A trip to Cape Town is not complete without an excursion to Robben Island Museum. Some members of the SHOUT team spent Thursday afternoon visiting the museum gaining real insight into history of the newly democratic South Africa.

Here is a little extract explaining the history of RI from www.robbenisland.org

People lived on Robben Island many thousands of years ago, when the sea channel between the Island and the Cape mainland was not covered with water. Since the Dutch settled at the Cape in the mid-1600s, Robben Island has been used primarily as a prison.

Indigenous African leaders, Muslim leaders from the East Indies, Dutch and British soldiers and civilians, women, and anti-apartheid activists, including South Africa's first democratic President, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela and the founding leader of the Pan Africanist Congress, Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe, were all imprisoned on the Island...

For more information on the history of the Island please see visit the following link: http://www.robben-island.org.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=9&Itemid=46

The evening was spent at the Experience Pavilion. SHOUT had a dedicated booth that allowed teacher’s to come and see a demo of the site, ask questions, and learn more about SHOUT. It was a great opportunity to muster up excitement for the SHOUT workshops the following day.

The Experience Pavilion also proved a wonderful opportunity to meet our fantastic DeforestACTION pilot teachers. Having met them in ‘real’ life and hearing their DeforestACTION stories really helped generate momentum for what will truly be an AMAZING SHOUT journey.

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mandeepatwal, katherinewalraven, michaelfurdyk

Mteto Nyati, managing director of the South African subsidiary of Microsoft welcomed everybody to Cape Town. Mteto shared with the 500 plus audience a little about his unprivileged upbringing, his inspirational story proved ‘education’ as the key tool that changed his life for the better.

The official opening keynote of the conference was led by Anthony Salcito, and he presented the new Microsoft education framework and vision. He had some previous winners of the Microsoft Innovative Educator awards share their experiences, and then officially announced the Shout program.

He invited Michael Furdyk, Claudine Brown and Mark Sparvell, the principal of Kadina Primary (one of the schools that have been part of the DeforestAction pilot) to take part in a SHOUT Q&A.

After the official announcement, the SHOUT team headed upstairs and had an hour-long press conference with some general Q&A. This was followed by two hours of 1:1 interviews, with about 8 different writers and one TV interview with NDTV from India. The evening was spent having dinner with all the media members.

A special mention must go to our very own inspirational presenter, Mr Furdyk, who wowed and won the hearts of everyone. Unanimously all left eager to find out more on SHOUT.

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St Cyprians School and Hout Bay High (Western Cape) were the first two schools worldwide to SHOUT about the new educational programme that aims to address some of the world’s most pressing environmental issues.

The first school, St. Cyprians, was a well-resourced school with good access to computers and technology. The second school, Hout Bay High, a public school had a very passionate principal and science teacher who committed to make sure that their environmental club would be actively involved.

The SHOUT team visited both schools to launch and model the Tree Banding research project. Both schools were given a kit that will be used to measure the growth and development of trees. The data collected will contribute to a global research project monitored by Smithsonian.

The global media team were invited on Tuesday to see the schools in action. They were given direct access to Anthony Solito, Microsoft’s vice president of education (worldwide public sector division), our very own Michael Furdyk, Founder of TakingITGlobal and Claudine Brown, assistant secretary for Education and Access at the Smithsonian Institution, who all spoke in turn about the educational and global value of SHOUT. Claudine Brown stated "if learning is experiential, students will learn. We are encouraging young people to live with the land."

The press were then treated to a tree banding demonstration led by Josh Falk and Jess Parker. St Cyprians and Hout Bay were unfazed by the global attention and gracefully assisted the Smithsonian duo in banding the first two trees to be a part of the global project.

It was an exciting two days and really set the scene for the official launch the next day!

Last week the TakingITGlobal team travelled to Cape Town, South Africa to participate in the sixth annual Worldwide Innovation Education forum (IEF). The event brought more than 500 educators, school leaders and government officials representing over 70 countries together to celebrate the innovative and effect use of technology in school curriculums worldwide.

The event also marked and welcomed teachers representing 125 projects selected from 200,000 participants globally, deemed by Anthony Salcito (Microsoft’s vice president of education for its worldwide public sector division) ‘‘the best of the best.’’Such an event hosting already strong global collaborators proved to be the perfect platform to launch the new Shout partnership with Microsoft Partners in Learning, the Smithsonian and TakingITGlobal.

Shout is an environmental education programme that will have a number of opportunities for schools to engage their students in challenge-based learning projects - and contribute to scientific research at the Smithsonian. The first two "challenges" of Shout are:

Challenge 1: DeforestACTION

Our regular TIGed readers will know Shout’s inspiration comes from the pilot programme DeforestACTION. DeforestACTION engages students in understanding the importance of forests in our world, and how the production of products like Palm Oil contribute to Deforestation in Indonesia -which is destroying orangutan habitat.

DeforestAction has been piloted by schools in Australia, Sri Lanka and Singapore, and next week will be launching globally for any school to join. Through a partnership with acclaimed ecologist Willy Smits, the programme will provide students with the opportunity to fundraise for the revitalization of deforested areas in Borneo, with a TV Series and movie produced to document their journey. This is the primary challenge that TIG will be involved in developing and facilitating. http://www.tigweb.org/tiged/projects/deforestaction/

Challenge 2: Tree Banding

Smithsonian's Environmental Research Center (SERC) has been studying the impact of climate on tree growth for over 20 years, by using a metal band which expands along with the tree growth, and measuring the changes in a gap in the band several times a year. For the first time ever, schools will contribute to expanding this research globally, with 500 tree banding kits being offered to schools around the world through Shout.

It is a very exciting programme that will according to Anthony Salcito “create an opportunity for students to expand their horizons and connect with each other and the opportunity to bring challenges that excite, engage and connect students in classrooms around the world.”

Stayed tuned to find out what the TIG team (Michael Furdyk, Katherine Walraven and Mandeep Atwal) got up to in Cape Town!

michaelfurdyk, katherinewalraven, mandeepatwal