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Guest Blog: Mr Diop, math/science teacher from Mbam

"Le netbook, un outil incontournable"

Au CEM de Mbam (dans la région de Fatick, au Sénégal), le netbook a permis à des élèves de 3^ème, à partir d’un exposé sur le tectonique des plaques produit par 04 de leurs camarades, de comprendre en 2 heures ce qui n’était pas évident l’année dernière en 12 heures. L’impressionnant est que ces élèves ne savaient même pas allumer un ordinateur avant la venue du projet CyberSmart Africa au CEM. Et curieusement, ce sont ces élèves qui aujourd’hui sont allés chercher dans ces netbook des supports qui ont aidés à tous de maitriser le thème.

At the Mbam middle school(in the region of Fatick, Senegal), the netbook helped 9th grade students, starting with an expose on tectonic plates prepared by 4 of their fellow students, to understand in 2 hours what was not possible last year in 12 hours. What's most impressive is that these students didn't even know how to turn on a computer before CyberSmart Africa came to the middle school. And, curiously, it's these students who conducted the research in the netbook to find supporting information that helped all understand the theme.

C’est vrai que ces élèves avaient au début quelques difficultés techniques comme rechercher des informations, mais qu’ils ont fini par surmonter.

It's true that these students had some technical difficulties in the beginning, such as researching information, but they learned how to overcome them.

Moi, Mr Diop, professeur de maths/SVT au CEM de Mbam, mes collègues, et nos élèves remercions le projet et nous croyons aussi que la bonne utilisation du TBI avec le netbook peut permettre à l’éducation d’atteindre sa finalité.

I, Mr. Diop, math and science teacher at the Mbam middle school, our colleagues, and our students thank the project and we believe that the interactive whiteboard and the netbook can help substantially improve education.

Au passage, tout le CEM, par mon nom remercie de tout cœur l’équipe CyberSmart Africa et souhaite une bonne continuation a tous les écoles partenaires.

In addition, on behalf of the entire middle school, I would like to thank the CyberSmart Africa team and wish good luck to all their partner schools.

"Weekly Challenges": SMS Texting as a Professional Development Tool

Our fairy tale of teacher professional development is a paradigm of the ongoing challenges that are faced by all who work to improve educational quality through professional development activities. The trainings and seminars are quality initiatives, well-meaning and good, but the work started there, the “educational magic” created, often does not continue, and the magic runs out.

In the cyber-savvy environment of developed countries, many schools and educational support structures are turning to the internet to support, or even replace, the exchanges that had, in the past, taken place only in the Land of Professional Development. Through interactive modules, teacher-led forums, virtual lesson-planning, and a plethora of other activities, teachers are given both the structured space and the ongoing opportunities to collaborate to improve their teaching and learning environments. The omnipresence of the internet means that the ‘net catches almost all teachers.

But here’s the tricky part: what about underdeveloped countries, where the internet is not available to everyone, where the ability to connect to the worldwide web is only practical in large cities, not in the small towns or villages where the majority live and learn? In Senegal, where CyberSmart Africa is undergoing our pilot project, “21^st Century Learning,” less than 15% of people 12 years of age and older use the Internet (ARTP, 2010). This number goes down to 5.5% in rural areas! The internet will continue to become more accessible, in all corners of the world, as time goes on, but what do we do in the meantime? How do we support these teachers, the ones who have just as many daily challenges as their urban counterparts, if not more? How do we make sure that the magic once made only in the Land of Teacher Professional Development is within their reach as well?

CyberSmart Africa has turned to the cell phone, the ubiquitous technological friend of Africa that has allowed Africans to connect with the world – from friends who live just a few villages over to their recently emigrated relatives in Europe. Every teacher has a cell phone, and he does his best to keep the battery charged and the number active, because it is his link to the world, wherever he may be teaching.

Our new program “Weekly Challenges” is based on SMS text exchanges between the CyberSmart team and our partner teachers. In an attempt to continue the collaboration and focused discussions that started during face-to-face professional development activities, we send out an SMS to teachers every Monday that describes a challenge to complete during the week. These challenges can be limited and immediate, such as a response to a question sent: “What software do you use the most in your classroom?” They can be more task-oriented: “Co-facilitate a technology-integrated lesson with a colleague this week.” Or, they can be larger challenges, that ask teachers to reflect, collaborate, prepare, and execute during that week: “Create a film with students and teachers that describes the school’s history.” The challenges are designed to support teachers in putting into practice what they have been learning, and to provide more direction and practice in difficult areas.

By the following Monday, the teachers communicate their level of participation in the challenge by text – challenge not tempted, challenge tempted but not completed, challenge completed – and are awarded points for their participation and for the quality of any resulting products, such as lesson plans, films, or write-ups. The friendly competition is truly motivating, and the sharing of products through group e-mails encourages those who have access to an internet connection to use it as a professional development tool.

In addition, teachers are given the liberty to work individually or in groups, but they quickly tend toward group work to minimize the time and maximize the output. They are all of a sudden constantly interacting with their colleagues to accomplish defined professional development tasks – just as in the Land of TPD!

So far, the Weekly Challenges have created pocketfuls of educational magic, which the teachers have been sprinkling around their active, 21^st century classrooms!

A Tale of Teacher Professional Development

Once upon a time, in the Land of Teacher Professional Development, there was held a delightful training for the teachers of all the surrounding lands. There were many teachers in this land, all of them good, teachers who worked hard and wanted to give their very best to their students. These teachers spent a few wonderful days together in the Land of TPD, working with each other and learning from each other, creating educational magic. This magic that they created together was so very valuable that, when the delightful training came to an end, and the teachers had to part ways, they all stuffed their pockets with handfuls of this educational magic to bring back with them. They then ran joyfully back to their lands, some north, some south, some east and some west, winding around and through for days and nights, pockets heavy with the magic but hearts light with possibility.

The next morning, these good teachers arose and went to their pockets, each to take out a little of the magic to bring with them to their schools. O the students will love this magic! they each thought as they scooped precious handfuls from their pockets into their school bags, and skipped off to school.

And the students did love the educational magic, they did! As the teachers ran around the classrooms, sprinkling their magic energetically in the air, they saw that the students were excited, and engaged, and were learning and participating like never before! The magic had done its trick, and the teachers felt happy and fulfilled. What a great time they had had in the Land of TPD! At the end of the day, they skipped home, grinning over their wonderful day.

The following morning, the teachers rose from their beds and went again to their pockets, again each taking out a little of the magic, and tucking it in their school bags. O how the students like this educational magic! they exclaimed, beginning the walk to school, motivated for yet another day of teaching with the magic.

And the students did like the magic, yes indeed, and reacted as the teachers circled the classroom, depositing small piles of it in the corners of the classroom. The students were attentive, and listening, and were learning and doing well, almost like the day before! The magic was still working, and the teachers were relieved for that. How wonderful that their time in the Land of TPD had produced such a nice thing! At the end of the day, they walked home, smiling over the usefulness of the magic.

The morning after that, the teachers rose once again, straight up with the sun, and headed for their pockets. They scooped out a little magic… But wait – the pockets were nearly empty! The magic had gone so fast! What were they to do with the little bit of magic that they had left? They trudged off to school to see what could be done.

As they began to teach that morning, each in his own classroom, north, east, south, and west, carefully setting the small pouch of remaining educational magic on the corners of their desks, the students did not seem so enthusiastic. But why not? The teachers were baffled; as long as there was some magic left, shouldn’t the students be happy and eager to learn? At the end of the day, they wandered home, frowning slightly over the seemingly uselessness of the remaining magic.

Finally, late at night, unable to sleep for fear of facing the students the next day without magic, one teacher, in a very far-off corner, summoned all of his strength and called out for help. His call wound around and through, went north, south, east and west, faster than the sun travels these same roads, and his fellow teachers awoke to his cry – “Help! I have no more magic!”

And each, upon hearing the message, shouted back in unison the same message: “We too are out of magic!”

And so, in hopes of creating more educational magic, the teachers made their way back to the Land of TPD. They worked together and learned from each other, and the magic was once again created, in abundance, and each eagerly stuffed his pockets with handfuls of magic, and ran around and through, for days and nights, until each arrived once again in his land.

The first day back with the magic was wonderful! But, once again, after three days, the magic ran out, and the teachers were discouraged. They called out in the night, and met again in the Land of TPD, and worked hard to create even more educational magic. And, once again, they greedily stuffed their pockets with the magic, and made the long journey, around and through, back to their lands.

Exhausted from the voyage, their first day back was dull and the students were bored, despite the educational magic the teachers had brought to the classroom from the Land of TPD. The second day was worse, and the third disastrous, until the magic ran out, and the teachers despaired. What could they do? They couldn’t go back, yet again, to the Land of TPD to create even more magic; they were too weak from going back and forth, and too discouraged at the thought of yet another voyage, yet another pocketful of magic, that was worthless after three days.

But what if they could work together, create magic together, without going to the Land of TPD? After all, it was working together, learning from each other, that created the magic every time! In fact, each night that a teacher called out to the others, the magic in all of their pockets grew just a little larger – they did not see this, were not looking at the magic then, were too worried, but it grew, it did. And what, too, of how they used the magic? Was this educational magic really magical when it was piled in the corners of the classroom, or sitting on the corners of their desks? Or did it need something more, was it the teachers’ energy, their skipping, their sprinkling of the magic throughout the classrooms, that made the magic so very magical?

World’s First Solar Powered Interactive Whiteboard Brings 21st Century Learning to Rural African Students

USAID-supported initiative incorporates teacher training with technology strategies to help underserved schools off the electric grid

BERNARDSVILLE, N.J. and DAKAR, Senegal, February 10 – Ecole Sinthiou Mbadane1 lies off the electric grid. Yet this rural Senegalese elementary school is providing students with a unique learning opportunity with the help of a groundbreaking solar-powered interactive whiteboard, part of CyberSmart’s affordable solution to bring 21^st century learning to even the poorest schools in the world.

Recently, CyberSmart received a grant from the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in Senegal to implement its innovative learning solution to extend the Senegalese national curriculum in the areas of math, science, and social studies. CyberSmart will collaborate with teachers and experts to create and implement locally adapted training and lessons designed to spark a more active, real-world classroom experience.

"USAID is excited to be working with CyberSmart to pilot its innovative model offering a highly scalable, practical solution to impact the poorest schools in the world –traditionally underserved rural schools off the electric grid – with a 21st century education" said Kevin Mullally, Director of USAID/Senegal.

“Just as the mobile phone brings affordable communications to rural Africa, our vision for CyberSmart’s learning solution, which integrates mobile broadband, is to do the same for education. This provides hope for one-quarter of the world’s population – 1.5 billion people – who lack access to electricity and risk falling further behind the digital learning divide” said Jim Teicher, Director of CyberSmart.

CyberSmart’s patent-pending interactive whiteboard impacts hundreds of students in a single day as it is easily transported between classrooms. Its components – specifically designed for schools lacking basic infrastructure – require minimal electricity and can be powered by a low cost solar energy system.

With a “tech-lite” model at its core, CyberSmart flips the traditional economics associated with 21^st century learning, and focuses heavily on teacher training. This is accomplished by using less equipment, eliminating the need for infrastructure modifications, and by reducing ongoing costs. The result is an instructional shift where teachers learn to engage students with the learning skills most closely associated with success in today’s globalized workplace.

CyberSmart also works in partnership with The Earth Institute at Columbia University’s Millennium Villages and Millennium Cities projects, and started its work in Senegal in 2007, partnering with the Senegalese Ministry of Education.

Photos: http://bit.ly/g7GTjN

Website: http://www.cybersmartafrica.org

Contact: Jim Teicher

jim@cybersmart.org

1-908-221-1516

One step closer to achieving a scalable 21st century learning solution to narrow the learning divide between Africa and the industrialized world

PRNewsWire News Releases

Published: 09/20/10 01:01 PM EDT

BERNARDSVILLE, N.J. and DAKAR, Senegal, Sept. 20 /PRNewswire/ -- CyberSmart Africa's innovative techniques are helping Senegal to achieve UN Millennium Development Goal 2, universal primary education. Through its "Sustainable 21st Century Learning Initiative," CyberSmart's "tech-lite" approach puts learning first -- uniquely focusing on teacher training and putting the latest low-power, portable equipment to work directly in the classrooms of rural schools -- including those off the electric grid.

CyberSmart Africa integrates the use of a specially adapted interactive whiteboard and other low-power digital tools which move easily between classrooms. Ongoing teacher training guides the educators in using these tools to facilitate an active and engaging classroom.

"This is a practical, scalable solution that reaches rural schools -- the ones most frequently ignored. Plus, with our emphasis on professional development, we foster 21st century professional learning communities, where teachers collaborate, share and build knowledge by supporting one another," said Jim Teicher, CyberSmart Africa Director.

In Mbour, Senegal, teachers develop interactive whiteboard lessons to enhance the Senegalese curriculum. Trainings encourage the development of student lessons emphasizing critical thinking and problem solving, the skills necessary in today's globalized workplace. In nearby Louga and Leona, in partnership with The Earth Institute at Columbia University's Millennium Villages and Millennium Cities projects, 120 middle school students use the interactive Livescribe Pulse smartpen to extend and support math and English language learning.

The results of the first semester pilot show:

• teachers reliability, efficiently, and regularly used the technologies to support classroom instruction
• more than 500 students in four schools were exposed to 80 newly developed lessons enriching the Senegalese curriculum
• teachers were highly energized by the new technologies
• access to timely information and interactive activities increased student motivation and learning according to teachers reports
• student tardiness and absence were greatly reduced
• students and teachers were quick to adopt and adapt the new technology skills
• teacher training and feedback sessions nurtured an organically grown and scalable professional learning community where staff now turn to their colleagues for support

Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/47247019@N04/

Website: http://www.cybersmartafrica.org

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/CyberSmartAfrica

Contact: Jim Teicher, Director

CyberSmart Africa

Email: jim@cybersmart.org

Available Topic Expert(s): For information on the listed expert(s), click appropriate link.

http://www.profnetconnect.com/james_teicher

SOURCE CyberSmart Africa

Whole Class 21st Century Learning Works for Every School!

CyberSmart! Africa is piloting whole class 21st century learning at the elementary level. Why whole class learning? Because it enables more students – even in the poorest schools – to efficiently benefit from living in a globalized world!

We have adapted interactive white board capabilities to serve the unique needs of development education in Africa. Our technology is easily transported between classrooms, even those where light shines through holes in the roof! In fact, the whole set-up can be disassembled and reassebled by teachers and students in 10 minutes or less! It consumes very little power, but is powerful in terms of delivering all of the basic interactive functions.

Focusing on learning, heavy on training

We use interactive whiteboards as a catalyst to develop an active classroom where the teacher facilitates student engagement in the learning process, as compared to a lecture style of instruction. Nearly all of our efforts (and budget) goes into professional development, where teachers learn how to carry on learner-centered instructional conversation with students. Furthermore, teachers support each through ongoing meetings, and archiving lessons they have found to resonate in the classroom.

The whole class instructional approach enables us to integrate technology directly into authentic, everyday classroom teaching and learning. For example, when it’s time for science instruction the teacher might draw on the resources available through the Microsoft Encarta multimedia encyclopedia or Wikipedia.

We are also realizing other benefits to the whole class instructional approach, including:

• an observable increase in student motivation
• an appeal to various learning styles, such as visual learners
• the ability for an entire class to gain knowledge through the use of integrated software, including multimedia encyclopedias
• the ability for students to learn and apply basic ICT skills within the context of classroom instruction
• the ability for teachers to scan, display, and work with textbook content that would not otherwise be possible due to book shortages

In sharp contrast to the use of interactive whiteboards in technology-rich developed nations, the interactive whiteboard represents students’ only hope to gain regular exposure to interactive learning software, multimedia encyclopedias, and the internet. Furthermore, use of the interactive whiteboard is continually facilitated by a well-trained educator who has actually created lessons that are carefully aligned to the national curriculum, as well as 21st century learning standards as defined by UNESCO and the International Society for Technology in Education.

How much ICT is enough? Without standards, nobody knows!

What is a standard? It’s an agreed-on level of practice by which something can be measured and evaluated. Without implementing standards, there is no way to determine success! Nor can we learn succinctly from the successes - and failures - of others in the field.

Indeed, standards are everywhere. At home, we raise our children to meet certain standards of behavior. Our automobiles are inspected, speed limits are established and rules of the road apply in order to meet safety standards. Hotels and restaurants that have attained a higher star ranking are considered to have achieved certain standards of excellence. And every nation in the world has established multiple standards for learning by which students are assessed. Without these standards, our children might be considered rude, our cars crash more often, our service be subpar, and our children less guided to academic success.

How much ICT is enough for elementary schools, middle schools and high schools? Without standards, who knows? Still, I see computers being installed in schools throughout Africa without much guidance from the internationally recognized learning standards. It’s as if learning will just ‘happen’ once the technology is in place, as if computers and the Internet themselves provide some magical solution that will automatically enable quality pedagogy.

We are hypnotized by technology because this is the 21st century, and we are impatient to connect and achieve all of the social and economic benefits associated with living in a globalized world, thanks to the magical computer solution. Companies, governments and institutions spend vast sums of money to build and maintain school computer facilities with every good intention - but it’s not enough. The result, more often than not, is that school computer facilities are inappropriately utilized, and more often simply underutilized, because their net contribution to student learning is vague at best.

CyberSmart! Africa’s approach to ICT integration is simple. We begin with a strong foundation based on how teachers can teach and how students can learn in order to reap long-term social and economic benefits from our globalized world. The technologies we employ are then backed into specific learning objectives; and the objectives are based on globally recognized standards.

Globally recognized standards for 21st century learning do exist and they should be seriously considered in order to maximize the benefits of technology in service of learning. Both UNESCO and the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) have developed a framework of standards by which 21st century learning can be effectively integrated with everyday teaching and learning. Together, they provide the basis for a comprehensive assessment system for both teachers and students.

See the following:

UNESCO ICT Competency Standards for Teachers
International Society for Technology in Education Standards for Teachers
International Society for Technology in Education Standards for Students

CyberSmart! Africa = 21st Learning for Every School!

What drives us at CyberSmart Africa? It’s all about inclusion – leaving no school behind – even those at the bottom of the economic pyramid. How is it done? By implementing sustainable and scalable approaches to education that draw upon affordable and innovative technologies, the latest research, and community-building activities among schools.

Having just celebrated 50 years of independence and self-rule, and facing health, economic, and educational challenges - as do many of its neighbors in the Global South - Senegal is struggling to continue to develop itself and prepare for a better future. In order to succeed economically in today’s world, it must raise a generation of young learners who possess 21st century skills. This includes the ability to collaborate, think critically, solve meaningful problems, and integrate digital tools.


Technology must be in service to learning, not the other way around

Tech lite: We use inexpensive, portable equipment suitable for use in every school – even those with only the barest of infrastructure. Computer labs are not a requirement, or even feasible for most schools. We also believe that ICT skills can be learned naturally as a by-product of supporting instructional strategies and everyday classroom learning.

Pedagogy: We encourage an active, learner-centered classroom where students assume the responsibility for learning while the teacher plays the role of facilitator.

Training: Teachers participate in supportive professional learning communities. They create, adapt, and improve lessons at the grassroots level.

Sustainability: The focus is to build a self-supporting instructional capacity with a minimum fixed ICT infrastructure investment.

Scalability: Teacher learning communities connect, share knowledge, and benefit from scale as learning materials and experiences are shared among larger quantities of participants. Our minimum and low cost technology infrastructure allows for rapid growth.

CyberSmart! Africa’s Pilot Initiative in Senegal

Our pilot initiative shows that every classroom can be a 21st century classroom!

CyberSmart! Africa is introducing cost-effective and locally adapted solutions in support of learner-centered pedagogy in four regional/rural elementary and middle schools in 2 administrative regions, plus one out-of-school, informal education learning environment.

We coach teachers to develop lessons and classroom activities correlated to the Senegalese national curriculum. Our pedagogical model is designed to be maintainable and reproducible. Pilot activities focus on whole class elementary school instruction in core academic subjects, plus highly personalized middle school and out-of-school instruction. All aspects of this pilot initiative correlate to 21st century learning standards adopted by UNESCO and the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE).

The pilot initiative operates through 2010 and plans call for expansion to include 20 schools in 2011. The participating schools are located in and around Mbour and Louga, Senegal.

Technology

CyberSmart! Africa has customized and integrated a highly innovative and cost-effective approach for whole class instruction. We use a low cost interactive whiteboard configuration that has been specially adapted to work in every classroom environment – even those where the sun shines straight through holes in the celing! We also use Livescribe Pulse Smartpens to deliver powerful interactive lessons that combine four powerful learning modalities – speaking, writing, reading, and listening. All lesson content is developed at the grassroots level. To complement all of these activities, CyberSmart! Africa engages students and teachers by using ‘Flip’ video cameras to create digital stories that excite and inspire the entire community.

Background

CyberSmart! Africa began in 2007 as a single-school, personal initiative of Jim Teicher, co-founder of CyberSmart! Education (USA), a company engaged in teacher online professional development in 21st century skills. CyberSmart! Africa partners include the Senegalese Ministry of Education, The Millennium Villages Project and its urban counterpart, the Millennium Cities Initiative (joint initiatives of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, Millennium Promise and the United Nations Development Programme), and The Women’s Health Education and Prevention Strategic Alliance (WHEPSA), operating the “10,000 Girls” initiaitve in Kaolack, Senegal.

Follow us on Facebook at facebook.com/cybersmartafrica

Thanks, Livescribe!

The Livescribe Pulse SmartPen - an individualized 21st century learning tool that we are introducing in West Africa -- provides an eye-opening and innovative learning intervention in a world where technology integration has always been associated with installing school computer labs and then learning ICT skills in them.

The Livescribe SmartPen is an amazing new learning tool! The SmartPen records and links audio to what you write on special 'dot' paper. Then you just touch the pen tip to whatever was written, and the linked audio plays back though the pen’s speaker or plug-in earphones. The power of the SmartPen lies in it’s ability to combine four ways of learning – reading, writing, speaking and listening – into a rechargable, take-anywhere package.

Thanks to the Livescribe Corporation, we are able to pilot the SmartPen in both middle schools and after-school learning environments. Middle school teachers in Louga, Senegal, are actively using the SmartPen as part of English, science, math, and geography instruction, as well as for student note-taking. I recently observed a math teacher who was using the Smartpen to explain the step-by-step logic behind a geometry exercise. I also observed students learning English by first sketching a car and then labeling the parts with an audio recording of the word (correct pronunciation and all!), and learning geography by drawing a map of Senegal and using the SmartPen to record audio commentary on the different geographic regions. It was amazing!

We are also using the SmartPen as part of an after-school program in partnership with the “10,000 Girls” initiaitve in Kaolack, Senegal. In this setting, it is the girls who, along with their after-school tutor, will define the best ways to use the SmartPen's capacity to enhance and make the most of their tutoring and peer-learning time.

In total, we have already started to pilot the SmartPen with over 120 students! Students are highly motivated to learn when the SmartPen is integrated into classroom instruction. Still, we believe that the real power of the SmartPen lies in it’s ability to individualize instruction. We also plan to use the SmartPen as a means for teachers to communicate with illiterate parents who might otherwise never engage in a school/home dialogue.

CyberSmart! Africa’s work in Louga, Senegal, is in partnership with The Millennium Villages Project and its urban counterpart, the Millennium Cities Initiative. Both are joint initiatives of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, Millennium Promise and the United Nations Development Programme.

Read though our continuing postings about how CyberSmart! Africa is using the Livescribe Pulse SmartPen, and watch for videos that show the SmartPen in action!

Visit to Senegalese Ambassador to the United States, Fatou Danielle Diagne

"We provide an innovative and complementary approach to traditional school ICT initiatives where even the poorest schools can become 21stcentury schools."

This was our message to the new Senegalese Ambassador to the United States, Fatou Danielle DIAGNE. Jim Teicher, CyberSmart!Africa's Executive Director, traveled last week to the Senegalese Embassy in Washington, D.C., to welcome the new ambassador to the United States - she assumed her post just eight weeks ago, having formerly worked as Minister of Competitivity and Good Governance in Senegal. She has a keen interest in education initiatives, and told Jim that the CyberSmart! Africa initiative represents an innovative approach to learning. It complements existing efforts to provide Senegalese students with an up-to-date education -- critical to Senegal's competitiveness in the 21st century.

Smart Teachers in Leona

Having finished their training just a week earlier, the two middle school teachers who waited for us in Léona were extremely excited about showing us their progress. In the past two weeks, both Ndao (a seasoned math teacher) and Kane (a first-year English teacher) had already led 2 lessons each in which the SmartPen was integrated, and had each prepared one more for us to observe today.

After a quick and efficient distribution of the SmartPen kits by students, Kane began his English lesson, on prepositions and their usage. He instructed the students to use their SmartPens to record both the rules for each set of prepositions and also the example sentences he provided. A dot here, a word there, and 15 minutes later, the “delivery” of the lesson was completed. Now, in the practice portion of the lesson, the students were asked to take out their earphones, listen to the rules and examples in their work pairs, and create their own sentences using these prepositions.

Leaning toward one another and listening with a tightened face, students looked at first frustrated and then illuminated as they tapped on their “bookmark” dots – marking the beginning of a recording – again and again. Some pairs listened to the rule three times, and to the example sentences even four times, before going about their own sentence creations.

When the work period was completed, students were called on to share their sentences, and Kane wrote them on the board. Surprisingly, the sentences given were markedly different from the examples! Instead of substituting just one word, students changed at least half of the sentences they were given when creating their examples – a noticeable progress in an educational culture of dictation and repetition. Was it the oral component that permitted this evolution? Possibly. There is rarely an activity in middle school that favors the auditory student over the visual learner.

This lesson quickly coming to a close, Ndao stepped up to transition into math, with a lesson on calculating the absolute value of relative numbers. He deftly wrote a circle, two vertical slashes, and a square on the board, and wrote under them an “r,” a “p,” and a “s”; this was to be his way of communicating to the students when they should be r-ecording, p-ausing, and s-topping with their SmartPens. Wonderful!

After reviewing some SmartPen norms and symbols, such as any rule being started with the “bookmark” symbol of a circled R, Ndao picked up a piece of chalk and rapped on the record symbol, snapping a few students to attention. “Rule!” he declared, and the students tapped decisively on the record button at the bottom of their notebooks.

He stopped just after a few rules and dictated a series of three equations to the students, complete with plus, minus, parentheses, and all, and then instructed them to solve these equations using the calculators integrated into the SmartPen notebooks. Eagerly turning to the back of their notebooks and gingerly tapping on the printed keys, students took a little less than a minute to solve all three equations.

Of course, this was not enough for Ndao. As the use of the calculator in the classroom was rather new to the students, he felt the need to review its functions together as well. Calling up a timid girl to the blackboard, he asked her to repeat the process she had gone through on the calculator, using the calculator keypad he had just drawn on the board. She followed his lead and tapped away at the drawn number keys with a piece of chalk, as the rest of the class observed. Is it this one? Where do the parentheses go? And finally? Ndao coached her through.

“Now,” Ndao explained, “it’s time to find the rule. What happens when we add a positive number to a negative number? What about two positive numbers? What about two negative numbers? Look at your equations and their results to figure it out.”

And so, for once, the students were left on their own to deduce the rules. They stared at their three equations, the difference between them, and periodically tried out another equation on the calculators to test their theories. What a start of critical thinking! Slowly, hands began to raise with rules to suggest, but the deduction was not enough for Ndao, no. He wanted to work their oral skills, too!

“Who can say aloud the rule, for us all to record with our SmartPens?” he asked the sea of unsure faces in front of him. When no one volunteered, he picked a boy sitting up front. “What is the rule?”

Thinking frantically, holding his SmartPen, and darting glances at the scribbles on the notebook in front of him, he offered up a rule, aloud, gaining confidence with each word. “When … adding … two … positive numbers … the – the sum, the sum… will always? … be positive.”

“Correct!” Ndao congratulated him, “and very well explained. Who’s next?”

And so the other two rules of the day were offered up and recorded down with students and their SmartPens. The lesson ended in a fury of orally given equations for the students to solve in pairs and then check with the notebook calculator.

Sitting down to debrief with Kane and Ndour later, I asked them what they thought about their SmartPen-integrated lessons. They agreed that, without a doubt, the lessons are delivered more quickly, are more fun and motivate the students much more.

Kane explained that, when using the SmartPen to capture information, he can complete a lesson in two-thirds the time it would take him were he to dictate each rule and example in the traditional way. He delivers the information, students record it with their pens, and then they review and take notes at their own paces. So far, this approach has not had a negative impact on their ability to correctly answer questions and complete exercises in class.

The motivational level is also notably higher now: “Students who are late, or don’t do their homework, or can’t give correct answers in class are sent outside or sent home. And usually these students just don’t care,” they explained. “But when they’re part of the SmartPen class, they feel horrible being left out of an integrated lesson! And they work even harder the next day to make sure that they are able to stay in the classroom and use the fun pen.”

This motivation, and even a type of fame, has extended past the targeted 7^th grade classroom and into the entire school.

“Students in other grades tell us that they want to use the SmartPen! They ask us how and when they can get a chance to work with us and the pens in our classrooms. In fact, because we are the teachers heading up the project here in Léona, they’ve even given us a new nickname; now, people call us ‘Mister Smart’.”

Quite a compliment!

Implementing the Interactive Whiteboard: A First Step

I must admit, things started out less-than-stellar. When you’re working with technology, it’s bound to happen. Two teachers spent the first ten minutes of class overcoming technological difficulties. Throughout this time, the children led each other in songs, and later one of the teachers read a poem:

If the fish is a baby, the ocean is its mother.

If the athlete is a baby, the stadium is its mother.

If the student is a baby, the school is its mother.

The simple repetition of the lines, again and again, brought the students’ attention back to the classroom. How wonderful! Of course, M. Ndour, the leader of this, our first interactive whiteboard lesson in Senegal, is not new to education. He has been a “chalk-in-hand” teacher (as they say here) for the past 35 years. And now, in his 36^th year, he is setting down the chalk for a moment to pick up an infrarouge pen.

The lesson gets started with very little difficulty now, and the first activity in this reading lesson is to read the projected text, silently. Students’ unconscious mumbling fades off as they stare at the screen and its bright colors and clear words. A minute later, they are called back to attention by Mr. Ndour.

“What do you see here?” he asks the children. “What words are describing this pretty little room?”

Hands go up, one by one, and each student ventures an answer – “pretty!”, “little!,” “group?,” small!”

“Now,” Ndour instructed, “work in your groups to write down words that you don’t know. First work independently, and then talk with your group members to help define words that one of you may already know. Lions group, you’re together! And elephants, together! And antelope, together. And so on.”

Faithfully, the students turned downward toward their slates and began grinding their chalk away on a few new words from the text. As they finished, they looked up one by one at their group members, confused about this next step. Group work in third grade is a new concept for them. Should we talk aloud? they seemed to be saying to each other. We usually get in trouble for that, don't we?

And thus the work turned toward the front, as Ndour prepared to start calling on students. As soon as he held out the infrared pen, hands shot up into the air so fast that feet quickly left the ground for sheer inertia! “Monsieur, monsieur!” they started crying out, before Ndour could even ask a question.

“Now, listen and sit,” he reminded them patiently, “or you will not be able to use the new board.”

And so they sat, wiggling impatiently, and were called on individually to identify a word or circle a different part of the text they had just read. The class ended in yet another song, students’ voices echoing off the tin roof in anticipation of what was next.

This is the start of a developing pedagogy. The language is changing; there are group names now where there was nothing a week ago. New tools are being used and their significance understood; the infrared pen is recognized and its functions are already second-nature to the students. There are different and more developed pedagogical supports; the book page that they didn’t have a week ago is now there for all the class to see. It is not perfect, it’s not the summit, it’s not revolutionary material ready for the Apple convention – but it’s a first step, and a fantastic one at that.

Day 2: Simulations and Senior Teachers

The next day, the teachers arrived just as early, the buzz from the day before still ringing around the school courtyard, as they discussed the difficulties of the set-up and the potential for this tool in the classroom. We started the day with a screen-mounting relay race, and then a technology review, before continuing our explanation of the IWB set-up. We walked the teachers through the process, step by step, from linking the technological pieces all together with cords and Bluetooth, to starting the software, to using the infrared marker to navigate the screen.

There was visible frustration in the eyes of the older teachers, as they recognized the utility of the IWB but struggled to master its set-up. In discussion sessions, they were the first to bring up pedagogical concerns, shying away from confronting the technology, even in words. The saying “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks” kept surfacing in my mind. Could we succeed in integrating a one-year-old tool into the classroom of a man who has been teaching for 35 years?

The senior teachers found their feet again when the morning class simulation started. Saliou was to lead a lesson, at the first-grade level, on spatial awareness and lateralization, to illustrate the integration of the IWB into geography lessons. To make the simulation more interesting and less passive for the teachers, they were each handed a student role card and instructed to play this part during the simulation. Roles varied from “talkative student” to “student who reacts without thinking” to “disengaged student” and even to “student with artistic tendancies.” After seeing and working with these types of students for years, if not decades, each teacher-turned-student played his role earnestly, and the simulation classroom quickly became a real-life challenge for trainer-turned-teacher Saliou!

Still, he was able to both manage the classroom and lead his activities. He started with physical body exercises and movement, staying away from the board and working with the students and the classroom space itself. Then, he moved on to spatial recognition on the IWB with drag-and-drop images, and then to the exploitation of a photo of himself, first back to the camera and then front, asking students to identify his left arm, right ear, etc. He wrapped up the lesson with a review, using a geography workbook page that had been scanned and projected for group completion – given the inexistence of hard copies in this, and just about any, classroom.

The afternoon consisted of workshops on integrating the IWB into each discipline, given its possibilities and limits. The teams were asked to explore the IWB further on their own and propose ways in which it could facilitate curriculum lessons, such as using scanned workbook pages, playing available math or science games as a class, annotating texts together, discussing images, etc. The discussions were rich with ideas, but the question that kept surfacing quietly was “do I really have to use this tool for that?” As any teacher presented with a new tool, they had difficulties discerning when the tool was helpful and when it was a burden. It is exactly this difficulty that often causes teachers to try their hardest to integrate, but then to quickly abandon the tool, discouraged, when it proves to be much more work and have much more limits than their plain old blackboard or paper and pencil. I was eager to open up this discussion, but would have to wait a little longer until all the teachers realized for themselves this limitation of IWB integration.

We ended this second day with an assignment. Given that one of the most basic uses of the IWB is to project images, for annotation or discussion, it was crucial that we know exactly what types of images would be most helpful for the teachers. So, we asked one group to work on creating an image “wishlist,” all of the images they would hope to have at their disposal, mostly from pop culture, to use in their classrooms. The other group was given a digital camera and told to gather images from the students’ daily lives that would be helpful to use in the classroom. Exhausted yet again, but already flashing the camera constantly, the teachers headed home to recuperate and to work on their homework.

The Marvels of Group Work

The first activity planned for this first day of training was something that was meant to help the participants, and us the trainers, understand what basic skills would be needed and where they all fell within that spectrum of competency. Broken up into two groups, each group was asked to create a Word document that presented its members, all the while following a list of Microsoft Word manipulations, from “minimize a window” to “remove the border of a photo.” Incredibly illustrating the power of group work, each team had decided to let the weakest member sit at the computer (attached to a projector so the others could follow along) and try to accomplish each task. Through their coaching and pointing, each member with a different ICT background and a slightly different suggestion, they worked through the construction of the document, and the necessary accompanying skills together.

Once back in the general group, the teachers showed a bit of fatigue – “that’s a lot to learn!”. While discussing the activity, though, it was clear that the main underlying message had sunk in.

“I had no idea that group work could be so beneficial to all its members!” said M. Fall. “They knew what I didn’t, and were able to help me along. And I, too, could tell them what I knew to contribute to the skills of the group, while learning from the others!”

This message was carried over en force in the rest of the day’s activities, which focused on the basic aspects of setting up and using the interactive whiteboard. After having seen the IWB set up in their classrooms for beta testing, they were all eager to know exactly how this magic worked. We started by asking the teams to assemble the PVC pipe screen, without further direction or hints, relying on their problem-solving ability and their attention to detail when the facilitator’s screen had been set up on the first day. Both teams took off running, again praising the glories of the power of group work, and minutes later they had their screens up.

Next, they took copious notes while our “magician” and pedagogical consultant Saliou began by introducing them to the technology involved, naming and describing the function of each component, from the Wiimote to the tripod to the connector cables. Then, as the energy grew weak and the day grew long, we ended this first day with an evaluation before sending our tired teachers home to rest. They had eagerly stayed until past 6:00pm, just to make sure that they completely understood the IWB set-up. They left for home in small groups, exhausted but talkative, and definitely ready to learn more.