Bergvlam takes on ‘blended’ learning
The lockdown has forced many organisations to have another look at their working structures, and none more so than the education sector. It has forced schools to shift over to digital platforms in order to ensure that pupils can still have access to the learning content.
One educator who has made this process of change a lot easier, is Bergvlam’s HoD of Afrikaans, Louise Fullard.
“During the lockdown, we continued our teaching and learning online, which as a result, stimulated our learners intellectually throughout,” she said.
An executive team from the Department of Education (Lucy Moyane, Jan Mkhwanazi, Elijah Nkosi, Hazel Bruwke and Deon van Vuuren) recently attended a presentation by Fullard, for her to introduce and explain the Moodle Learning Management System and the practical implementation of it in schools.
Bergvlam has been chosen as the pilot school for Moodle to be rolled out as the learning management system (LMS) of choice, which was adopted by the Department of Education in 2019 already.
“Myself, along with Antoinette Kuperus, HoD IT, trained the Afrikaans department as ‘Moodle assistants’. The six of them are now continuing to train the rest of the teaching staff with us,” Fullard explained.
“We created subject content templates, in an effort to streamline the training process. These templates are also planned to be rolled out to the rest of the province as well as nationally, from grade R all the way to grade 12.
“Moodle is such a user-friendly platform once you understand it. The lessons are interactive, constantly available and information between teacher and learner isn’t lost due to absenteeism. This LMS provides multiple plug-ins and allows learners and teachers to do everything on one platform instead of having to switch between applications.”
The journey to change started a year ago after she won first place at the National Teaching Awards in the Information and Communication Technology category.
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“I hosted an ICT indaba last year and invited Prof Senzo Mncube, an ICT specialist from Swaziland University, to give us an introduction to Moodle,” she said.
“I had researched many LSMs and connected with many experts on the subject. I realised that the way we learn has to change and shift towards a ‘blended’ learning experience. This is not focused on just e-learning, or just face-to-face learning, but rather a sweet spot between the two.”
She explained that this system allows a “flipped classroom” option where teachers distribute content which learners can access at their own time before it is taught in class, and which they can then use the class time to discuss and then move on to further extended learning on Moodle.
Fullard went on to explain that the system also provides an advantage of enhancing communication, not just to teachers, but also to pupils and managers.
“The Department of Education can be invited to our school’s e-learning platform and have access to the subjects to monitor the teaching curriculum and methods as well as the learners’ progress. Therefore, subject advisers will be able to access their subjects of a school online instead of a contact visit.
“The platform provides immediate feedback to pupils as well, so if they had to do a test, they can immediately see their score and work through the answers to better understand where they went wrong.”
Deon Visser, Bergvlam’s principal, used last week to ensure that all Bergvlam’s teachers are properly trained on the Moodle LMS before they start with their matrics.
In the meantime, grades eight to 11 will be taught on the Moodle LMS until they gradually return to school. Thereafter, this Moodle platform will be further used as “blended” learning in the school.
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