Learning is a Social Activity 2

There were problems at the beginning with writing and computers. Students were excited at the ocean of information on the Internet; now and again we had to call them to order, as they wanted to just browse the Internet and could not even distinguish between useful information and junk. They had to write their essays on Word and attach them on e-mails. This method of communication proved unworthy until our American team members came with the idea of a website. Then, students could write straight and post to the discussion board on a website (Blackboard .com). I was learning with the students, as I also did not have these basic computer skills. I could sense sometimes that the project coordinator in SA was frustrated to have to teach the students and their teacher. But when I was close to perfect, I was of great help to the students, especially those who spoke Xhosa as sometimes they want to explain their problems in their language since they did not have the computer vocabulary.

Documents were lost during writing, which caused student anxiety. Some first-time users of computers chose to write their essays on paper, then type and post them in the computer labs. This was time consuming until I decided to give them chance to write in the English classes, and then edit and type in the Sharing Cultures Project' lab classes. Teaching them in the Foundation English classes and taking them for the Sharing Cultures Project is an advantage, as we could jump from English to the Sharing Cultures Project and back, but sometimes this movement happened in one class at the expense of the other class.