Tablets in schools will boost the economy: Ramaphosa

[chewiesw]

I see the start of a grass roots Springbok Angry Birds team. Based on merit of course.

 

[GoofySmurf]

My sister-in-law's school has fitted cellphone jammers and actually banned smartphones in class. Their wifi was constantly hacked and used to.watch porn by learners. You should have seen her face when an asked why they didn't just use Mac addresses to control access. I mean, who does their IT?

Blocking Ip addresses is just as efficient as blocking mac addresses. Its actually easier to spoof a mac address than a IP address.

 

[Archer]

My sister-in-law's school has fitted cellphone jammers and actually banned smartphones in class. Their wifi was constantly hacked and used to.watch porn by learners. You should have seen her face when an asked why they didn't just use Mac addresses to control access. I mean, who does their IT?

That is most likely highly illegal.

 

[dualmeister]

One previous tablet tender supplier was Huawei.

And that was already dodgy.

The auditor-general has instructed the Gauteng Department of Finance to probe irregularities in the R518 million tender awarded to the two tech companies to provide tablets and WiFi connectivity as part of the Gauteng Department of Education’s elearning plans for the next two to five years.

Not keen about this idea though.

Heard stories from some teachers who say they have experienced learners who practically don't know how to hold a pen these days.

Which ties up with this.

"Children are arriving at nursery school able to 'swipe a screen' but lack the manipulative skills to play with building blocks, teachers have warned. They fear that children are being given tablets to use 'as a replacement for contact time with the parent' and say such habits are hindering progress at school. Addressing the Association of Teachers and Lecturers conference in Manchester on Tuesday, Colin Kinney said excessive use of technology damages concentration and causes behavioural problems such as irritability and a lack of control."

Source

Not to mention the possible eyes strain issues caused.

According to the American Optometric Association, symptoms of computer vision syndrome, or CVS, include eyestrain, headaches, blurred vision and dry eyes.

Source

Boosting sales of eye glasses for sure.

 

[akescpt]

ive already had to tell my 2 year old 'go play with your toys'. she is not impressed with me.

 

[marine1]

Tablets in schools will boost a fraudulent tender

 

[AfricanTech]

Outside of everything else, the behavioral changes are detrimental.

Unless the tablets are completely locked down to educational software only, the kids simply have another toy to play with.

My kids school have tablets and its negatives, IMO, outweigh the benefits at this point, especially since the school does not mandate keeping games off the things.

Edit: and I am constantly the 'bad guy' cos I choose to lock it down - other parents don't have the discipline

 

[dualmeister]

ive already had to tell my 2 year old 'go play with your toys'. she is not impressed with me.

No ways my daughter will be getting one anytime soon.

She will be raised "old school"

 

[Hemi300c]

Mmm I sense another tender scam.
Oink Oink......

 

[WaxLyrical]

If the feckers cant get decent grades from textbooks how are the tablets going to help.

Ramaphosa pay for it from your own pocket.

 

[ToxicBunny]

Need to know which tablets and all that... R17bn gets a hell of a lot of tablets...

 

[LaraC]

Need to know which tablets and all that... R17bn gets a hell of a lot of tablets...

Will it not include the network installations at schools?

 

[Seriously]

Yeah, the second hand tablet market will be boosted indeed!

Pity, it would do nothing to improve the learnability of the students.

 

[dualmeister]

Need to know which tablets and all that... R17bn gets a hell of a lot of tablets...

Should appear on SITA website at some point.

Possibly this one. If it is, then status is "Pending".

Published On 05/09/2014

Appointment Of A Service Provider For State Information Technology Agency (SITA) End-User ICT Hardware Refresh (Desktop PCs Notebooks Ultra-Books And Tablets.Note: A Compulsory Briefing Session Will Be Held On 23 September 2014 At Apollo Auditorium, SITA, Erasmuskloof At 10H00 AM

Tender # RFB 1256/2014

 

[Compton_effect]

The classroom of the future being piloted is modelled on the system that’s been in use at Sunward Park High School in Boksburg for the two years. That former “model C” was the first state school in South Africa to go textbook free, and has pioneered the use of tablets in public education here. ... As with Sunward Park, the schools in this new pilot will be using a centralised portal developed by Bramley’s MIB Software for managing tablets and aggregating educational content into a single portal. MIB’s backend pulls in CAPS aligned digital textbooks from the likes of Via Afrika as well as extra resources from around the web. Content from Wikipedia, the BBC, the complete works of Shakespeare and Khan Academy is all cached locally for teachers to reference during lessons and pupils to use for self-directed study and research.

Hmm. interesting.

 

[Baba Vakai]

Tenders galore!

 

[Nod]

Hmm. interesting.

Sunward Park article: http://www.htxt.co.za/2014/01/08/sas-first-digital-model-c-school-first-matric/

Overall the school did very well in the matrics, beating the national and provincial averages by a considerable degree. Of 222 pupils who sat the exams, 219 passed – a rate of 98.64%. 58.4% of the pupils scored highly enough to achieve university entry, and there were 159 distinctions handed out. A further 79 students gained diploma passes.

While deputy head Enoch Thambo is obviously very happy with the results, he says that this is only a cautious endorsement of the school’s digital policy. On the one hand, he told htxt.africa, pupils like Baijan told him that tablet-ised textbooks were very useful for revising with. On the other, the school has had a series of good results over the last four years, with an even greater proportion of passes in 2011 and 2010.

 

[Arthur]

Very bad idea, pedagogically speaking. Computers in schools, especially Grade 10 and below, do more damage than good. There are many good articles by educationists that argue this very convincingly. But I don't think 95% of people are bothered to really go into this in depth, and the benefits of computers elsewhere are apparently so obvious that to argue otherwise immediately gets you branded as a retrograde Luddite ... and so computers proliferate in schools and the harm becomes endemic.

Information and exams are only tangentially connected to real education.

 

[Aghori]

On the contrary Arthur old chap. I know of schools where my friends teach that have very good pass rates because of computers. They are limited only for educational purposes and to aid in audio-visual enchancements in addition to board notes and homework.

 

[Arthur]

Sure, if you measure education by pass rates. But that's not the whole story about education. Not by a long chalk.