Teachers Workshop: Van Riebeeck Park Primary School

The MANCOSA School of Education’s iTEACHlab hosted its’ first Teachers Workshop for the Van Riebeeck Park Primary School on Saturday, 23rd August 2022. The workshop took place from 08:30am to 12:00pm, for 11 educators with various subject specializations.

The Teachers Workshop commenced with a welcome and registration for the teachers at the iTEACHlab. A tour of the iTEACHlab was conducted for the educators, using the MANCOSA iTeach App. In each Hub, educators were shown 21st-century technologies and resources that are available for 21st-century teaching and learning in the classroom. Engaging discussions and demonstrations of the technologies also took place during the lab tour.

For the first session of the workshop, teachers were trained in Robotics Skills, which forms part of the Robotics and Coding Course for schools. The teachers were taken through the theoretical aspects of Robotics Skills. Thereafter, they were tasked to build a robot using the LEGO EV3 kit and then code it. For this task, the teachers were grouped into 3’s and 4’s. What was evident in this task was the demonstration of key 21st-century skills, which included communication, collaboration, problem-solving skills, and teamwork

After a refreshment break, the second session of the day commenced. For this session, a highly engaging discussion on Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality took place among the educators and facilitators. The teachers then explored the world of Virtual Reality using an Oculus VR headset as well as other types of VR headsets. Teachers also got to experience how marker-based and marker-less augmented reality works using the MANCOSA iTeach App.

The workshop concluded with the presentation of certificates to each of the teachers and a vote of thanks all around.