Connection across continents: Students in Botswana and the UK bond over learning, curiosity, and friendship

The students’ excitement in Emma Gawthorp’s classroom is palpable. She’s just announced that it is time for their weekly video session with their sister classroom in Botswana, and the students can hardly contain their chatter.

As she opens the video conferencing app on her SMART Board, the students squirm excitedly, eyes locked on the display. The moment the call connects, revealing 25 of their peers on another continent, the room bursts into cheerful waves and shouts of “Hello!”

This excitement for a lesson is what every educator dreams of.

In partnership with Nureva and Elementary Technology UK, SMART is excited to share a remarkable project that bridges the distance between Delta Waters School in Botswana and Keelham Primary School in Bradford, UK.

Boosting engagement through peer-to-peer relationships

Education experts agree that engagement in the content leads to the most substantial outcomes in student learning. These partnerships make learning feel meaningful, drawing students into the stories and lives of others.

“Seeing pupils on their tablets or their SMART Boards who live thousands of miles away, it really does engage them,” said Rob Hunter, the Headteacher at Keelham Primary School. “They want to know about the culture. They want to know about their school routines. It really has boosted their engagement.”

Gawthorp says that her students love to compare the daily happenings of their friends in Botswana with the life they’ve always known in England.

“They were amazed that the children from Delta Waters could probably see elephants within a few miles, whereas we see roads and fields and things like that. It was just mind-blowing for them,” she said. “It's nice to see that we can connect with other children of the same age and same education level, but in a different part of the world.”

Delta Waters School, located in the heart of Botswana, has been equipped with the latest in educational technology through a partnership between SMART and Nureva. The installation includes a state-of-the-art SMART Board equipped with tools designed to enhance learning experiences, making education more interactive, tactile, and engaging for students.

Keelham Primary School, a small but forward-thinking institution in Bradford, is part of a groundbreaking Department for Education (DfE) project. This project involves outfitting schools with cutting-edge technology and measuring its impact on student outcomes. Keelham Primary is leveraging this opportunity to become a hub of modern educational practices, and SMART is proud to play a key role in this initiative.

Thabo Maroba, an ICT teacher at Delta Waters International, noted that it’s not just the students who benefit from the cross-cultural partnership. The connection between teachers from both schools has fostered professional relationships as well.

“We are now exchanging the teaching methodologies with the teachers in Keelham while our students are exchanging their educational experiences,” she said.

Opening doors and inspiring new ideas with Lumio

Students from the two schools, separated by thousands of miles, connect live through their SMART Boards using video conferencing and Lumio, SMART’s web-based learning software, to collaborate in real time.

During these live sessions, students engage in various activities, from joint lessons to cultural exchanges, enabling them to broaden their horizons and gain new perspectives.

The technology facilitates active learning and helps build empathy and understanding among young learners. Pearce Khoza, Delta Waters International’s principal, says that Lumio has ignited a new sense of inspiration and lesson planning among his teachers.

“The way teachers are now taking up their lessons…the learners, the parents, the management, and the community at large enjoy the services that Delta Waters is offering them. I would say we owe that to SMART Technologies.”

Gawthorp says that Lumio provides incentives for students that are sometimes hard to create, even in subjects that are otherwise extra challenging or rigorous.

“The students want to move, they want to listen, they want to read,” she said. “They want to learn the information you're giving them in order to be able to play the game, do the word search, do the sorting, whatever task you choose to do. It's just increased engagement. It's increased the children working and, most of all, they're enjoying their learning more.”