Hendrien Coetzee

Coetzee is a computer literacy teacher at Van Reede Primary School, a dual medium (medium of instruction in two languages) intermediate phase school consisting of 391 Grade 4 -7 learners. Oudsthoorn is the centre of the ostrich industry and serves as a business hub and tourist centre for the Little Karoo. Many tourists are attracted by the nearby world-famous Cango Caves.

 Coetzee’s learners work collaboratively on their creative tasks. In addition to designing Valentine’s Day cards, Mother’s Day cards and cards for various other occasions, their flagship project each year is to design the educational games. Many communities in Oudtshoorn are poor and the pre-schools cannot afford the costs of educational games. Coetzee’s idea was to make the games and send them to the pre-schools, but the activity grew in educational value when her learners visited the schools and introduced the games themselves.

“My learners are learning valuable skills,” explained Coetzee. “They are not only learning to integrate language, mathematics and technology skills, but they are also thinking about presentation, explanations and implementation of the playing skills. In doing so they have to imagine that they are 5-year-olds. The actual visit is the most challenging, yet most exciting part of the while project.”

Once the games have been created they are printed in colour and laminated. Coetzee’s classes started the project two years ago by visiting just one pre-school. Building on the success of that pilot project they identified further schools in the following year and are now identifying further schools in the community to reach out to with their educational games.

Coetzee provided good learner support by supplying templates and guidelines to the learners. The learners must research and develop the games within certain parameters. “It is important that my learners realise the convenience of ICT as an educational and learning aid,’ says Coetzee. “It can be used in everyday life situations and it provides exciting challenges and opportunities.”