwacker, and I’m grateful for it. Still, in the end, it was for naught.

I handed the issue over to my teammate, Chris, in whose wheelhouse this problem more naturally lives.

Nada.

While I’ll leave Matthew Arvin out of it, Microsoft should still look over their shoulder when in allies.

Districts here don’t have budget for SharePoint Learning Kit. More to the point, there’s no budget for the upkeep nor bandwidth for the updates. Offering the first part for free and the second for pay is a bit of a bait-and-switch.

The flipside of that is the need for a clear ICT plan and research of the tools chosen for implementation. I certainly realize that. I’ve pointed it out as well.

I can’t help but have a bitter taste in my mouth thinking this is another example of corporations eyeing districts hurriedly moving to “catch up” with other districts/countries as profits over people and ignoring the global implications of leading them to waste the limited funds they possess.

Yes, buyer beware.

It’s reciprocal.

Seller, operate in good faith.

Find the Hard Pack

We’ve been starting each day of the Eastern Cape project with a period of reflection. It’s been my task to orchestrate these moments of reflection.

Wednesday, I told a story.

Mid-October, I’ll be running my 8th marathon.

Because of this, I need to keep training whilst I’m on the ground over here. As many of the locales where we’ll be working aren’t necessarily safe for a lone foreigner out on a run, I’ve been taking advantage of each location I can.

The venue here on South Africa’s “Wild Coast” is safe(-ish).

Wednesday, I set out before the sunrise to run along the beach.

Whereas Gonubie was a little resort town situated right on the beach, here, we’re much more middle of nowhere. The beach is expansive and I had it to myself.

Living in Florida taught me about running on the beach – you stay close to the water on the hard-pack sand. Otherwise, you’re running in mush.

The first mile-and-half of my 6-miler was great. Still dark, light breeze, waves crashing.

Then, I lost the hard pack.

It was mush.

It was whatever the morning equivalent of twilight is and I was running in mush.

I pushed through.

“I’m a marathoner. A little soft sand won’t get me down.”

It didn’t end.

I’d stop and rest and run again and stop and rest and run again. No end.

I was fatigued.

I turned around half a mile short of my set halfway point.

Beaten.

As I took another walking break, I spotted the two people I’d passed about a quarter of a mile before turning around.

This was their beach.

They’d left a path.

I started to run again – in their tracks – ignoring my own footprints.

This was their beach.

The way back was easier than the way out.

I was following those who knew the path and I was pretty certain were so used to walking it they thought nothing of it.

Pace-wise, my time was horrible.

As far as all the other reasons long-distance runners do what they do, it was superb.

This is the story I told the e-Personnel Wednesday before a day-long workshop where we asked them to create lesson plans in which they incorporated Information Communication Technologies to serve as examples for the thousands of teachers they work with. They’d never done what they’ve been asking their teachers to do for two years now.

It was arduous and confusing and jargon-splitting, but it was so good.

If we’re going to ask others to go there, we must first go there ourselves.

It’s up to us to find the hard pack.

The Wonky Road Ahead

The network here is a bit wonky.

According to Charles, one of our liaisons on the ground here, the Ministry of Education (MOE) would have preferred another venue.

That venue did not complete the required rating that would have established it as a Historically Disadvantaged Institution. Evidently, in order to bid for the contract, a business should qualify as a HDI.

We’re working with approximately 40 Senior Education Specialist e-Personnel this week. They work with the 6,000+ schools in the Eastern Cape province. The majority are responsible for tech training for around 300 schools.

At evening tea last night, one e-Personnel boasted that she was able to travel to a record 40 schools in one month thanks to her new government-subsidized car.

Eastern Cape has the third highest population in South Africa and is ranked the most impoverished.

And those are just the socio-economic problems.

Based on multiple reports here, the provincial and national management see ICT as a new problem for them to manage.

They are working under the myth that, “ICT can never ever, ever assist teachers in the classroom.”

Charles would like to erase that myth as his legacy.

I’d like to help.

Still, the network here is a bit wonky.

The e-Personnel haven’t all physically met in the same place for years. They’ve received quarterly training in cohorts.

They don’t know what one another is doing.

As I learned at lunch, “We are not terribly interested in what you are doing in your district as we are responsible for our own.”

Similarly, the e-Personnel have never been in the same virtual space at the same time. The e-Learning unit attempted to get everyone together through a site called SocialGo. It didn’t take.

Seems they didn’t inherently value something because it was new.

Yesterday’s session had the e-Personnel logging in to a moodle course we’ve designed for the week. It holds the readings, it holds the homeworks, it holds the forums for discussion. It means something to their progress.

Everyone had to download their homework files and fill out their moodle profiles before leaving the meeting room at night.

We haven’t any wireless access. They needed to be plugged in.

The network here is a bit wonky.