Most social networking sites are associated with gossiping and posting more or less funny wall comments to your friends' pages. This may be true for Facebook, but it's not the case with AwareNet, an online educational social network exclusively for school children and their teachers. AwareNet is facilitated by local NPO, the Village Scribe Association, and aims to improve pupils' literacy and numeracy skills, as well as teach practical life skills.
AwareNet actually motivates users to start their own collaborative projects, and to inspire them the VSA integrates useful and exciting content into AwareNet. An example of the kind of project that the network runs is the recently established running and fitness course, that also integrates lessons in computer literacy.
Most social networking sites are associated with gossiping and posting more or less funny wall comments to your friends' pages. This may be true for Facebook, but it's not the case with AwareNet, an online educational social network exclusively for school children and their teachers. AwareNet is facilitated by local NPO, the Village Scribe Association, and aims to improve pupils' literacy and numeracy skills, as well as teach practical life skills.
AwareNet actually motivates users to start their own collaborative projects, and to inspire them the VSA integrates useful and exciting content into AwareNet. An example of the kind of project that the network runs is the recently established running and fitness course, that also integrates lessons in computer literacy.
Pupils meet regularly to train either physically, or work in the computer lab of their school. They use the school premises to run and complete fitness training, as well as use the internet to write their own blogs and discuss health issues online. Their ultimate goal is to complete a 5km fun run in the first quarter of 2012. Their progress is documented in a collaborative project on AwareNet, along with helpful information from their experienced trainer Terri-Lynn Penney.
Anna Wertlen, chairperson of the VSA, is very excited about the fitness project: “We are lucky that we got Terri-Lynn on board the VSA. She is an excellent motivator. The learners have so much fun, they ask for more AwareNet sessions all the time. We never had a community co-ordinator who managed to meet the same group of learners four times a week – all voluntarily!”
Penney also knew how to get the Grahamstown community involved. She collected excellent second-hand running shoes from private donors so that every runner could use proper equipment during training. These shoes will be donated after completion of the fun run. The Oak Cottage Quick Spar also donates food for the training sessions.
Penney said that in the beginning the first group of pupils – all girls from Nombulelo Secondary School – only managed to run for five minutes. Three weeks later they could already run for 25 minutes, with the strongest runner completing 4.5km in 25 minutes. One of the girls, Sinesipho Gule said she joined the running and fitness course to be “fit and strong,” and added that the sessions are definitely helping her. Another pupil, Lindokuhle Mzongwana said that she wanted to lose weight and that she enjoyed running. “This is the first chance I've had to run and I love the opportunity Terri-Lynn gave to us,” she said.
At the beginning of next year more schools will join the fitness project so that interschool competitions, and an exchange of experiences, can take place on AwareNet. Anyone interested in joining can contact the VSA on info@villagescribe.org.
