Warren Sparrow

Warren has been teaching at Rondebosch Boys’ Preparatory Schools for the last fifteen years, having previously taught in traditional African schools, some in very poor communities. He loves the things that can be done with technology – particularly that new software enables him to keep changing the way he teaches. In the absence of a national ICT curriculum he can freely design his lessons and takes care to construct interdisciplinary authentic learning experiences.

Everything he does, the projects and curriculum, are shared for free. He runs a blog with projects, software, files and other ICT resources that can be used to innovate every classroom. Even his classroom is a virtual as well as a physical space, since his students can log in from home, open their assignments, work on collaborative projects and ask questions remotely.

Projects include his Grade 7 students making videos on AIDS and HIV topics, and a global project, “Courage”, with students working together using OneNote and Skype between Croatia, Canada, Singapore, China and South Africa. His students are extremely motivated when they know their projects have an international audience.

Warren has run ICT courses for 60 teachers for 40 weeks at a time for free, as well as adult computer literacy programs for over 100 parents in his community.

In 2010, he won both the South Africa and the Pan African Microsoft Innovative Teacher of the Year award. His school is one of three in South Africa to become a Microsoft Pathfinder School, and he is now a Microsoft Innovative Expert Educator as well as a Microsoft Certified Teacher.