ACADEMIC
It is our goal that as well informed and well educated, each girl will leave Rustenburg with an accomplished ability to use computers and achieve the recognition of the ICDL certificate as a means to show their computer literacy. As a result of this, the course has also changed with the times, one of these newer avenues is Online Collaboration. This involves online integrated storage, file sharing and cloud functionality. This requires the internet and adds pressure to an already limited and quite costly resource. We were faced early on with issues of bandwidth, not only from a school needs perspective, but also evolving demand or need for content, resources and networking. The clouding and integration requirement means greater support than what we had originally.
From the IT Manager Mr Francis Vogts: Dip. IT
2015 was a highly rewarding but busy year. Rustenburg High School for Girls strives to give each and every young learner the best and most capable educational experience it can. One of these is the continued support and integration of the ICDL programme
We started the year off to a large challenge: Telkom and our service providers had a tough time of keeping the circuits up and running, Neotel didn’t have capacity and there were limited or no real options to address this in Term 1. We had Telkom and ISPs deal with the various minor issues and things progressed. Later in the year we lost access to telecommunications as a pickaxe was driven into and through our Telkom inbound cable. This was later resolved but took much effort and time to restore. Towards the end of Term 2, Neotel was able to facilitate our anticipated upgrade to a managed service capable of supporting our current strategy and high bandwidth needs. The much anticipated rollout of the PWAN (Broadband Provincial Network dedicated to education by the WCED) was significantly delayed. We, like many schools, were contemplating the adoption of a managed and high bandwidth broadband connection. The use of ADSL as a primary connection has simply not been a reality for schools or organizations with the number of users concurrently connecting as we have. Also the need for greater access internet speeds adds more pressure to upgrade. By the time you read this, it is anticipated that the WCED will have completed the deployment of their connection. It is an independently managed service through SITA and as such policies and services are managed separately to that of the school. The ICT staff has maintained and supported the needs of the school, the learners and staff in addressing the many issues and helpdesk queries any other institution has. We have had great interactions with all being able to share new skills and functionality with the learners and staff. We continued to support access for BYOD within subjects, learning areas and for special needs as we continue to support the growth of our network and capacity to integrate learners and devices eventually within the school as a whole. The school is still developing a final strategy for the use of end user devices, but recognises the need for a purpose driven process that will enhance learning and teaching and not try to replace the teachers, rather than just following examples. As a school, we want to enhance and extend, not lose, the value we have in a strong curriculum. We are very proud of our learners and their successes. Continued investment in the physical ICT infrastructure of the school has allowed for upgrades to the teachers’ working environments and allowed the learners to appreciate the newer computers and networking speeds as we enhanced the teaching spaces in support our curriculum needs. We have adopted a staged programme to rejuvenate and expand function at the school. We continued with modular upgrades to our infrastructure. That required dedicated work and commitment to ensure all schedules were met. At this point we have upgraded the core network, expanded Wi-Fi capacity, given teachers new PCs, monitors, and projectors to enhance the performance and quality of the teaching at the school. We have implemented better solutions around security and protection from our firewalls, access point all the way to the end point with anti-virus protection.
Computer Monitresses
Back row: from left: Taskeen Parker, Yusraa Moosa, Amy Long, Samantha Pelteret, Tayla Anthony, Isabella Meyer, Farheen Mahmood, Revana Pillay Third row, from left: Imaan Allie, Athraa Fakier, Azrah Bassier, Kerry-Ann Couperthwaite, Couthar Sakir, Zahraa Badat, Sharfaa Kalam Second row, from left: Yonela Katsha, Annie Ou Yang, Santhuri Pillai, Eva Presence, Quratul-Ain Parker, Sahaar Takay, Fei Susan Wu, Sarah Dalvie Front row, from left: Zubeida Waggie, Anika Ebrahim, Tiana Hansraj (Head), Ms Janine Myers, Nabeelah Mahatey (Deputy Head), Kauthar Achmat, Ziyanah Fredericks
Over the last few years we have implemented new strategies to grow capacity in support of digital technologies in the classroom. This meant a lot of research and planning to have infrastructure and capacity in place, but also to modernise and renew old installation ahead of failure and need. Whether we use smart technologies, interactive whiteboards and documents cameras, most of these strategies require capacity, training and growth in infrastructure. The problems faced along the way have been challenging but have shown great change and interest among the learners and staff. Staff development around integrated technologies is growing both within our school and schools in general. We are fortunate to have a number of educators who have keen interest in bringing new ideas and technologies into the classroom. As part of this process, we asked those who were willing to share their insight, research and ideas on how technology may enhance learning and teaching at our school. This was a truly rewarding development and we look forward to an engagement to see how we turn this into beneficial techniques and process to enhance the learning at Rustenburg. RGHS MAGAZINE 2014
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