You light up my life...

A few days ago I visited Uxolo High School and was stopped by the most gentlemanly Physics teacher that I know, Mr Mathungana. Last quarter he begged me to come to his school and install Science Freeware for him. I did this and did a quick training session with him. This took place amongst a number of disruptions as different people vied for his attention.

Mr Mathungana explained to me how he used the PhET simulations (http://phet.colorado.edu) of the Photo-electric effect and waves in his teaching. He explains to learners and they visually see the concepts which otherwise they would have to imagine. Change a value here and there and the investigative process starts. What if..? What is our hypothesis? Instead of getting apparatus together we can use the simulations. Do we have an answer. Does it confirm or refute our hypothesis?

On the same day at Intlanganiso I observed Mr Yali teaching a grade 9 class transformations in Mathematics on the Interactive Whiteboard. He had Master Maths (http://www.mastermaths.co.za) open going through a few slides, explaining each step of the problem. There was a set of axes a one point plotted. The program asked for a reflection of that point about the x - axis. The learner came to the board and clicked the wrong answer. The program responded. Mr Yali picked up the Interactive Active Whiteboard pen and wrote over the program on the the board. He knows his stuff with Maths and with ICT.

Was our time wasted in schools? I don’t think so. To these teachers who are working hard at getting learners to do well in Physics and in Maths, you’re the best.