User:Sonja5

Name: Sonja Joseph Background: Born in a small fishing village, called Port Nolloth, along the west coast of South Africa where fish, droe snoek, crayfish, shellfish and all the goodies from the ocean are the staple of the coastal natives. This coastal native has just entered her seventeeth year in Windhoek, Namibia. So what, she has not yet developed a taste for the local staple - beef, biltong. The craving for fish remains strong, but she'll hang around this environment for a while. Born in education...hmmm....conventional education,I have moved on to distance education and hopefully soon wiki education.

Education: Educated in South Africa. Obtained my BA Degree and Higher Diploma in Education at the University of the Western Cape.Completed my Masters in Africa Studies at the University of the Free State, Bloemfontein in South Africa

Employment: A former teacher in English and Development Studies, I'm now employed as an instructional designer of distance education courseware in the Programmes & Materials Development Division (PMD)at the Namibian College of Open Learning (NAMCOL). For the past few years we have undergone some radical changes with regards to the choice of media we use at NAMCOL. Although print remains NAMCOL's main medium of instruction, various other media are used to supplement the print-based materials. These include:
 * audio cassettes,
 * radio programmes,
 * web-based lessons, and
 * face-to-face tuition.

Of late we have embarked on the production of video/television lessons in collaboration with the Ministry of Education. Future projects include the development of video lessons in collaboration with Mindset and COL.

AThe following instructional self-study materials were developed by me:


 * IGCSE History
 * JSC History
 * IGCSE Development Studies
 * JSC History
 * IGCSE English
 * JSC English

The following storyboards were developed by me:


 * JSC English - Reading various texts
 * JSC Geography - Plate Tectonics

Academic interest: Currently reading gender-related works

Personal interests:


 * 1) Reading,
 * 2) Outdoors,
 * 3) photography

/My sandbox/

/Materials development at NAMCOL/

Booklist
 * The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama
 * Black Skins, White Masks by Frantz Fanon
 * Thabo Mbeki and the Battle for the Soul of the ANC by Gumede
 * Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire