Cross-Cutting Work Group 1 (CCWG1): Knowledge management

The Cross-Cutting Working Group 1 (CCWG1) is essentially a small technical support working group that will service all the other for four disciplinary working groups (one language and literacy, three mathematics) and the two other Cross-Cutting Working Groups (one Assessment and one Work Integrated Learning) by ensuring that the outputs of the other groups, in print or other formats, will be realised in the most accessible and attractive form, whether in print or electronic media, in databases, on web sites, and that the messages and communications between the groups and the disseminating, marketing and evaluating of their work will happen speedily and effectively.

The main aim of the CCWG1 is to support the other Working Groups in the general PrimTEd aim of producing high quality research-informed knowledge and practice standards and various course/module outlines, assessment tools, pedagogical models, and teaching materials.

The CCWG1 will assist the disciplinary Working Groups in producing well-designed comprehensive courses and materials that support the delivery of the language/literacy and mathematics components of initial teacher education programmes for primary school teachers, including the work-integrated learning component of the programmes. In addition the group will serve as a general communications and product repository hub (through a dedicated website (housed by the JET Education Services) for intra and inter working group communication and to make all  project products (research, curricula and materials) accessible to all and a regular newsletter) and will generally assist in the monitoring and evaluation liaison, communication, and marketing of the PrimTEd Project.

Summary of the proposed outputs for the workgroup

Output 1: Courses and materials in multiple media
These curricula would be supported by a variety of open source, multi-modal course materials to support delivery of such a curriculum, plus support for  academic staff to make use of these resources in course planning and delivery.

These materials would incorporate the outputs of other working groups in the literacy and mathematics groups of the PrimTEd project and will require very close collaboration with the assessment and work integrated learning working groups.
The course materials developed by the disciplinary working groups would be aligned to this curriculum framework starting with Foundation Phase and then moving to Intermediate Phase in all South African official languages.

The languages chosen will be on a phased scalable basis, starting with three simultaneously versioned in /English, Zulu and Pedi / and followed by /Afrikaans, Xhosa, and Tswana / Sotho, Tsonga, and Venda / Swati and Ndebele.
Each of the sets of courses or materials produced will in a sense be a specific project in itself requiring planning, resourcing and budgeting for.

Output 2:  Website for all PrimTEd products accessible to all
The website will be managed to communicate the outputs of the entire PrimTEd Project. The website will serve as a repository for the PrimTEd project outputs, and also provide an online community  space project for the members of working groups and ultimately  for university-based educators of primary teachers.

The website, accessible by both computers and mobile phones, will be designed to provide access to student teachers and educators to the following:

• Curriculum and course designs for literacy and mathematics in Foundation and Intermediate phase initial and in-service teaching education (and would also include all the materials developed by the European Union funded Strengthening Foundation Phase Teaching Project).

• Full course materials

• Annotated bibliographies of research documents (including the actual documents where possible

• Placement and assessment instruments

Where possible downloadable resources will in due course be available in pdf, ePub and mobi formats as well, as, where appropriate and available, the original wordprocessor format (doc, docx, rtf, wpd, odt).  Electronic originals of typeset materials will be available in original formats (indd, cdr) on request.

Output 3:  Research from PrimTEd workgroups communicated and applied for use
These research communications will comprise accessible reports on the findings of research from the other working groups. This will require regular liaison with these working groups.

Initial work is being undertaken on copyright issues and on standards for text and visual material that will be put on the website.

Output 4:  Reports and Communications
This will include a regular electronic PrimTEd newsletter and assistance to other Working Groups on their Annual Reports.