How long have you been teaching, where did you study and what is your current job title?

I studied at Natal Training College in Pietermaritzburg. I have been teaching for 27 years, starting in Pinetown in Natal, then in Kimberley in the Northern Cape before coming to Pretoria. I studied part time at CEFT (now CESA), completing my FDE in Computer Science. I have taught Gr 3, 4, 5 and 7 as a class teacher and Gr 6 & 7 as a maths teacher. I now teach Grade 0 – 7 as the computer teacher. I am the only computer teacher so my job description is, “anything and everything to do with computers”. This includes developing lessons, learning how new software functions, teaching girls, training teachers, encouraging teachers to use technology, assisting with extra classes using CAI, running a computer club, everything to do with reports in our Junior School and much more.

Why do you need XT?

There is very little software available like XT that has South African content. The content in XT is easy to adapt, change or add to. It is excellent for enrichment and self study for our girls. When they complete a task during my IT lesson, they never waste time and immediately embark on self study and curriculum revision in XT.

How do you use XT and why do you like it?

In computer literacy classes I introduce our girls to XT so that when a teacher wants to use the content in XT for an integrated lesson or a test, the girls know exactly how to use the software. Some teachers use it in their classrooms on their Smartboards as a class activity. Authoring can be done at home which is a big benefit. Girls are sometimes taken out of their comfort zone as they are not familiar with all the content but have learnt how to make calculated guesses when answering, which are often correct, or learn about something they did not know before. EvaluNet as a company have also given us, DSG, permission to develop lessons using XT content, to use with our Smart Automated Response System.

Which features do you use most?

Our girls use the Study Mode for curriculum revision, then love to challenge each other to Challenge Mode exercises. We use the Exam Mode with some classes, which removes the marking load from the teachers. In fact I find it difficult to say which features I use the most as I use as many as possible.

Did you use anything similar before XT?

No, never.

Tell us about a situation where XT helped you out/saved the day …

Last year we had a substitute teacher who came in to teach Natural Science. As soon as she heard she could have her exam written and marked on the computer she mailed me her grade 6 exam paper and within a very short while I had set up the exam in XT, just by copying & pasting her questions and answers. I then printed it out for her to check. The girls enjoyed this method of testing and the teacher was thrilled that her marking was completely taken care of.

Any tips or tricks for other XT customers?

Understand the difference between a Question Pool and an Exercise before working with them.  Start by using the XT Question Pools to set up exercises for your pupils, then use your own worksheets which you have already developed for your first attempts at making your own Question Pools. It is very quick and easy to copy and paste from your Word documents.

Anything else?

I wish I could encourage more teachers to use XT as the girls love working with it, marking is done for automatically and it really is quick and easy to use once you understand how to work with it.

Visit the St Mary’s DSG Pretoria web site.

Visit the XT web site.

How long have you been teaching, where did you study and what is your current job title?

I studied at Graaff Reinet Teachers’ College and started teaching at Kenridge Primary in 1984.  I taught Grade 5 for seven years, Grade 4 for thirteen years and have been the computer teacher for six and a half years. I am Head of IT and Admin at KPS.

How do you use XT and why do you like it?

Educators set their own tests, whether it be from scratch, or using existing data. They liaise with me regarding a time (mostly during computer lessons) and what content to set for the learners.  Educators enjoy this feature because it is saves them many hours of marking time, especially the educators who subject teach and have 210 learners in a grade.

I use the Study Mode in XT before doing assessments and tests. The learners love to go onto the Challenge Mode when they have completed their computer work. I find that when they use the Challenge Mode, more thought and effort is put into answering the questions as the learners do not like to lose.

Educators use XT for DAT (Didactical Aid Teaching) before school. Many of the keen learners arrive at the computer room long before the time, and start without the educator because XT is so easy to use. Educators who teach Extra Maths and Extra Afrikaans as an extra-mural activity, bring the learners in from time to time to consolidate work done or to bring variety into their teaching methods.

Which features do you use most?

The Exam Mode.  We work on a two week cycle and the Gr 7’s “write” a Xhosa test using XT almost every time they come to the computer room. It only takes about 10 minutes of my 75 minutes’ computer time, and using XT saves hours of marking time for the Xhosa educator.

Did you use anything similar before XT?

No. We have been using XT (previously called EvaluNet e-SCHOOL) since it was developed in 1997. We have been impressed by the continual upgrading and support we receive from EvaluNet.

Tell us about a situation where XT helped you out/saved the day …

Generally, it is always a back up for when something happens and I cannot teach new concepts, eg. I am called out of the class for an emergency. As a senior, I have to visit a class for an educator’s appraisal, and the computer class is looked after by their own educator. If I have to attend training / a meeting during the school day, and a relief teacher looks after the class and can simply let the learners work through exercises in XT.

Any tips or tricks for other XT customers?

During exam time, try setting TRUE/FALSE, MULTIPLE CHOICE and CLOZE questions in XT. This saves a lot of time on marking. We leave out the SOCRATES questions because should the spelling be incorrect, then the answer is incorrect, and this is a bit unfair on learning areas such as SS, NS, EMS, Maths and LO. Try using XT specifically for LO.  It is often the area where one lacks assessment. We even use XT for open book tests. One year we even did our Inter-house quiz using XT. It saved lots of time on the marking!

Anything else?

Being able to export test results generated in XT into an Excel sheet is particularly helpful. I e-mail the results to the educators who copy and paste them into their assessment sheets.

We also love other EvaluNet products such as the GetAhead School Project which has brought in thousands of rands to our computer budget, enabling us to buy new software and hardware. Last year we donated half the money we made through the GetAhead School Project to a neighbouring farm school. The after-sales service from EvaluNet is excellent! EvaluNet is not a company that sells you a product and then disappears. They get involved with their customers.

Visit the Kenridge Primary School web site.

Visit the XT web site.

This partnership will assist us in distributing our educational software to more school children than ever before. With the help of MySchool we will also be doing projects to assist children in under-resourced areas to have access to a great learning tool, thus benefitting more communities in need.

GetAhead is our educational software that children use at home to help learn and revise their schoolwork.

Visit the MySchool website.
Visit the GetAhead website.

They brought close to 40 Steris for the 11 of us who work here. Keen to pop in for a Steri on us, at us, with us? Any time today. We can drink Steris while enjoying the majestic Table Mountain view from our west wing, or the rolling hills of the Tygerberg from our east wing. Alternatively, there are also great views of the … well actually we’re not quite sure what’s out there because of the smog. All we know is that it’s called Parow Valley and it can be viewed from our south wing.

Steri did the drop in honour of our, and I quote, “most awesome request in the world” which happened to be our home made video of Nelson Mandela dropping a Steri Stumpie from the 2nd and 3rd floors of our building. Check out the video here.

Here are the photos after the drop. Unfortunately some of our staff are on leave and aren’t featured in the photos (but really that just means more Steri-love for us!).

Here are the photos …

Clash of the Titans - Dereck/Peter vs. Mike/Adrian

Blowing the vuvuzela at passing traffic (and pedestrians)

Dereck doing the Diski

Blowing vuvuzelas and mini-horns at General Motors and VW

Going crazy and making lots of noise

Mike drops the bonus round Steri Stumpie from the 3rd floor

Final round of foosball with Jenny and Christelle in the lead

From our top balcony facing Giel Basson Drive we joined forces with staff from MWeb and GM Motors, waving flags and blowing on our vuvuzelas. A tip-top performance saw most of the traffic coming to a standstill – some drivers waving SA flags and blowing their horns while others got out of their vehicles (mid drive) to blow their vuvuzelas and join in the pandemonium.

Viva South Africa viva!

At EvaluNet, we firmly believe that simplicity is the way to go. Teachers, schools and even children are fed up with complication and clutter. Too much choice can sometimes be a bad thing. We witnessed this first hand with some of our early products like e-SCHOOL. It was a great software product, but it could do too much so many people ended up not using it because they didn’t know where to begin.

We finally cracked the code with our software products – Biblion, GetAhead and XT – and made them simple and easy to use. The real challenge was designing marketing material, and more specifically web sites, that reflected this simplicity.

I hate nothing more than a cluttered or outdated web site. Here is a good (or should I say bad) example: http://www.ninjaburger.com/

Poor planning and poor foresight are the two main killers of simple, usable web sites. And unless your web site is simple to understand, and easy to find relevant information, you’re going to lose visitors and ultimately business.

We’ve been through hundreds (literally) of mockups on paper and PC, and many various design and usability testing phases and FINALLY we’ve come up with two simple and clean web sites. One for EvaluNet.Com, and the other for Biblion.

Our next phase of marketing development will be to create simple and easy-to-navigate sites for GetAhead and XT.

You are currently on the EvaluNet.Com web site. To visit the Biblion site, click here.

Of course, let us know what you think about these two new sites by adding your comments below. To make it better for YOU, we need to know what YOU think.

Biblion is based on XT, but is a modified version that simply allows for revision of the curriculum in an interactive and fun way. It is truly plug ‘n play, needing no usernames or passwords. Learners simply click the Biblion icon on their desktop and immediately have access to thousands of questions in hundreds of exercises.

It’s a question-and-answer based product with feedback such as hints, tips, explanations and enrichment that further enhance the learning experience.

Content available for Biblion includes …

Grade 1, 2 and 3: Numeracy, Literacy, Life Skills and Themes

Grade 4, 5, 6 and 7: Maths, Natural Science, English Afrikaans, EMS, Social Sciences and Life Orientation

Grade 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12: Mathematics and CAT (Computer Application Technology)

All content is based on the South African National Curriculum Statement and is 100% certified for use in South African schools.

Find out more by visiting www.biblion.co.za.

The response to our CAT content in both our Biblion and XT products was overwhelming. Comments such as:

‘Thank Jenny for persisting in getting hold of me to look at this product. It’s going to be of great value to our learners’.

‘I’m always looking for additional exercises to give to my learners, now to be able to do so electronically …’

‘I’m going to make use of this product to help me assess my CAT learners – it’s going to save me so much time!’

‘… a wonderful enriching product to use with our group of achievers …’

‘the fact that your team of authors have added the Martic 2008 and 2009 papers into your product makes it an ideal revision tool’.

If you know of a CAT/RTT teacher (all our content is in both english and afrikaans) that might be looking for a curriculum relevant software product then please get them to contact me at 021 595 0333 or 083 608 1041.

What other software products are there that are relevant to the SouthAfrican CAT curriculum? Please let me know.