Did someone say Pep-aration?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3NDmRSBdLo Dr. Shalette Ashman, CEO of the Learning Hub Group answers key questions about Primary Exit Profile (PEP)! Dr. Ashman touches on when PEP preparations should begin, what the exam covers, and how to prepare. @learninghubgrp
Wheatley donates $3m towards St Catherine East Central learning hub
In a move aimed at bolstering educational opportunities for young learners, five primary and infant schools in St Catherine East Central are set to benefit from enhanced access to the Learning Hub Digital Library. Spearheaded by Dr Andrew Wheatley, the member of parliament (MP) for the constituency, the initiative received a significant boost with a personal allocation of $3 million, underscoring his commitment to fostering self-empowerment through education. Addressing attendees including principals, grade-six teachers, and student representatives at the Homestead Primary and Infant School last Thursday, as the initiative was rolled out, Wheatley reiterated the significance of investing in education as a cornerstone of effective representation. “Education is a critical part of how we approach representation,” Wheatley affirmed, highlighting the allocation of 40 per cent of the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) to educational initiatives. “Oftentimes we hear people clamouring for infrastructure development, business assistance, you name it. And, while all that is good, we often neglect something that is more self-empowering and that is education,” he argued. “I must add that this funding of $3 million did not come from my CDF but a personal allocation from me,” the MP noted. Dr Shalette Ashman, an educational technologist and e-learning expert who introduced the Caribbean-based learning and test preparation system, said the e-Learning Hub Digital Library was born out of the idea or enabling access to thousands of interactive books. Ashman, whose expertise in educational technology has garnered acclaim, pointed out the importance of providing students with access to a comprehensive digital library aligned with the curriculum, enabling them to master key concepts from primary school to Caribbean Advancer Proficiency Examination level. “We don’t just want them to have access to books, but books that follow the curriculum, and this digital library follows the curriculum to the tee,” she stressed. Echoing Wheatley’s sentiments, Ashman emphasised the motivational aspect of digital learning, noting that the interactive nature of the platform enhances student engagement and productivity. Following a live demonstration, educators lauded the digital library for its comprehensiveness and relevance to exam preparation. Vice Principal Lorna Gray Smith praised the initiative, expressing enthusiasm for its potential to augment students’ learning experiences. “It will be very instrumental… I can’t wait to run with it,” Smith remarked, highlighting the resource’s coverage of exam-relevant areas. Principal Sophia Deer highlighted the collaborative efforts of stakeholders, noting the support from Digicel Foundation in retrofitting a smart room at Homestead Primary School. Noting it was equipped with essential technology including laptops, tablets, and a smart board with internet access, Deer said, “The smart room reflects a concerted effort to integrate technology into the learning environment.” With the Learning Hub Digital Library accessible 24 hours a day and seven days a week on various devices, including smartphones, laptops, and tablets, students across the Caribbean are poised to benefit from this innovative educational resource. With more than 150,000 users to date, the platform’s widespread adoption underscores its potential to transform learning outcomes and empower the next generation of learners. The other schools to benefit are McCooks Pen, St Johns, and McCauley primary schools.
Dr. Ashman Group Brings E-learning to Africa
Dr. Ashman Group Brings E-learning to Africa The Shalette Ashman Group has partnered with several African E-Learning experts and educators to build a reservoir of interactive content geared toward satisfying the curriculum in selected countries. The initiative is set to roll out in August 2022. Dr. Ashman, who leads the initiative, stated that the project is decade-long labour of love as the content is designed to match specific objectives for each curriculum. Additionally, the project will also see the inclusion of augmented reality workbooks, ebooks and offline apps. Educational Specialist and Founder of E-learning Platform, Dr. Shalette Ashman shares more about the initiative on Sunrise. The E-Learning initiative will allow for online and offline support and access in areas where internet access is unstable. Dr. Ashman is excited and deeply honoured about the opportunity to collaborate with these countries in Africa. Particularly when so much is required to narrow the learning gap, which has become even wider since the Covid-19 pandemic. Source
Dr. Shalette Ashman | TVJ Profile Interview
Diva Educator Dr. Shalette Ashman – I told no one I was in need.
She’s got a way about her
Merlgrove High School is not generally recogniSed as having a strong sporting tradition, but how the girls in blue must have cheered themselves hoarse when in 1989 Shalette Ashman won both the 800 and 1500m at the ISSA, Zone Six Champion at the National Stadium. How they must have boasted about having the most enduring athlete in that zone. She could have considered a future in athletics, but the needs at home were so pressing that she had to earn an income immediately after graduation, so the spikes were given away and she got a Government job. Now Shalette looks back at her track training and says, “Sports gave me discipline. I cried every time I lost, not because I grudged the winner, but because I think if I had worked harder I could have won”. She took that discipline into building a career as a trainer in computing and to run a successful business. Today, she is a trainer consultant with the Management Institute for National Development (MIND) and runs her own school, Computer Training and More. The Astroturf was not the first place that she cried because she lost. It had happened before in 1985 when despite her best efforts her name did not appear on the list of students who had been successful at the Common Entrance Examination. At that time, her mother hugged her and simply said, “You have to work harder”. The failures that she has overcome have made Shalette soften towards others who have fallen short of their full potential. That is why she is a dedicated teacher who scored excellent passes between 1997 and 2000 in GCE Computer Studies, making her the most successful teacher in these subjects in the entire nation. “I used to take students home with me and sometimes be with them until after ten O’clock at night, encouraging them. It is my way to give back.” For the Ashmans, education was the way to overcome the desperate poverty under which they raised their children. They lived as a family unit, parents and five children, as one of several tenants in a yard on Grants Pen Road, not far from the offices of the Jamaica Observer. Shalette and her sisters and brothers grew up in the warmth of a neighbourhood where people cared for each other and looked out for each other’s children, but life was undeniably hard. On a typical school morning, ten-year-old Shalette would have to bathe under a standpipe in the yard because there was no running water in the house. The Ministry of Education school-feeding programme was a tremendous blessing because that is how the children got a nutritious lunch five days a week and some of the milk was surreptitiously stashed away to take home as well. At nights a kerosene lamp would light the table for homework even while the sound of the neighbours’ television sets and stereo systems wafted through the windows. The community was tight knit and safe until the general elections rolled around. In 1980 she remembers being very frightened, and she and her siblings would go under the bed to hide from the gunmen who ran through the yard at night. “We knew that we were poor”, she remembers, “but my mother would say, ‘education is important, that is the way to change our situation. All you have to do is to learn’”. Dignity was the hallmark in the Ashman home. Electricity wires crossed the sky over their house, but they did not take what they could not afford. Both parents worked hard to provide for the children. Mr Ashman washed cars five days a week at the Guinness plant and on weekends tilled the soil at his ‘grung’ in the Golden Spring hills. His wife worked as a domestic helper, and after sending the children off to the Grants Pen Pentecostal Church on a Sunday would deprive herself the pleasure of listening to a good sermon and toil beside him to raise the sugar cane, callaloo and fruits that they sold to make extra money. After her second attempt at Common Entrance, Shalette was the first of her mother’s children to be placed at a secondary school of her choice, making the family proud. She stood tall in the pair of borrowed shoes on her graduation day from Constant Spring Primary School. Shortly after starting high school, life got even harder for Shalette and her family because her mother lost her job and never again found fulltime employment. From an early age, the children learned that they too had to do their part to earn for the household. “In a way I actually preferred when my mother was not working because that meant she was at home and we could get dinner earlier. That experience taught us how to be self-reliant. On Saturdays we would walk and sell ginger beer in the Grants Pen Four Roads area and street market. The lady who owned our yard would buy charcoal from the truck and we sold it for her. There was a big zinc pan in the yard covered with zinc and people would come and buy a paint-pan of charcoal. On weekends we would sell sugar cane by the joint outside of ‘dances’ on Grants Pen Road. I was known for selling callaloo. I would walk with it in the box that chicken back comes in; sometimes I felt funny when I saw my classmates, but after that I felt good because they would buy from me and I used to enjoy what I was doing; I put life into it. I enjoyed making money. That is what turned me on – the fact that I had some money to take home.” It so happened that when she was 14 years old, a fortuitous situation enabled her mother to own a home in Stony Hill. Her parents were grateful to be able to provide a calmer environment for their family outside of the volatile community where Shalette and