SOUTH AFRICA,
Johannesburg
Six SMART Board
interactive whiteboards have been installed in pilot schools
across South Africa as part of an innovative project to
improve literacy.
Five of the boards were
donated to schools by financial services company Absa Bank,
a member of the Barclays Group, as part of the THRASS Absa
TalkTogether Project, and one was jointly sponsored by
THRASS, SMART Technologies and its southern Africa
distributor Edge Interactive.
SMART Technologies has
teamed up with THRASS UK to bring the latest educational
technology to assist learners, whose home language is not
English, to speak the language. The THRASS Phoneme Machine
is a ground-breaking computer programme that uses the
international phonetic alphabetic and moving human lips to
demonstrate the pronunciation of sounds and hundreds of
frequently used English words.
Chief operating officer
of Absa New Business Cluster, Nicholas Young says the
donation of the SMART Board interactive whiteboards to five
schools was in keeping with the approach to establish pilot
sites as model centres for the TalkTogether Project. These
schools are spread across the country and located close to
participating universities that have foundation phase
teaching as part of their teacher training programmes.
The installation of the
SMART Board interactive whiteboards and training of the
teachers to use the technology was done by SMART resellers
in South Africa, Compute Corporate Technology Solutions and
Edit Microsystems.
Young says he expects
the boards through their interactive aspects to enhance both
the learning and teaching experience.
“The boards provide the
project with the best-case scenario technology platform. We
believe there is benefit to be derived from the use of the
technology as it allows for the use of all the enhanced and
interactive elements of the THRASS methodology. By providing
the TalkTogether Schools with leading technology we
eliminate infrastructure as a variable in increasing
literacy as compared with other more privileged schools with
more funding.”
He said Absa would
consider additional donations of SMART Board interactive
whiteboards, based on the expansion of model centres for the
project.
The educational
partnership between Absa and THRASS aims to revolutionise
the teaching and learning of English in South Africa through
partnerships between primary schools, universities and other
organisations. British educational psychologist, Alan
Davies, executive director of THRASS UK, pioneered the
programme to Teach Handwriting Reading and Spelling Skills
(THRASS).
The five model centres
referred to as TalkTogether Schools are Roseneath Primary
School, Johannesburg; Eendracht Primary School, Pretoria;
Sunlands Primary School, Cape Town; George Randell Primary
School, East London; and Clairwood Boys Primary School,
Durban. The SMART/Edge donated board was installed at
Masibambane College in Orange Farm, south of Johannesburg,
and is a Centre of Excellence for the THRASS programme.
The principal of
Sunlands Primary School, Alta van Heerden, says the SMART
Board interactive whiteboard was installed at the school
last September. All the school’s educators have been trained
in the THRASS programme as part of the TalkTogether Project
and, and learners have responded favourably to the
interactive nature of the lessons.
The Cape Peninsula
University of Technology has taken on THRASS as a research
programme and each week up to 120 final year student
teachers spend an hour at the school teaching THRASS to
small groups of learners.
Hilton Williams,
principal of East London’s George Randall Primary School,
said learners “are loving” the use of the interactive
whiteboards in learning to properly pronounce English words.
Student teachers from the University of Fort Hare are
working with his learners as part of the TalkTogether
Project association.
Former Principal of
Masibambane College, Mr Darryl Geffen, said the children
were able to learn and interact in an audio-visual classroom
which makes teaching and learning of the English language
easier for everyone. In addition to the core school
programme, the interactive whiteboard is being used for
community educational projects.
Carol Jeal, who trained
Gauteng educators in the use of the SMART Board interactive
whiteboards for the THRASS project, believes that SMART’s
Screen, Shade and Spotlight are tools which are well suited
to the language programme’s use of the interactive
whiteboards, and that most creative teachers would be able
to use the Notebook software to revise and assess work
completed using THRASS.
“Most teachers feel
that the SMART interactive whiteboard will enhance their
teaching,” she said.
About SMART
SMART Technologies is an industry pioneer and global
education market segment leader in user-friendly ICT
products and group collaboration tools. The award-winning
line of SMART Board interactive whiteboards is the most
widely installed in the world because of its unsurpassed
product quality, versatility and ease of use. The SMART
Board interactive whiteboard is used to teach over 18
million students in more than 600,000 classrooms in more
than 100 countries around the world.
SMART is a
private company founded in 1987. Employing more than 1,000
people, SMART is headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, Canada,
with assembly facilities in Kanata, Ontario and offices in
Bonn, Paris, Tokyo, Shanghai, New York City, Chicago and
Washington, DC. SMART has been issued and maintains a broad
portfolio of patents with numerous U.S., Canadian and other
patents pending. In 1992 SMART formed a strategic alliance
with Intel® Corporation that resulted in Intel’s
equity ownership in the company. SMART products are sold
through dealers across North America and distributors
worldwide. To learn more about SMART visit
www.smarttech.com.
© 2008 SMART Technologies
Inc. SMART Board, smarttech and the SMART logo are
trademarks or registered trademarks of SMART Technologies
Inc. in the U.S. and other countries. All other third-party
product and company names are for identification purposes
only and may be trademarks of their respective owners.
