Classroom in Anton Lembede MST Academy with IdeaHub
The Anton Lembede Mathematics, Sciences & Technology (MST) Academy is a public education institute located in KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. The province covers an area of about 92 000 square kilometres, with a population of 11-million. In terms of education, KwaZulu-Natal is home to over 6 000 primary and secondary schools and 38 teacher development centres.
However, many schools lack digital devices and rely on traditional teaching methods. The Anton Lembede MST Academy broke the mould by purchasing HUAWEI IdeaHub for their classrooms, signaling the first step toward smart teaching for the Academy and others in the province.
Conventional teaching methods have become insufficient in recent years. Traditional classrooms are not equipped with modern, digital technology, which prevents teachers from displaying multimedia teaching materials. It is difficult to quantify and analyse the effect of classroom activities, as there is no real-time evaluation or feedback on student interaction, or performance analysis of teachers and students for the school management personnel.
The shift to online teaching was fast-tracked following the global pandemic, and schools around the world are now in urgent need of remote teaching facilities.
HUAWEI IdeaHub helps realise full-process digital education
Anton Lembede MST Academy is the first school to adopt HUAWEI IdeaHub for smart teaching in KZN. HUAWEI IdeaHub not only enables the Academy to carry out remote teaching, but also thrusts the Academy to the forefront of digital education innovation in the KwaZulu-Natal region.
HUAWEI IdeaHub provides an intelligent digital education solution that integrates whiteboard, screen projection and remote collaboration. For Anton Lembede MST Academy, the most impressive feature of IdeaHub is the 35 ms ultra-low writing latency for smooth writing. It allows classrooms to retain writing habits. The digitised teaching materials mean teachers can reuse materials, and students can review the materials easily after class.
IdeaHub not only enables the Academy to carry out remote teaching, but also thrusts the Academy to the forefront of digital education innovation in the KZN region.
The Academy adopts a hybrid teaching mode that combines online and offline teaching. With the assistance of IdeaHub, teachers can use multimedia teaching materials in the classroom, and even use teaching software to conduct virtual experiments to transform normal lectures into virtual labs in seconds.
IdeaHub not only improves the in-class experience of teachers and students, but also provides a full-process teaching platform for learning before, during and after class. Before class, IdeaHub supports omnimedia courseware editing tools to streamline teaching courseware. After class, the comprehensive data analytics of teaching activities is provided to facilitate refined teaching management.
Putting virtual into campuses: Digitising teaching for inclusive education
Xolani Maduna, a teacher at Anton Lembede MST Academy, said: “The pandemic made us realise the importance of remote teaching. We wanted to make e-learning a possibility, and the IdeaHub solution makes this into a reality. What’s really impressive is that we can choose between normal in-class teaching or online teaching, or a mix of the two, making it very convenient for us, as well as an excellent learning experience for the students.”
Anton Lembede MST AcademyDumisani Sibaya, principal of Anton Lembede MST Academy, said: “The integrated design of IdeaHub does not have high requirements on cabling and network environments, and can adapt to various environments without overhauling the classrooms. In terms of basic education, the IdeaHub helps to easily share high-quality teaching resources and solve the problem of unbalanced resources across the region.”
Breakthroughs in technology are driving the evolution of traditional education. In recent years, smart education has gained significant attention globally, and the successful deployment of HUAWEI IdeaHub in Anton Lembede MST Academy signals the start of a digital journey in KZN province.