Another workshop

So ... I've got the green light to go ahead and start creating a training workshop on how to install and configure Moodle, what are its capabilities, limitations, and how we can adapt it to Mozambican secondary schools.

The training is to be held in Bilene, a little place north of the city, just south of Xai-Xai. Supposedly a weekend get away for the citizens of Maputo, a little escape to get to enjoy some nice beaches.

But for now, I'm done with my first project, and onto my next. These next few weeks are going to be super busy, but I'm going to learn a lot from this experience, not to mention and excellent opportunity to improve my Portuguese. Thankfully, some if not all the attendents can speak English, and all of them are tech savy.

I must admit that I don't know much about pedagogy, but I do know a bit about technology and its use in knowledge transfer and management. But this is a new area for me ... Learning how we learn and how the use of such technologies such as Moodle facilitate and accelerate that process. In the case of education in Mozambique, Moodle is currently used at the pedagogical university for distance education of university students, although not all subjects are offered, a current project of theirs. This project will look at the introduction of Moodle to 11th and 12th graders, but not in the same sense, i.e., reaching out to distance students. No, it is seen as a possible tool to augment the capacity of a school as there are not enough seats to accommodate the number of students in demand for education. The reasons for that are not very clear to me, but from what little I know now, is that one of the major factors is the lack of teachers. Hopefully, I will know more after the workshop as the attendees are going to be from different institutions involved in secondary and distance education.