Worldlinks for Development Evaluation

By Fusi Mokoena

Vista University (Soweto Campus) South Africa

September 2002

Introduction

The Worldlinks for Development - South Africa Programme was conducted at the University of Pretoria from the 2nd April 1998 to the 8th April 1998. The training was facilitated by two facilitators. Participants came from all three streams of the schooling environment, namely: Heads of schools, Teachers and Students. All Provinces had representation, some of the Provinces send representatives from their offices.

There were no parameters given to me regarding the Evaluation of the Programme. This placed great responsibility on my shoulders as regards giving objective and valuable input in my assessment of the Programme. Mr Ginger Bester from the Department of Education made valuable comments in the creation of this document.

The aspects given attention are the following:

• The Programme's vision and mission
• Course material
• Resources supporting the Programme
• Hardware and Software requirements
• Participants

Conclusion

The course content was extremely comprehensive. Participants with little computer experience were pressured in the initial stages of the training, but stated that they felt more comfortable as the course progressed. Some participants felt that the amount of information was overwhelming, but it can be said that this was balanced with adequate time being made available for mastery through practice and to become familiar with the concepts. As stated previously, the interchange of lecturers/facilitator to each of the groups was a useful exercise and proved to be an effective way of standardising the content, revising concepts and providing some variety and stimulation for the participants. Group work was also encouraged to facilitate understanding and proved to be quite an effective technique within this training situation. It had the added benefit of initiating contact groups that are necessary for the effective application of this type of pedagogy. Group work is a technique that should be given a lot of emphasis in the progression of this programme.

The course was presented in a non-threatening and supportive manner. Participants generally felt very positive about the value, applicability and presentation of the course. Although there was a mixed range of abilities, participants generally achieved the stated objectives. These were familiarity with accessing Internet information and being able to use it meaningfully in a teaching environment.

As far as medium term responses; participants have expressed a desire that their Provincial Education Departments should provide a quick and meaningful follow-up. However, it is unlikely that the provincial education departments will be able to respond immediately and directly to take this process further. Participants have been made aware that they have been provided with a tool (E-mail) to continue the information sharing processes and that they should take some responsibility in taking these implementation processes further. SchoolNet and possibly the National Department of Education will continue with promoting the initiative.

In the long term, these methodologies are able to provide meaningful learning experiences and access to a wide range of resource material for both learners and educators. Very able assistance and interventions will hopefully be continued to be made by SchoolNet and the Worldlinks for Development Programme; together with the National Department of Education, to extend and elevate the levels of teaching and learning currently taking place.

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Source: SchoolNet SA website