Last week our speaker was Mr. Dion Johnson, The Senior Master at Sybil Strachan Primary School.  His topic was "Transforming Literacy Spaces".  

Mr. Johnson described literacy as a basic human right.  He detailed how the pandemic forced us to focus more on literacy and how to handle literacy challenges while going through a pandemic.  Many learners were projected never to return to formal education following the pandemic and many of them were projected to be girls and young women.

Mr. Johnson described how literacy has changed.  In the days of his childhood there were the paper based Britannica Encyclopedias and the Collier's Collections.  The way we receive the information has now changed in the digital age.  Innovation and technology barreled into formal education and instead of many students in a classroom with a teacher, we could now have each student in front of their device at home and watching a teacher teach from a different location.

During the pandemic some students suffered from a lack of devices, resources and at times even electricity and internet connectivity.  The classrooms of today have moved to the four walls of a laptop or tablet screen.

The government took a community based approach by opening community centers to cater to students without direct access to these tools.  Corporate Bahamas also jumped in to provide the same type of assistance.  Many public parks now also provide access to free WiFi.  The opportunity to switch to virtual learning offered up numerous opportunities for innovation.  Mr. Johnson detailed other initiatives by the government to improve literacy and education including a new learning management system and virtual teaching.  The club members were asked to take out their phones and got the opportunity to participate in an online learning activity.  Mr. Johnson demonstrated some of the online resources that teachers use with their students.

The presentation was followed by a question and answer section and provided great insight on how the Bahamas is using technology to teach virtually and transform literacy in the Bahamas.