I petted a cheetah today. It came and laid itself down in front of us and our guide said we could come over and pet it.
I did.
It was strange.
Two of our hosts on the ground here in Eastern Cape took us to Inkwenkwezi Game Reserve today. It was amazing. Given the possibility of jetlag, movement was impressive.
While the nature was impressive, it was part of the conversation at lunch that began, again, to put the situation in Eastern Cape in perspective.
Talking to Charles and Nobubele who head the e-Personnel for all of Eastern Cape Province, we learned:
– Eastern Cape has 6,000 schools.
– The province is broken into 23 districts.
– That’s about 300 schools/district.
– Ten percent of all schools have a computer lab (PC).
– If the other schools have information communication technologies (ICT) it consists of a laptop and a digital projector.
– Many times schools’ principals will lock up the laptops (sometimes in their offices) because they don’t trust their teachers with the ICT.
– In order to get a lab, schools must put the infrastructure in place for the labs. That means everything from the tables to the power supply.
– One school received 30 computers but had power for 15.
A person begins to have perspective on what it means to work with educators here on building capacity for the integration of ICT in education.
You can take your cute workshop on digital storytelling and shove it or throw it or delete it or whatever-verb-you-choose it.
The new old ways of thinking don’t apply here.
New new ways of thinking are what are needed.
Working on that.
Looks like your encounters with wildlife thus far have been more mutually enjoyable than last year. (-; Good luck on the ICT side of things.
Awesome experience to pet a cheetah! Tough news about the ICT situation in Eastern Cape. I have every confidence, though, that you and the team will be able to come up with some creative workshops that meet the needs and the technology. Best of luck!
I wonder how smart they really are.I mean, did you pull the academic content standards for cheetah school in that region before you got that close? How do they do with zippers? Car doors?Okay, I'm jealous. Just a little.