Electronic Interaction - Cameroon, Africa

After a disastrous situation with my previous contact, I was blessed to meet an elementary teacher from Cameroon, Africa named Katie Westra. She is an American teaching overseas and was kind enough to answer a few questions via Facebook messaging. Here are the questions I asked her and her responses.

Thank you so much for chatting with me on such short notice. Can you tell me a little about yourself?

"I grew up in Western Michigan (lived there my entire life until I graduated college and moved thousands of miles away), but I currently live in Yaoundé, Cameroon, Africa. That is a country on the West coast of Africa, just south of Nigeria. I first came over here on a mission trip through my university. I really enjoyed it and wanted to come back, so I ended up doing half my student teaching at a school here. On my last day, the director of the school offered me a job. I eventually accepted and here I am three years later, still here and loving it. I never would have thought this was the plan God had for me, but it sure has been much more than I could have ever asked for or imagined! :) I currently teach Pre-Kindergarten 4 (for the 4 year olds) at the American School of Yaoundé. For the previous two years, I taught 1st grade. When I was student teaching, I taught 3rd grade and Kindergarten. I teach in a self-contained classroom, so I teach all the major subjects (Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies), the students also have specials (French-5 days a week, and PE, IT, Art, Library, Music -1 day a week)."

As a teacher, what's your opinion on the importance of technology/blogging in the classroom?

"My opinion on the importance of technology/blogging in the elementary classroom is a relatively naïve one. I think it could be a great tool if used properly. It is something that I would love to learn how to do and begin using in my classroom. The idea of being able to have a blog that parents and students are able to access and know all about what is going on in the classroom is ingenious. I would enjoy learning how to create an interactive blog where parents especially could log on and find out what their child is doing and see pictures and get updates instantly. I unfortunately do not know how to go about doing that yet, and am not sure how useful it would be to my student’s parents since Internet is at times a precious commodity."

"Technology in general is a great resource to have in the classroom. I constantly use my computer to store my lesson plans, do curriculum maps, grade/attendance books, report cards, progress reports, etc. If I was in the upper elementary, I would probably even do PowerPoint presentations and use things like YouTube and other online resources and games to enhance my students understanding of the different concepts and skills that we were learning. It is a bit more difficult to use the computer and other technologies at such a young age with my students. Since I teach in Africa (not to stereotype) but where I live students do not necessarily have access to all of the technologies and computer games that other students do, especially those in the US. When I took my class to the computer lab at the beginning of the year for their first IT class, it was for many of them the first time they had the opportunity to use a computer (many had seen one, but not many had used one or even knew how to use the mouse, etc.). It was a bit shocking for me. I had wrongly assumed that like many students in the US, they had already learned how to do many things on the computer. There are many great online resources out there, as long as a school/teacher has the technology available to them and their students to use it. I love surfing the Internet and seeing what new educational sites there are out there that I can some how incorporate into my lessons. It is important to note that a lot of what a teacher is able to do depends upon what resources are available to them. Up until last year, our school did not have enough computers to be able to have more than one class in the computer lab at a time, because of this, I could not take my students to the computer lab at any other time than was their assigned time for IT classes."

How has blogging (or technology in the classroom) impacted your students?

"Unfortunately I have not been able to use blogging in my classroom, so I can not comment on that. I do know of a colleague of mine who has begun using it as a way to keep his students and parents apprised of their current grades, that way here are no surprises come report card/progress report time, and as of now, I have only heard good things about how parents enjoy having access to it when ever they need it, as well as my colleague enjoying not having to deal with any “blind-sided” parents or students.
The use of other technologies in my classroom has been a great advantage to my students, not only do they have what knowledge I personally possess on a subject, but because of technology and the Internet, I can literally get information from around the world in just a few clicks. I can also get ideas to use in the classroom. When I was teaching first grade we were pen-pals with a class in Canada, and they really enjoyed getting to know those students as well as being able to broaden their horizons and see that kids in other countries around the world are learning about the same things that they were."

It was a great experience talking to Ms. Westra. I was very interested to see how she is incorporating up and coming technologies in her classroom in Africa. She definitely inspired me and has renewed my interest in teaching internationally. I love how Ms. Westra uses the internet to bring the world to her students as well as get new ideas for her classroom. Like her international students, it is quite possible that I may encounter students who are not familiar with computers and it will be my job to develop activities that are sensitive to this. I will keep in mind many of the points Ms. Westra made and one day incorporate them into my classroom.