Presentation
The Shongololo Interconnectivity Project
Joy Rosario, KwaZulu Natal Education Department
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This is a pilot project involving sixty schools: 20 developing/disadvantaged schools in deep rural KwaZulu-Natal, 20 technologically developed schools in the same province and 20 schools in and around Manchester in the United Kingdom.
The main objective of the project is to endorse the notion that a school can quite effectively cross the digital divide with a single online computer that is accessible to both learners and educators and which is managed by an enthusiastic and committed information specialist/teacher-librarian or IT person. ELITS (Education Libraries and Information Technology Services: a Directorate in the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Education and Culture) believes that a bank of networked computers is not necessarily a pre-requisite for online interaction, indeed this model brings with it attendant complications and expenses that can be prohibitive.
There will be twenty mailing lists set up, each involving three schools and a ‘lurking’ facilitator. The mailing lists will be run on a similar basis as Global Teenager with short relevant topics being set for minimal periods of time. Reference will be made to paper-based material as well as digital resources as it is our belief that the two are complimentary, not exclusive.
The project will run for a full year and is in the process of being set up. It is hoped that the project will grow exponentially when schools discover that collaboration in the 21st century can be embraced at relatively little cost compared to how the divide compounds by the year, with no online access.