VSA blog   Get the news about all our supported projects!

The teacher group consisting of Sarah Hanton, Boudina McConnachie and Anna Wertlen were one of the top 20 finalists in the Microsoft Partners in Learning Forum, South Africa 2012. Hanton and McConnachie took part in a judging process at the Durban Hilton on the first and second of April, where they presented their work on awareNet and were awarded a Judges Award for Innovative Use of Social Networking. They won prizes including software for schools and a 3 month subscription to Brittanica online, and also spent a day at the SA Basic Education Conference.

McConnachie describes the day: “The judging was quite strenuous, we did 4 different sessions each with a different judge. Some other teachers presented good projects, too.” Hanton also thinks that the team could have done better and commented: “The judging process was so hectic that we didn’t really get a chance to network with other teachers there or really get to grips with their projects.”  Better feedback on how the projects were scored would help for next years entry, which will hopefully build on this success.

Although the project didn’t make into the top 4, we are very proud that it was rewarded, and we are sure that the audience has become aware of the benefits of our work and ideas of innovative teaching and online collaboration. Thank you very much for your hard work!

If you are interested to also start a project on awareNet as part of your curriculum or co-curriculum, please contact us.

We can proudly announce that this Tuesday 07/02/12, the VSA was visited and inspected by Therese Boulle, one of the evaluators of the Impumelelo Social Innovation Awards. We handed in an application a few months ago and by sending an evaluator, Impumelelo signaled us that we made it into the second round.

So, we spent an exciting day with our evaluator presenting every aspect of the ECSPIRT Project which uses the awareNet system. We explained her the software and the system, we presented outstanding projects on awareNet, we arranged meetings with principals, teachers and learners of the schools that use awareNet and we discussed challenges and achievements with partners, volunteers and collaborators.

All in all, we believe that we left a very good impression which will be reflected in a very positive report by There Boulle to Impumelelo. We think that we could convince her that the awareNet system is a tool for poverty alleviation, that it is sustainable and has a social impact. It’s up to the other applicants now to reach up to us. If they show more impact than us they deserve to be awarded!

(We will be notified if we made it into the third round by the end of July 2012.)