On the 9th of May another wonderful workshop supported by the Faculty of ICT of TUT, and organised by the Gauteng Education Department Tshwane North region was held at Hoërskool Overkruin.
Approximately 240 learners and 21 educators attended the workshop. Four provinces were represented which include Limpopo, Gauteng, Northwest and Mpumalanga.
The day started with a presentation and video relating to the newly launched Embarcadero RAD studio XE8. XE8 is widely regarded as one of the biggest developments and advancements in the capabilities of the compiler.
The next sessions focused on predominantly content related to the IT CAPS curriculum. One area of concern highlighted as part of discussions after the 2014 national examinations with reference to the IT practical papers is the fact that many learners still struggled to answer the OOP related question.
A session was presented on the concept of OOP and emphasis was also placed on the Object use approach to design approach as part of the curriculum. One of the ideas reiterated is the fact that the CAPS clearly state that OOP questions should pertain to simple problems and types: CAPS (p30, p41)
An example on Dynamic component creation was presented as well a simple example of creating a ticker class and the implementation thereof. Showing the concrete example off the class and its design operations, where the students could visualize the problem aided in the teaching and learning.
The next session was presented by a veteran to programming and IT education Mrs Correlie Pretorius who has more than 30 years’ experience in teaching and exposing students to programming for the first time. Mrs Pretorius presented the concept and importance off using visualisation as a technique to aid the teaching and learning process.
Mrs Pretorius presented some wonderful ideas on how visualisation could be used to solve problems. As part of her studies she also showed her approach to aid leaners and teaches to present content using videos and animation. She also emphasised the use of IPO’s as part of the learning process. Mrs Pretorius was cheered and applauded by the learners and teachers after her presentation.
Bertie Buitendag, presented a session on the implementation and creation of DB related concepts. An example applicable to the PAT of 2015 was presented.
One important concept presented was the use of ADODataSets and implementation of parameterised queries.
An IntraWeb example was also presented and the learners was in awe on seeing it for the first time.
One very entertaining part of the day was the session presented about the use and implementation of the Raspberry Pi, and other open source tools to support teaching and learning.
After the presentation on the use of Open Source tools to support and enhance the curriculum of many other subjects, two wonderful presentations were offered by two very enthusiastic TUT lecturers. Mr Aubrey Khoza and Mr Fredré Hattingh.
Mr Khoza presented two examples on including an example of using two dimensional arrays and textfiles, and a wonderful session on the use of Web services as part of the application
Mr Fredré Hatting presented a wonderful example on the use of XML and JSON and how it is used to transfer data between applications. Both Mr Hatting and Mr Khoza were loudly applauded and the students. The ease on which Delphi allow for the use and inclusion of these technologies as part of an application was also highlighted.
The day was a huge success and was ended by a wonderful performance of musicians Henré Masser and Lillian Masser.
Thanks to Adané and and all my colleagues and friends from TUT, and all the teachers and learners who made the day a success!
The next Workshop will be held at Unisa on the 15th of August. (More Info @ Mr Hennie van Tonder GDET)
Content presented (slides and examples) at the day to follow
