Hi there
I am currently a second year Education student at Stellenbosch university. I love the degree I am doing , I am passionate about education and technology, therefore I have a great focus about inclusivity of technology in the classroom and schools in general.

I will post about various things regarding education and technology in my educational blog and hope that what you find on this blog can be of some help to you.

Monday, June 22, 2015

Google Docs, Benefits and Disadvantages

The benefits of Google Docs in the classroom for the purposes of assignments, homework and extended writing task.

I have discussed Googles products before and how it can be used in the classroom as a free resource that can be utilized by the teacher and as well as the learner. In this post I will have a more in depth focus on Google Docs which consist of Docs, sheets, slides and forms. This is Google’s free online equivalents to Microsoft Office products such as Microsoft word, Excel and PowerPoint.

What one first has to understand about Google Docs is that it is a completely free online resource, anyone with a Google account can access these free services from Google. Google Docs works in conjunction with Google Drive, as anything you do in Docs, Sheets, Slides and forms are saved in your Google Drive.

Thus all your work in this platform of Google Docs is completely done online and accessible from virtually any device with internet capabilities. Whether you have a smart android phone or IPhone, be it a laptop or Tablet that has internet access, you are able to access your files and edit it as you please from anywhere in the world.

As I said the aim of this is to encourage the use of Google Docs for the use of assignments, homework and extended writing task, it does not have to stop here, there are various things Google Docs could be used for which is not listed in this blog post.

Google Docs would allow the learners to use it, to do their homework practically from anywhere, they could work in the car on their way to somewhere and be busy with their homework. This platform would give them mobility to do it on the go and not be stuck behind a desk to do their homework. They would be able to effortlessly swop between a laptop and smartphone. Given that there is internet access. This is a given for Google Sheets, Slides and forms.


It being an internet based resource the learner would be able to search for information as needed and integrate it into the document when needed. If the learners need to work together on an assignment the platform enables users to work simultaneously on one document. Thus the learners have no need to be in the same room or location to work together on an assignment offering more mobility for the users in corroborating on homework and assignments etc.

As it is part of the Google platform the learners can simply submit it to the teacher by emailing it in or sending it to her Google Drive, also via email. The email will capture information such as date and time thus the teacher will be able to tell if the assignment has met its dead line or if it’s overdue.

One huge disadvantage of using a Google platform in the classroom for assignments, homework and extended writing purposes is that it is reliant on technology completely, be it a Tablet, laptop or smartphone that the learner is using to access the internet. The internet as well , if the schools internet goes down or the learner at home does not have internet, then it poses huge problems to the productivity of the learners and teachers as Google docs, and drives exist in the “cloud” they always need an active internet connection to work with Google docs.

As we are in South Africa which has one of the world’s highest internet rates with little DSL penetration especially in rural areas this option might not be available for all schools, as certain schools does not even have functional computers labs which the learners might be able to utilize. Looking at the socio - economic circumstances of the learners attending the school one would have to take into consideration whether the parents could afford any one of the tools needed for their children to work with Google Docs. If that is a viable option for the learners.

Tuesday, May 26, 2015

Technology in Education: Twitter

In the previous post we also spoke about technology in education in terms of the Facebook platform. Today we going to look at Twitter as a platform for education, but in this case more to a learner centered approach.

Twitter the platform of tweeting where one has to be creative and smart with words because you are only given a hundred and forty characters to type out a tweet. The platform which brought the “#” hashtag to life as a method for grouping tweets, post, information together. This is a platform that expanded and became as common as Facebook amongst the youth as a platform for tweeting their opinions and many more.

To use Twitter for the learners to interact I think could be very useful and exciting, especially outside the class room to help with homework and many more. The big question is how we would go about using twitter in a learner centered context.


Firstly the teacher would create an account for the specific use of a class such as grade10BLHS. Which would mean, grade 10 B of Lentegeur High School. This would not be the teacher’s private account, but a school account used specifically for grade 10 B. all the learners in grade 10 B would be told to follow this account on twitter. They would be told what it would be used for:

  • For the learners to interact about the school work outside the classroom
  • To pose one another questions regarding work done in the class, assignments etc
  • Use to aid others with homework questions, and as a group by tweeting possible solutions 
  • Teacher could use it as a reminder platform eg: remember your #HOMEWORK J

That’s just to mention a few ways in which twitter could be utilized outside the classroom, with the emphasis being: The learners are the most active users, as this is a platform for them to help one another. As mentioned above the main key would be the grouping of information, if a learner posed a question about a mathematics problem, he would group it with #mathshomework for example, and another learner would post a solution using the exact same hashtag to group the question and solution together so that the rest of the learners can see both together. In this manner the learners can use twitter as an educational benefit, hopefully while having fun as well.  

Monday, April 27, 2015

Technology in Education: Facebook

In today’s day and age we find great advances in technology. These advances like internet, laptops and smartphones. These types of technologies were not available, like it is now, when I was in grade 1. The only technology type we had was, television. After 2000 more and more technology types were refined up until the latest technology we have today. Yet this development, of technology, is not ending, but it changes on a daily basis. Smartphones for one is affordable to the man in the street.

This is where I come in with the problem we have with the question: How can we integrate the latest technology, like smartphones, into the current education system? Will this have any success in how the students will progress? Will it make students more interested in the learning process?

In this I will look at how, I think, technology can be integrated into the. education system. The specific type of technology I will look at is Facebook

Facebook, like we all know, is a social networking site on which youngsters spend way too much time and energy.  It’s a website  where they play online games, to do  online chatting, including video chatting with the added skype feature. Facebook has become an all in one site for the youth and other individuals of all ages to stay up to date with family and friends, the latest trends, the latest celebrity gossip and any new activist movements hitting the globe or a local region. Teenagers spend hours on Facebook even during school time. We as teachers and future teachers have to find a method to use this social networking medium, which they enjoy being on, as a way to communicate with them and utilize its technology to get the students interested and more interested in their learning process. This can be achieved, according to me, by creating closed groups on Facebook. This in my mind will make communication between the teacher and students easier.

Facebook has a group function which allow users to create groups. This groups can have different settings, such as being an open group or a private group. An open group would allow anyone who comes across the group to join it. Thus we, as teachers, would only want communicate with the learners for educational purposes and thus a private group would be preferred. In this way only the learners of a specific class are allowed to join the group.

With the group established on Facebook, free of charge, we can begin to explore the possibilities of them (the students) becoming actively involved in their learning process. Firstly we, the administrator “teacher in charge” would speak to the class and tell the learners to search for the group example: “ HPSGR5”. That would be the grade 5 class from Hartenbos Primary School. Once everyone has joined the group we can communicate to the learners what the group will be used for:

·         It will serve as communication medium outside the classroom
·         Can be used as an aid for learners to get help from other learners
·         Will serve as a reminder medium, of homework, upcoming test, excursions etc
·         Can serve as an exercise, assignment medium where the teacher can upload exercises and assignments that the learners have to do at home.
·         Student will get a mark based on their participation in this group

Those are only to mention a few of the uses a private Facebook group could be used for in the context of education. This group would be private thus the teacher would be in complete control of who joins the group, he / she would only allow the learners of her class who the group is intended for to join and perhaps the head of department and parents, which of cause would be at the discretion of the teacher.

In terms of financial implications for the parents it would be cost effective data wise because Facebook has released a “lite” version of the Facebook app for phones, this app uses less data then the usual Facebook app which means it cost the parents less in terms of purchasing data / airtime. 

This has an upside as the learners would be receiving part of their school work on a social networking medium which they enjoy spending time on. The goal would be that they see this as just more social time which they enjoy, in which they would be engaging with their schoolwork.

In the final analysis I would like to emphasis that Facebook is only one of the many social media that students engulf themselves in. Similar things, if not more, can be done on applications like Twitter, WhatsApp, and many more. This is the age of a great technology advancement. Let’s use this to the teacher’s advantage of educating our students in a way which they will enjoy and thus getting the optimal benefit from their educational journey.








Saturday, April 18, 2015

Google App review: Wordsearch

The reason I choose this app is because it is a game, but not just an ordinary game but an educational game. For me personally this App is appropriate for the intermediate phase from grade four to grade seven. It is also relevant to different subjects as it gives choices of what type of word search to choose.

The benefits of using the App Wordsearch is the classroom is great because, depending on the grade you in, you can choose the difficulty level of the App. For example it offers Easy, Medium and Difficult. Because this App is targeting the intermediate phase grade four would be easy, grade five and six would be medium and grade seven would be set to difficult.

Depending on what subject you are offering you can choose the topic of the wordsearch as well. The topics to choose from is: Animals, Countries of the world, historical figures, Astronomy and Chemical elements to mention a few. For example if the topic were to be  geography in grade  seven the teacher could choose the topic of “Countries of the world” and set the level to difficulty, an exercise could be worked out in which the learners has to go and find specific countries in the wordsearch and all this on their phones or any android enabled device.

This app has a great benefit in the classroom as it could be used in more than one subject and it is interactive and fun. The challenge regarding this App would be learners that does not have access to an Android device, network access would not be a problem because this app does not require an internet connection to work once downloaded. Another challenge could be learners who are partially visually impaired as the App tends to present the letters a bit small and that might be a problem for certain learners to read it.

click here to download

 




Google Apps in Education


Today we are going to look at Google Apps and how it can be used in education. Google offers a lot of free resources to anyone who creates a free gmail.com email address with them. 

A list of their free resources you can use, once you opened a Gmail email account with them.

Google email address
Google Drive
Google Docs
Google Calender
Google + (plus)
Google Hangouts
Google play store

The key to having and using all these free apps is acquiring a gmail address, once that is completed then you have access to all these other apps / platforms to use free of charge. 

Benefit in the Classroom / Education.

today we live in a growing world. in a world where advancements in technology are made each day.
it is time that we take advantage of this advancements in our education industry to educate the youth.
All the Apps listed above can be used in a classroom.

Google Drive is a free online cloud storage platform offered by Google which we as teachers and future teachers can take advantage of. Google drive can be accessed literally from any device whether it be a phone, smart phone, computer, tab , ipad, phablet phone. You can access it as long as you have an internet connection. You can store all your files , lessons and digital textbooks on your google drive. Each learner  can have a Google account and save their work to their google drives. This is brilliant because in Google Drive you can create folders, documents, power points and many more, This falls parts of Google Docs. Learners can complete their work on google docs and email it to the teacher. Everything is date stamped thus the teacher will know if the task was completed on time.
There will be no loss of data as it is in the "cloud" thus the learners and teachers alike will lot lose a document.