Holistic eLearning Platform ( HeLP)
Dear Reader,
My name is Ronald Ddungu a teacher by
profession and Team leader at HeLP. My profile is attached herein online https://bit.ly/2WhPAmu to give you more information about our
philosophy at HeLP.
We are a network of teachers and our
niche’ is eLearning and project-based learning. During these hard
times of Covid-19 we have trained teachers using our own specialized teachers
in creating eLearning content and how to deliver effective online lessons. We
have supported students to continue learning online through our classes on WhatsApp,
padlet and we teach through zoom for both O & A level.
Our home is at www.helpschools.net and this is being developed as a one stop
centre where we shall upload teaching and learning resources that support the
collaborative activities within our schools. Feel free to start visiting our
home and follow the developments going forward.
In 2019 HeLP started as a project in 4
schools-Gayaza High School, St.Mary’s College Kisubi, Nabisunsa Girls School,
Busoga College Mwiri, supported by the Uganda Communications Commission(UCC).
The main aim was to discover how teachers in our schools can be
capacitated to develop elearning content and design collaborative activities
between schools. The project focused on working within 4 subject areas at
O-level; Mathematics, Physics, Geography and ICT supported by 4 expert teachers
and one M&E expert.
The first step in implementing the project was to improve the internet
connectivity in the 4 schools and UCC partnered with the Research Education
Network Uganda (RENU) to provide good internet connectivity in our schools.
This was later to be extended to reach 60 schools before Covid-19 befell
us in 2020. The promise was that this service which was free to schools for 3
years was to be extended to cover 1,000 schools in the next 5 years. The
agreement was that the service was free at 100% in the first year, 70% free in
the second year and 30% free in the 3rd and last year.
The project provided ICT equipment (Video and photographic camera, laptop
and its accessories, projector, and studio lights) that was intended to boost
e-content development and the execution of collaborative activities among the 4
project schools. However, before we could train teachers onto the project
activities our schools were closed, and our good internet became a waste.
When the schools opened to candidates (Dec.2020 and Feb.2021) we
organized student seminars in O-level mathematics and English and later on
A-level mathematics. This experience was exciting because we brought together
over 3,000 students from over 40 schools per seminar. This gave us hope that
schools are ready for collaborative activities within critical areas such as
preparation for the final examinations.
We then went back into lockdown, and in May 2021 we launched into a scaling
out to many schools and more subjects. We welcomed teachers for training in
developing eLearning content and effective online teaching at our online centre
and to date we have engaged over 700 teachers. We then offered ourselves to
organise seminars for students at S.2 and S.3 at the start and we were amazed
to host over 400 students at one go from their respective homes. Our service
has remained totally free for the last 3 months and we have seen many students
and teachers joining in.
We then agreed to support learning and opened classes starting with S.2
& S.3 with a goal of enabling our trainee teachers practice effective
online learning as well as testing out the e-content that had been developed.
Currently we look after over 7,500 students and are open for all classes from S.1,
S.2, S.3, S.4, S.5, S.6 using our own nomenclature. Our classrooms are on
whatsapp which is used as a notice board. We prepare our teaching resources and
post these on our padlet platforms and the students are expected to post their
homework here too. We teach through two online platforms, zoom and the Big Blue
Button (BBB) provided by RENU. The BBB platform is almost free because you need
limited data(20mbs) to open the browser and connect to our
classrooms. This to us looks the way forward for the education stalemate
and we strive to organise Parents meetings so as to support their child
holistically.
At the end of August, we decided to start supporting schools that had
received a RENU connection so as to open up their eLearning programmes. Mbale
S.S and Iganga S.S welcomed us with open arms and today the two schools are
running collaboratively and many of their students have joined into the
programme. We have also received testimonies of schools that organise their
students and sit in front of a projector or teachers who offer their phones to
students within their village and study with us.
Our next targets are Kololo S.S in Kampala and Layibi College in Gulu
plus any other school in the country that feels ready for this challenge.
We are also looking for friends to support our work by taking our
timetable to the last family and connecting them to our classes.
Yours
in Service,
Ronald
Ddungu (Team Leader-HeLP)
0701433878(w)/0772433879