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Michelle Nyanzira, Chronicle Reporter
MZILIKAZI Primary School in Bulawayo which started its own e-learning portal to champion online learning has trained teachers digital skills.

The pilot training workshop was held on Thursday at the school.

The focus of the workshop was for staff to understand e-learning deployment and content development.

Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the need and usage of online educational platforms.

School Development Committee (SDC) chairperson Mr Robert Ndlovu, a Bulawayo-based ICT consultant, who was facilitating the workshop said e-learning is the future so it is important that every teacher has digital skills.

“Every teacher is required to be computer literate so that they can interact with their students virtually. With these lockdown measures no one knows when students will have face-to-face interaction so it is important for teachers to know how to operate computers,” he said.

Mr Ndlovu said the e-learning portal will save the school and teachers money and time.

“Teachers will not always send the same content over and over again. You upload once onto the cloud or portal and you are done,” he said.

Mr Ndlovu said Google Drive allows the school to upload useful content to the cloud server so that any parent and student can access that content from anywhere. Content should be organised into folders by grades like ECD A, ECD B, Grade 1 and so on.

He said many teachers are now making good use of the WhatsApp platform to engage students as it is easy but it is hard to control as some pupils use their parents or guardian’s phones, who will probably be at work when teachers send work for pupils.

Mr Ndlovu said for the benefit of pupils, all schools should register domain names and train teachers so that children have content to read.
Senior teacher Mrs Eneles Sibanda said because of Covid-19 teachers are not able to have face-to-face lessons with children so there is need to have a portal so teachers can upload their content.

“Children are behind in their studies because of the pandemic, so there is a need for teachers to have digital skills and help our pupils with lessons so that they stay up to date,” she said.

Mrs Sibanda said one of the problems will be that most children stay with their grandparents who are technophobic but if the parents can be convinced that ICT is the way to go, they can assist children at home.

An ICT teacher at Mzilikazi Primary School Mrs Beatrice Mhondiwa said most of the pupils have no idea how to use computers.

“This initiative will help pupils to learn how to use ICT tools and gain more knowledge as most of them do not know how to use computers,” she said.

Mr Thabani Gumbo an ICT teacher from Mtshede Primary School — who was a guest at the event — said e-learning is now the new normal so every teacher should have technological skills.

“A lot has changed due to Covid-19. Now there is blended learning and WhatsApp. Now we are adding an e-learning portal which will help teachers as they upload their content and parents and pupils can download,” he said.

Mzilikazi Primary School Headmaster Mr Bhuka Dladla said the portal will help teachers to reach pupils and get them off the street.

“As global trends are changing teachers are now becoming facilitators as most of the time children are home it is now up to parents to make sure they are learning and not in the street just playing. We are hoping that this encourages pupils to catch up with their studies,” he said. — @michieroxy.