Trapped in ICT

ICT has been highly regarded for its effectiveness in educating our society more specifically our learners who are in most cases far advanced in technology than we their mentors are.Due to this advancement of theirs, most of the female learners are continuously been turned into victims of ICT devices. Through their interactions and chatting with various individuals unknown to them through the electronic devices, they become easily trapped and found and ultimaltely turned to slaves of porns and so on. Some of them even go missing by following the information of persons they have been chatting to. This then poses a challenge to us future ICT experts and we need to come up with strategies of combating such unacceptable behaviors and actions

Poor old aged and stereotyped educators!

I am deeply concerned about the educators who have been in the field for more than enough years and feel that the teaching strategies that they used are still applicable to date.Right now SA policy on e-Education is expecting that all the citizens of this country should be ICT capable and yet such educators are still holding on to what they believe in. The sad part of it is that they fail innocent learners and are not easily convinced to transform their ways of teaching. Young educators like myself are being accused of acting as if they know a lot when trying to bring change to the system. ICT solution to teaching and learning seem to be a great challenge to them and as a matter of fact those old aged educators are frustrating the educators who are in for change.

Conducive ICT learning millieu

It is the task of the educator to ensure that she creates an atmosphere which is conducive to learning for his or her ICT learners. When such an atmosphere is created then automatically learners will enjoy whatever kind of activity that they are confronted with and would even feel inspired to want to know more in as far as the learning programme is concerned.

Being enlightened

We are currently preparing ourselves for the 2013 where the white paper on e-education is expecting than all African citizens including children and the educators to be ICT capable.As a result we are so fortunate that we are currently busy with the ICT to ensure that by that time we would be fully equipped and knowledgeable in the field. The kinds of activities that we are busy with in our ICT course are an evidence that we would be ready for the year 2013.Let us all take what we are doing seriously and see where this will take us.

Learning from each other pays

It is really a good thing to work as a team in an ICT class because there are a lot of challenging staff that one should learn, know and apply to his or her teaching experiences. Each member of the team has expertise in certain field of the study and the inputs that he or she makes do a great deal of development in others. I therefore urge the members of the hons2009 to keep on assisting each other as this pays in a long run.

Gender ratio in our ICT class

On Saturday (27th of June 2009) as I was observing I discovered that there were more female educators than the male educators in our ICT class. Most of them were busy trying to understand what Mr Maseko was saying about the webquest assignment.I was also impressed to see how we the female educators were assisting each other in following what was said. probably we could end up being the future experts in the ICT field.

Educators are role models

Learners believe in everything that is going on around them in schools more than they believe in their parents. As a matter of fact when they see teachers fighting over gender discrimination that is experienced in the school ICT environments, they become confused.They again don't know whether certain fields of professions are for males or for females and as a result of this, the male learners would automatically feel that they have powers over female learners and would also want to dominate in everything they do at school except for activities in the ICT labs.

Peer pressure in ICTclasses

In my school our learners are mostly dominated by peer pressure and as a result most of them end up performing averagely. They experience pressure not only outside the classrooms but also in the classes. For instance, there are those who normally feel that they are being belittled by their fellow learners who most of the times are knowledgeable and do best when presenting or give feedback during the ICT lessons. As a result such learners formulate groups and intimidate the ones that are capable. Due to this pressure some of them even drop or fail completely because of being unable to deal with challenges from their own peers.

Learner working pace in ICT

I am in one of the schools where ICT is fully used as part of the curriculum and have discovered that our female learners catch faster than the boys in most of the activities that include the use of ICT.Furthermore, the female learners are the ones who always come up front for powerpoint presentations because they seem to have more confidence in themselves than the male learners.

Positive ladies in ICT

Regardless of pressures that most of female educators experience in ICT, they still stick to it and enjoying it further even when they are at their homes.

Learner ratio in ICT

An average ratio of learners to computers is still not a satisfactory in most of the schools where the use of ICT is highly considered.Hence our government still has a lot to do to ensure that a stage of equilibrium is reached.

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Effective communication pays

Educators as professionals are urged to stick to ethics of humanity when dealing with their differences in as far as gender equality is concerned. Sitting down and ironing matters in a harmonious and acceptable with work wonder for all parties involved.

Learners are innocent souls who need learning that is fun

Considering what educators are doing in ICT school environments, learners are just there to have fun in ICT classes. So regardless of gender differences experienced by educators, learners should not be made the centre of the issue or problems.Theirs is to learn, enjoy and to access information.

Policy On Gender Equity

Our government has done enough in a sense that it was able to disclose the issue of gender differences that all SAs should be aware of. In the policy human rights are strongly protected and every individual of the SA country is compelled to abide by the laws stipulated under the policy. However a lot is still required to be done so as to educate our people that gender differences do not give anybody a right to oppress or forcefully dominate others. Educators in ICT fields who are still disregarding the policy on human rihgts and dignity should also be reminded and trained through seminars,workshops or even meetings with relevant sources.

EDUCATORS BE AWARE, YOU ARE THE ROLE MODELS

Learners believe in everything that is going on around them in schools more than they believe in their parents. As a matter of fact when they see teachers fighting over gender discriminations that is experienced in the school ICT environments, they become confused.They again don't know whether certain fields of professions are for males or for females and as a result of this, the male learners would automatically feel that they have powers over female learners and would also want to dominate in everything they do at school except for activities in the ICT labs.

No way out

Females out there who feel threatened by the negative comments made by negative men on how they percieve you in the ICT world, unfortunately there is absolutely nothing you can do to change their mindset and there is again no way out for you. So keep giving best shots in what you are doing and they will catch up with you at a later stage.