OLPCorps TeachersCollege Namibia

Ngoma Primary School

Proposal

Background of Ngoma Primary School

This project is for the benefit of the grade 4 and 5 learners at Ngoma Primary School, a public school in Northeastern Namibia, with English as medium of instruction. This rural school is located approximately 1300 km from Windhoek (the capital of Namibia) and has electricity. <googlemap version="0.9" lat="-17.82453" lon="24.66156" zoom="4" width="350" height="200" >-17.897728, 24.76593, ngoma</googlemap> Ngoma is a border post between Namibia and Botswana. The school serves students of 12 surrounding villages and students usually walk to school within a 3 km radius. The project will be run from 25 June to 25 August.

How we will work with the children

The students will be in session during June to August. Namibia has a trimester system of which the first term ends on 25th May, the second semester ends on the 25th of August and the third term ends in December. Grade 4 and 5 end their school day at 12:30 and starting at 7 in the morning. It is imperative that the XO's become part of everyday classroom practice and hence the focus will be to integrate the technology meaningful within the class lesson without loosing out on the set curriculum. Initially, the teacher will be encouraged to use an approved Namibian technology integrated lesson plan developed by our team leader. This will free the class to explore the XO and work in teams or individually on project-based learning. so during these times the students will be using the laptop for their projects. It is expected that the learners will have the responsibility of giving input to their own learning by deciding on projects and questions, as well as developing the rubric for their own evaluation with the assistance of the Teachers. XO programs such as paint, video word-processing, calculations (complex), presentation and Internet searches will be part of the classroom lesson at any time. Thus the pedagogy is that technology becomes a seamless part of their every day activity.

Local partners which will be involved with the project

The local partners will provide pedagogical and educational technology support as well as purely technical assistance. The Caprivi College of Education's student teachers will be using the site as practice teaching and will be supported by the faculty of the CCE. SchoolNet/Namibia will provide the technical support and both these teams will be involved in the project from the deployment stage. One of the Caprivi College of Education's student will be attending the training in Kigali. Our educational technology leader, Perien Boer (Media and Technology Ed.D. candidate '11), is a citizen of Namibia, as well as staff member at the University of Namibia and will be able to do follow-up upon completion of her studies. Maurice Zide (MA in Computing in Education '11), is our technical lead (MS in Computer System Engineering), is a former Peace Corps volunteer at Ngoma Primary School and has numerous ties in the region. The laptops will be stored in the strong room at the Ministry of Education regional office in Katima Mulilo until they are given to the students at the school. The laptops will be transported from the regional office to the school by the regional ministry office. All participants from Teachers College who will be participating in the project are either citizens or has permanent residency in Namibia.

Children Learning

For children aged 6-12 becoming “agents for change” would mean giving them the skills to operate in a 21st century. During the 9 weeks at Ngoma, our focus is for these children would be for them to learn accountability and responsibility for their own learning using the OLPC. The classroom teaching should change to problem-solving, critical thinking through project- and-research-based outcomes. At the end of the 9 weeks each child should be able to recognize many learning and teaching moment inside and especially outside of the classroom through the use of various software on the OLPC and sharing those products with the classroom. The importance of the Internet is key as the children can place their reflections and thoughts in wiki's and blogs. The focus on e-citizenship at a young age would be highlighted and e-etiquette will be taught. It is important for us to emphasize that being responsible would mean not copying and pasting and issues of copyright and original thought is important. For each child to own the XO allows them to recognize learning opportunities outside of the classroom. This would mean success for the team and a sense of accomplishment and confidence for the learners.

School Commitment

Ngoma Primary School has committed themselves to the financial implications of a subsided ISP and calls to SchoolNet Namibia for technical support. You may contact us at namcorps@gmail.com with any questions

Budget

OLPC Teachers College -Namibia budget

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Item	Quanity	Cost	Total
Jfk to Jnb,	2	1237	2474
jnb kgl	2	670	1340
jnd wdh	2	354.59	709.19