Video conference project
October 2004 - July 2007
In October 2005 a video conference project was launched between DEEP schools in the Eastern Cape and schools in the United Kingdom. Pupils and teachers connect monthly by video, but between times continue their 'conversations' via SMS and e-mail. The first conversations touched on Globalisation, here is an extract from this conversation:
"What do you think about globalisation?" asks a student from Butterworth School, South Africa.
"I think it would take away some individualities," responds Sam, a student from Milton Keynes, "if all the world worked together it might take away some individual feelings you have about your own country."
Butterworth student Vuyo voices his disagreement: "Globalisation would help us to know more about people in England. We're not taking away your individuality; we just want to know more about you. It's like making a friend - you're not taking away his or her qualities - you just want to know the person more.
We have 11 official languages here in South Africa. But we live together and we still speak our own languages and have our own cultures.
It all comes back to what you think of yourself and how much you respect your culture and your traditions."
From January 2006 this project will be establishing a series of joint poetry workshops between pupils across the two continents. This will involve poets from the Poetry Archive Project, Directed by Andrew Motion (Britain's Poet Laureate) (www.poetryarchive.org) and South African poets. If you know of a school who would like to be involved, with pupils within the the 9-13 age range, contact us at fels-deep@open.ac.uk
This project will be part of the DEEP's research agenda and two researchers from each partner University will be involved in gathering data including transcripts of teacher preparation and pupil discussion; questionnaires with pupils and teachers before and at the end of the project; group interviews with pupils.
We are investigating the following research questions:
- What is the impact of cross continent video conferencing on the pedagogic knowledge and practice of teachers?
- What is the impact of cross continent video conferencing on student learning, achievement and motivation?
