Sunday, November 8, 2015

Wednesday, November 4, 2015

Sunday, October 25, 2015

Rethink subjects

While government is planning how to manage no increase in university fees and how to get money to universities and unhappy hungry students, this would be a good time to rethink the required subjects for a matric and a Bachelor pass, a requirement for studying at university. 

CAT and Tourism are not in the designated list for a Bachelor matric pass. Getting to university and the hoped for way out of poverty with a degree and coping with poor teaching in under resourced schools, learners stay with subjects on the designated list. They cannot afford to gamble with their subjects. We know they only have to do 4 from the list but just in case they do all their subjects from the designated list. So they do not do subjects which they could use to help them succeed at university or starting their own businesses. 

Dear authorities please rethink the position of CAT and Tourism!  Thank you.

Friday, August 21, 2015

Maintaining discipline - Getting to know your class

It will help teachers to interact better with their classes and maintain discipline if they know the names of their students. I suggest that you make the learners sit in the same place every lesson and have a layout map of the class. This is what I am making my student teachers create in their computer literacy classes when they are meant to learn Word tables.
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For CAT or computer literacy people the key features here are borders, column width, vertical and horizontal alignment in cells.


It will help more by inserting images of each of the learners.

For CAT or computer literacy people the key features are borders, column width, vertical and horizontal alignment in cells and maybe merge cells. The images are all cropped to display just the face, the same size, inserted as files, formatted in line with text, aligned vertically and horizontally in the cells. The pictures can be taken with whatever means or copied from a social networking site, but transferred to the computer and saved as a file.

Sunday, August 16, 2015

Learning theory by creating a rap

A possible way to get the learners to learn their theory is to ask them to create a rap. CAT theory exams require learners to apply their knowledge, but you need to know the work before applying it. 

My students were tasked with creating a rap. They had to give me the sound file, plus the lyrics. They went through the textbook chapter looking for something from which they could create a rap - they looked at the textbook, they engaged with the material in the textbook. They played with the words of the theory. They did it at home. I think some family members got involved with the work. I am sure some of the work went into their heads. Cool work!

Here are the lyrics of an example by Sivuyileplus Mhlekwa and the sound file. It is called CPU RAM ROM

CAT
CPU
RAM
ROM
Put it all on this hella beat (x2)

Also known as the processor
Performs all the processing…
… of data
And carries out instructions
Its speed is in Gigahertz
It’s a general indi-ca-tor
Of instructions it can process…
… in a second
CPU
CPU
CPU
CPU
CPU on the motherboard

Often just called memory
Needed to load processed data
Also needed to run programs
Random Access Memory
Works with the CPU
Stores open data or instructions
Very fast, very expensive, volatile
Random Access Memory
RAM
RAM
RAM
RAM
RAM on the motherboard (x2)

It’s a special chip on the motherboard
Stores instructions for booting up
Keeps its content when the power’s off
Read Only Memory
ROM
ROM
ROM
ROM
ROM on the motherboard (x2)

CAT
CPU
RAM
ROM

Put it all on this hella beat (x2)

Saturday, July 18, 2015

Grade 10 - Case study: Micro-farming - page 387

On Mandela Day 2015 the micro-farms mentioned on page 387 of the grade 10 book were very busy.
In Khayelitsha volunteers arrived to spread mulch, level and compost the wall bed, to put wood chips in paths, to plant seedlings and do many other chores at the garden .
The weather was beautiful and much work was done. Was amazing to see so many people working together on the farm and being entertained by the choir.
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     Putting wood chips in paths

     Planting seedlings

     Mulching the plants

     Working on chores

     Growing the farm

Saturday, July 4, 2015

Using textbooks,videos, blogs, etc. in teaching theory

Below are some of the files used in a presentation I gave on 'Using textbooks, videos, blogs, etc. in teaching theory' at the Teaching and Training Conference in Cape Town in July 2015.