For weeks the Siyavula team was organising the trip to visit schools in Pietermaritzburg and Durban, which took place last week from Tuesday 10 – Friday 13 May. We eagerly watched the registrations for our evening talks roll in, and with each new sign up so the anticipation mounted.

After a safe arrival in Durban at King Shaka International, we picked up our hire cars and the team split into three groups. That afternoon Mark and Natalia had a meeting at Treverton College, where they met with the HOD for science, who was very interested in our textbooks as well as the online content that is available. They currently use PhET Simulations on their SMART Boards, which was great to hear. He had some suggestions for us to further spread the word about ourselves and OERs, and suggested that Siyavula present at the IEB Science Conference in early 2012. Neels and Carine met with the national science coordinator for the ADvTECH Group, who was very excited about FHSST serving as a tour guide to the online tools and resources available online for free, which are embedded in our books. FullMarks was also very well received as it is exactly what teachers have been asking for, especially with the select and drag functionality of creating tests, along with it being a central website where teachers can share content. Ewald, Heather and I headed to Pietermaritzburg to check in at our BnB and make final arrangements for the evening’s talk at Maritzburg Christian School (MCS). I met up with Grant Hillebrand at MCS, who is a proud user of FHSST and was our main contact in Pietermaritzburg and a huge help in organising our evening events which MCS hosted.

We all had very busy afternoons, but by 18h00 the team was at MCS, all set up and ready for the evening ahead. We had lovely finger foods set out, and a selection of drinks at the ready for when our first teachers arrived. That evening the talks covered life sciences and languages, with a combined introduction at the beginning, presented by Mark. The teachers then split into their two groups, with Neels taking the life sciences teachers to the lab for his talk, and Mark staying in the hall with the language teachers. We had 11 teachers in attendance who found the evening very insightful and enjoyable.

Wednesday morning dawned bright and early, with the team splitting up to visit various schools. Mark, Ewald and Heather went to Maritzburg Muslim School for Girls for teacher training, where Mark presented on Siyavula, FullMarks and other free online resources. One teacher in particular was not interested in incorporating technology into his teaching, but it didn’t take long for him to start looking at various videos on the Khan Academy (we think we may have converted him). We also heard a story of a teacher there who was prepared to buy a projector herself, but the school bought one for her after all, and she now projects her lessons onto a white sheet she has hanging in her classroom. Neels and Natalia went to St Mary’s Diocesan School for Girls, where they met with various teachers from the school. They are already using FHSST, Khan Academy, Phet Simulations, and MIT OpenCourseWare which is fantastic. They would also like to start using FullMarks at their school, as they currently only use Moodle as a resource sharing tool.

Carine and I returned to MCS where we interviewed Grant on his use of FHSST and technology in the classroom. After his interview we went into his science lab to film him and see his use of FHSST in action, and it was amazing to see how he teaches with it projected on a screen and using Foxit in order to draw over diagrams or emphasise points. After that we did a team swap: Mark returned Ewald and Heather to the BnB, and left with Carine for a meeting at Durban Girls College, where they met with the IT and academic head. They were very interested in our resources and our approach to technology integration and open source software. Ideally they would like FHSST to cover all subjects, not just maths and science. This meeting was followed by a presentation and FullMarks workshop at the school, where more than 25 teachers from surrounding schools attended. I returned to MCS where I interviewed Henry Perez, a Grade 8 – 11 maths teacher, on his use of FHSST in the classroom, followed a bit later by an interview with Hlengiwe Nguse, another maths teacher at the school who teaches Grades 9, 10 and 12. The interviews offered much insight into how FHSST is used and what teachers appreciate about this open educational resource.

Our Wednesday evening event was on open resources and technology in maths and physical science, which had a good attendance of 20 teachers. Mark covered the resources that are great to incorporate into the maths and science classrooms, and many teachers were very impressed with FHSST and the rich-media we have embedded in the books. It is fantastic for us to receive such great feedback and to share in the excitement of teachers as they discover what Siyavula is all about.

Thursday was off to another early start, with Neels and Natalia heading off to Hilton College, where they met with the HOD of science and the HOD of maths. They are already using PhET Simulations and Khan Academy content, and want to do away with printed textbooks and rather have the learners using iPads or laptops in the classroom. Carine and Mark headed off to St John’s Diocesan School for Girls, where they met with a science and maths teacher who is unhappy with many of the textbooks on the market, and who has gone so far as to write to the publishers with a list of mistakes she has found in them, but to no avail. With our policy of openness, we encourage people to submit comments on FHSST, and we can easily make any changes to the textbooks and update them regularly.

Mark, Ewald, Heather and I then went to KwaMashu for a teacher training workshop on free online resources, as well as on using FullMarks. This workshop was at the KwaMashu Teachers’ Centre and Altech Multimedia Centre, which has a new and well equipped computer lab, with 50 internet enabled computers. Jen and Kogis (our Durban team who we call on when we give workshops in KZN) met us there to assist with the workshop. Teacher attendance was fairly low – 63 teachers had expressed interest but only 18 attended. Those that did come (and stay until the end!) managed to set their own tests on FullMarks, which was great. We also helped 6 of the teachers set up their own email addresses, and even show some of them how to access their email via their cell phones!

That afternoon Neels met up with a representative from SADTU, who is very excited about FHSST and the mobile front end for Connexions. Carine and Natalia headed to Durban that afternoon for a meeting at Clifton School with the HODs of science, maths, IT and life sciences. This meeting revealed some interesting opinions on sharing content, as so many questions are shared and recycled amongst teachers, it is difficult to know who the question originally belonged to, so teachers are hesitant to claim a question they put on FullMarks as their own due to this issue. They feel that an anonymous question bank, or one with the option of not making public who the author is, would be better, rather than showing the author of every question. They were excited about the various resources they were shown, and interest was expressed in assisting with being involved in writing the IT textbook.

After all our busy afternoons, each team raced back to Pietermaritzburg for our final evening event. Thursday night’s talk was on IT and technology integration. We had 11 attendees, which were a mix of network admin, technical managers and teachers. After the usual drinks and snacks we ushered them into the computer lab for the talk. During Neels’ presentation there was much discussion and sharing of ideas, and many of those present had strong opinions about certain tools and the subject as a whole.

Friday morning saw Mark, Neels and Carine heading to Durban at the crack of dawn to catch their flight to Johannesburg for more meetings as well as a presentation for Tshikululu schools, while the rest of the team caught up on some work at the BnB before heading to Durban for our flight back to Cape Town.

Overall it was a very successful trip, which aside from all of us racing from meeting to meeting without a break to catch our breath, it involved making many good contacts and our content was very well received. We are excited at the leads we have, the follow ups we will do, and what they will mean for Siyavula and OERs in South Africa.

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