I am Lemmy Kangwa, head of Mathematics department at Chalimbana University, in Zambia, Central Africa. In addition to administrative duties in the department, I teach Mathematics to our students. I also have the honour to be the chair person of the GeoGebra Institute at Chalimbana.
Our students are at various levels in terms of their learning skills and abilities, but on average they are very enthusiastic about learning Mathematics. They are even more motivated when we use technology in the classrooms. I first used GeoGebra in my class when we were plotting graphs and the pupils found it fascinating.
Internet connection is not very reliable in our country, that is another reason why GeoGebra is a great educational tool, as it can be used offline. Low bandwidth, high cost of connection and access to computers are the main challenges we face .
In addition to desktops, a number of tutors now have laptops and 8 of our 56 members of academic staff have recently been given tablets by one of our cooperating partners. So we are now starting to teach with tablets but only at a very small scale (see picture below in my Math class, I am the first one on the right)
In our computer laboratory for students, we have forty work stations. For my class of an average of 45 this is manageable. However, the computer-student ratio for all the institution is still a problem as it now stands at 1:10.
I must mention as well that I am still in the process of learning how to use GeoGebra and I would be happy to learn more from members of the GeoGebra community.
We would be happy to cooperate with other GI-s, please contact us at:
http://wiki.geogebra.org/en/GeoGebra_Institute_of_Chalimbana
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