We sent 22 desktops to Sabeto College late last year. It is very pleasing to see the progress that the school has made in embedding the technology in their classroom activities. The school’s computer teacher in charge – Ms Meenal Reshmi needs to be commended for facilitating this change. The school principal – Mr Rajesh Chand and his staff, the school management led by Mr Bhagat Singh have also been very supportive of this initiative. The collaborative efforts of all in the school community makes such a change possible.

Here is an edited version of a report on the progress so far from Ms Meenal Reshmi. It demonstrates what has been achieved at the Sabeto College in a short time. Keep up the good work Meenal and the rest of the team at Sabeto College.  

The Department is thankful to Dr. Vinesh Chandra and his team from the Queensland University of Technology for the donation of 22 desktop computers to the Computer Lab at Sabeto College.

At the beginning of the year (2012), the school had 20 Pentium 3 and Pentium 4 desktop computers with CRT Monitors.  On average only 10 computers were operating. Maintenance costs were high and were borne by the school.  The computers’ were slow and as a consequence much of students time in the labs was counter productive. Despite this challenge students’ continued to work on their assigned tasks (e.g. lab activity, projects and research work in pairs and sometimes in groups) (see Fig 1 and Fig 2 )

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Early 2013, a data projector was donated. It served as a great asset to the department lab which enabled ICT supported learning in school.  The other departments in the school also benefitted – they had the opportunity to show digital videos, images and text. This made the lessons more interesting and  the benefits were evident in how students responded in this environment.

The donation of a laptop (which is kept in the Computer Lab), has encouraged teachers to use it for class presentations – there is some evidence to suggest that this has led to  improvements in the academic performance of the students. The donation of the 22  Dell desktop computers with LCD screens was a blessing to the school.   The Head of the School took quick action and arranged an electrician to install an appropriate circuit breaker, new power points and cabling to cater for all computers (Figures 3, 4, 5).

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The Ubuntu software was successfully loaded on all PC’s and brief training was provided to all students.  The free and open source software has many advantages and teachers at Sabeto College have really appreciated the robust software system.  Above all, computer sets are being used by the College staff in their planning and preparation of lessons.

The students now have the opportunity to use the computers one on one and this facilities both individual and group learning. For most of the students it was the first time they got to use computers.   Currently, there are 64 students doing Computer Studies in the following classes:

Highlights of Improvements:

• Soft copy of the lesson notes are loaded on each PC and students can access their own set of notes
• Each student has access to a computer and their learning is supported by digital illustrations through the data projector
• Softcopy of textbooks are loaded for reference – this has promoted more reading and learning activities for students with appropriate examples and diagrams
• 15 computers with internet has provided the students with an opportunity to do their research work
• Typing software creates opportunities for students to develop their typing skills at their convenience
• Teachers in other departments also use the Computer Lab for multimedia presentations that facilitate teaching and learning

Future Goals

1) To have internet available on all 30 computers

2) To have Moodle setup for online interactive learning especially for Form 7 students so that they are well prepared for tertiary studies

3) Forward proposal for Smart board to make learning more engagaing.

The following are images students of the Sabeto College using the computers.

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Finally, some of the shots of the Sabeto College teachers doing the FEMIS (Fiji Educational Management Information System) entry, to update the record of the day.

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