Using OER on TabletPCs in a Secondary School in rural Zimbabwe

Abstract

Schools in southern Africa typically do not have the necessary teaching materials and tools to engage in interactive and active learning. This leads to superficial learning of the pupils and does not enable the pupils to learn critical thinking. Recent trends in ICT4Development, education, and mobile learning gave rise to Open Educational Resources, which are educational resources (e.g. videos, textbooks, pictures, quizzes) that are free for use and reuse. This thesis aims to understand, how these Open Educational Resources (OER) together with tablet PCs can support schools in rural areas to enhance their courses. To achieve this goal, an OER on tablet PCs solution is developed, applying technological and pedagogical methods for using OER on tablet PCs in a rural school in Mpumelelo, Zimbabwe.The focus for this thesis is on the subject Biology. Two scenarios are evaluated in a design research approach. A class of 45 pupils in rural Zimbabwe accessed an Apple TimeCapsule device, enriched with relevant OER for their current subject. The scenarios included the application of videos and reading textbook sections from the tablet PCs. Both scenario applications were observed by two students from the University of Teacher Education (PHLU)....