Challenging Deeply Held Paradigms 2

Since we entered the virtual international classroom in 2002, the Sharing Cultures Project has undoubtedly changed my views on identity, curriculum, teaching and learning. But this change process started when I entered the University of Venda in an area immensely rich in indigenous music and dance. Until that point, such music and dance had not been recorded and were in danger of being "forgotten" as the oral culture made way for a literate-based transmission of knowledge.

The ambiguity of my own situation-in-between was clear: Here I was, trained in Western music traditions, but at the same time having the "powers" to preserve a rich non-Western tradition! Teaching became not so much "a lecturer knows and transfers knowledge," but rather a process of co-learning between students and lecturer. The use of the written mode together with video and sound equipment demonstrated how technology can enhance learning even in a "pre-technological" environment.

These lessons of co-learning and technology were applied when I later became involved in a Mathematics project for school leavers, and were obviously reinforced in the context of the Sharing Cultures Project.