Enabling and constraining ICT practice in secondary schools: case studies in South Africa
- Hodgkinson-Williams, Cheryl, Siebörger, Ingrid, Terzoli, Alfredo
- Authors: Hodgkinson-Williams, Cheryl , Siebörger, Ingrid , Terzoli, Alfredo
- Date: 2007
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/428923 , vital:72546 , https://www.inderscienceonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1504/IJKL.2007.015551
- Description: The use of Information Communication Technology (ICT) in education is being seen as a way of widening access to education, particularly in developing countries. This paper addresses the issue of ICT implemen-tation in secondary schools and focuses specifically on the practices that enable or constrain the successful implementation of ICT for teach-ing and learning activities. It reflects upon the lessons learned from a collective case study undertaken in 12 of the 13 secondary schools in Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape in South Africa. School principals and designated IT teachers were interviewed and on-site infrastructure audits conducted. This paper identifies a number of key enabling and constraining factors surrounding practical issues, including sufficient hardware, appropriate software and affordable connectivity, sufficient technical support and training, policy-related issues such as the role of national, provincial and school policy, the vital contribution of principal leadership and champion teachers as well as ongoing teacher profes-sional development coupled with a willingness to change.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2007
- Authors: Hodgkinson-Williams, Cheryl , Siebörger, Ingrid , Terzoli, Alfredo
- Date: 2007
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/428923 , vital:72546 , https://www.inderscienceonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1504/IJKL.2007.015551
- Description: The use of Information Communication Technology (ICT) in education is being seen as a way of widening access to education, particularly in developing countries. This paper addresses the issue of ICT implemen-tation in secondary schools and focuses specifically on the practices that enable or constrain the successful implementation of ICT for teach-ing and learning activities. It reflects upon the lessons learned from a collective case study undertaken in 12 of the 13 secondary schools in Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape in South Africa. School principals and designated IT teachers were interviewed and on-site infrastructure audits conducted. This paper identifies a number of key enabling and constraining factors surrounding practical issues, including sufficient hardware, appropriate software and affordable connectivity, sufficient technical support and training, policy-related issues such as the role of national, provincial and school policy, the vital contribution of principal leadership and champion teachers as well as ongoing teacher profes-sional development coupled with a willingness to change.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2007
The humanities, vocationalism and the public good: exploring 'the Hamlet factor'
- Authors: Wright, Laurence
- Date: 2007
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: vital:7028 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007214 , https://doi.org/10.1080/17535360712331393503
- Description: preprint , This paper argues that the social mission of the humanities is no longer well understood by the public, sometimes not even by the very institutions seeking to attract students to these disciplines, the universities. It becomes difficult to argue for the cogency of research in the humanities, let alone for a specific national research agenda, when the general relation between the humanities and society is widely mistaken. To address such misapprehensions, the discussion outlines as clearly as possible the characteristic procedures of the humanities, the manner in which they inform individual and social transformation, and the contemporary predicament which makes them more rather than less needed in society’s repertoire of educational resources. With this understanding in place, the paper then puts forward suggestions for strengthening research in the humanities as part of a broader programme to renovate the humanities in the South African education system.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2007
- Authors: Wright, Laurence
- Date: 2007
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: vital:7028 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007214 , https://doi.org/10.1080/17535360712331393503
- Description: preprint , This paper argues that the social mission of the humanities is no longer well understood by the public, sometimes not even by the very institutions seeking to attract students to these disciplines, the universities. It becomes difficult to argue for the cogency of research in the humanities, let alone for a specific national research agenda, when the general relation between the humanities and society is widely mistaken. To address such misapprehensions, the discussion outlines as clearly as possible the characteristic procedures of the humanities, the manner in which they inform individual and social transformation, and the contemporary predicament which makes them more rather than less needed in society’s repertoire of educational resources. With this understanding in place, the paper then puts forward suggestions for strengthening research in the humanities as part of a broader programme to renovate the humanities in the South African education system.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2007
Time-resolved luminescence of low sensitivity quartz from crystalline rocks
- Chithambo, Makaiko L, Preusser, F, Ramseyer, K, Ogundare, F O
- Authors: Chithambo, Makaiko L , Preusser, F , Ramseyer, K , Ogundare, F O
- Date: 2007
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: vital:6801 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1004164 , https://doi.org/10.1016/j.radmeas.2006.07.005
- Description: preprint , Time-resolved luminescence spectra of low sensitivity natural quartz from crystalline rocks are presented. The luminescence was pulse-stimulated at width using 470 nm blue light from quartz separated from plutonic, metamorphic, volcanic and hydrothermal samples. Measurements were made at 20 °C. All samples show evidence of a short lifetime component less than long although in several cases too weak in intensity to be evaluated accurately. On the other hand, the value of the principal lifetime component varies considerably being about in metamorphic quartz, in plutonic quartz, and in one example of hydrothermal quartz. The results illustrate a new feature of luminescence from quartz for which lifetimes less than or greater than have never been reported at room temperature before. It is argued that the thermal provenance of the quartz and so the annealing it will have experienced influences the size of the observed lifetime. In particular, the results are explained in terms of a model consisting of three luminescence centers with the dominant lifetime linked to preferential recombination at one center depending on the thermal history of the sample and hence the hole concentration of the center.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2007
- Authors: Chithambo, Makaiko L , Preusser, F , Ramseyer, K , Ogundare, F O
- Date: 2007
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: vital:6801 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1004164 , https://doi.org/10.1016/j.radmeas.2006.07.005
- Description: preprint , Time-resolved luminescence spectra of low sensitivity natural quartz from crystalline rocks are presented. The luminescence was pulse-stimulated at width using 470 nm blue light from quartz separated from plutonic, metamorphic, volcanic and hydrothermal samples. Measurements were made at 20 °C. All samples show evidence of a short lifetime component less than long although in several cases too weak in intensity to be evaluated accurately. On the other hand, the value of the principal lifetime component varies considerably being about in metamorphic quartz, in plutonic quartz, and in one example of hydrothermal quartz. The results illustrate a new feature of luminescence from quartz for which lifetimes less than or greater than have never been reported at room temperature before. It is argued that the thermal provenance of the quartz and so the annealing it will have experienced influences the size of the observed lifetime. In particular, the results are explained in terms of a model consisting of three luminescence centers with the dominant lifetime linked to preferential recombination at one center depending on the thermal history of the sample and hence the hole concentration of the center.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2007
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