Hoërskool Uitsig in The Reeds, Pretoria hosted a very successful ICT Expo on 20 October 2009 where IT and CAT learners were afforded the opportunity to showcase their Practical Assessment Tasks (PATs). The learners competed for prizes sponsored by local businesses. Ms Ena Brits, Subject Advisor for CAT and IT from Tshwane South (D4) supported this wonderful event.

A few schools from the Centurion region participated and it was wonderful to see the effort that went into the PATs and how proud the learners were of their projects.

I spoke to the learners and there was general consensus on the following:

• It was hard work, but they enjoyed it.
• They have learned a lot

• About the topic (mostly electricity) and this created an awareness among them to conserve and also made them aware of alternative sources of energy that are also renewable. (One learner even told me that he learned that Eskom was not to blame – maybe Eskom should hire him to do some advocacy )
• About their own CAT skills regarding the applications. Some admitted to have learned new functions in completing their project.
• About the uses of the different packages and how the integration between these packages helped them to produce a quality end product.
• They admitted that the process followed (task definition, questions, etc.) helped them to stay focused and that all the planning done ensured a quality final product.
• They also mentioned that it prepared them well for their practical examinations

• That if you worked hard and studied the assessment tool, it was actually “easy marks”

• They all commended their teachers for providing good guidance and motivation, especially in the beginning to get them going.

One Grade 10 CAT learner said that he enjoyed the topic (indigenous games) and got very useful information from his grandparents (on Direko) who used to play the game when they were young. He did not know any of these games before he started to do his investigation and said that his grandparents were very surprised and also very excited when he interviewed them to gather some information for his PAT.

Overall, the projects were very good and the judges had a hard time in selecting the winners.