Connecting children to international online education
Connecting children to international online education
Congratulations to the Shree Bhumeshwor School students who participated in RMIT University’s eTutor program in 2013. They were the second year of students from Astam to be part of this international program.
The students were awarded Certificates of Recognition by Dr Nicky Carr, RMIT’s eTutor Coordinator, who was in Nepal last year with six pre-service teachers on a placement program.
eTutor is a collaborative project between RMIT University in Australia and schools in Malaysia, India, Australia and Nepal. It involved education students from RMIT interacting with school students in an online environment to assist school children with their language skills. At the same time, all participants learned more about other cultures, their own cultures and about learning and teaching in an online environment.
In eTutor 2013, the children in Astam were partnered with a group of children from the Morang South Primary School in Victoria, Australia. Children from both schools were able to chat online, post photos and videos, and share stories about their own lives and community.
Morang South Primary School eTutor Participants
“I would imagine the social studies textbooks were put away for a short time while these kids who are ‘worlds apart’ were chatting with each other.” said Logged On’s CEO, Mark Pinoli. “The students at Morang South were getting a real lesson about everyday life in rural Nepal where children go to the well everyday to collect water, feed grass to their buffaloes and where the family cook meals on wood fireplaces. What better way to learn about another community than from the children who live there” Mark says.
The children in Astam had the opportunity to improve their computer and English language skills by using eTutor to communicate with teachers and children in Australia.
“A great way to learn a language is by chatting to people who are fluent in that language. eTutor allowed the children in Nepal to start practicing what they had learned in class. We would like to thank the RMIT tutors and students at Morang South Primary School for helping!”
Logged On became more involved in the program in 2013 when it developed the website that the teachers and children used to chat and interact online in eTutor (Read More).
Logged On’s CEO visited Morang South Primary to award Certificates of Appreciation to the students who helped in the development of the website.
Certificates awarded to: Matthew Falzon, Elijah Grech, George Kounelakis and Erin Cupit.
“We had little time to develop the website and in the first few weeks I had eTutor children and teachers making suggestions for improvements. Morang South Primary really stood out as the ‘unofficial’ system testers!” Mark says. “They were helping to improve the site so all 500 participants could have a better experience of eTutor and I think that is pretty outstanding!”
Late last year, a group of seven RMIT University teachers who were involved in eTutor 2013 spent three weeks at the Shree Bhumeshwor School in Astam in a placement program that focused on helping children with their language skills (Read More).
RMIT University’s School of Education and the Logged On Foundation have agreed to formally sign a Memorandum of Understanding that will help further the work in Nepal (Read More).