SUZA has a mission: to develop education as a means of transforming their nation from agriculture (formerly known as The Spice Islands) to one of tourism and industry, much as South Korea has done so successfully. World Ecitizens (WE) are proud to support this inspiring educational initiative, and look forward to working with the University in as many ways as possible.
Welcomed by Vice Chancellor, Idris Rai, the University hosted the SUZA2019/ IFIP TC3 WG3.4 Computer conference, drawing global experts to Zanzibar to share their computing expertise with teachers and students. Delegates arrived from Finland (IFIP Organisers), the UK, Zimbabwe, Germany, Portugal, Italy, Australia, Spain, Kenya, Denmark, Thailand, South Korea, Zanzibar, and the USA.
The UK was represented at the State University of Zanzibar, in part, by a project presentation from some of the World Ecitizens team: Lloyd Mead, Director; Lawrence Williams, Secretary; and Beth Mead, a school pupil, about a computer coding project undertaken at Lambeth College, south London (See below). Following this presentation, the University has invited Lawrence Williams back to Zanzibar to share some of the educational project work currently posted on the WE website.
WE warmly welcome the opportunity to work with the Computing Department of SUZA, in particular, because Zanzibar has such an inclusive philosophy, where Muslims, Christians and other religious groups work so happily together, showing an inspiring example of religious co-operation to the world: a world currently in urgent need of such an impressive working model. The Victorian Anglican Cathedral in Stone Town, for example, is shared both by Christians and Muslims, for worship.
Here is the Lambeth College presentation, showing a further effective collaboration between college teachers, and school pupils, deployed as an educational resource. The project is one of a series developed for students with learning difficulties.
Abstract. This case study outlines a continuing curriculum project, from 2009 to the present, now exploring “Scratch 3” to support the sequencing skills of young adults with learning difficulties (LLDD), at Lambeth College, south London. Student support files, in “Scratch 3” block coding, and in “Sibelius” music software, were created by a secondary school pupil, aged 12, and developed for use by the students at the Further Education College, as part of an on-going educational collaboration. While it has proved to be the most problematic and frustrating teaching and learning project of the series to date, nonetheless it has had very positive student outcomes.
Note: The above paper will be published by Springer later in 2019 (IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology), and so cannot be presented in full here. Book details can be found by clicking here.
But for some idea of the beautiful island of Zanzibar:
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Pictures: Lawrence Williams