EDGE 2010 – Papers Published on Web Site

Note that this showed up in my inbox yesterday from the EDGE 2010: e-Learning – The Horizon And Beyond… conference I attended recently.

Greetings,

The papers that were submitted for the EDGE 2010 conference have now been published on the web site at http://www.mun.ca/edge2010/?page_id=51.  Thanks to all for a very successful conference. It was a pleasure working with you.

Rene Wicks,

EDGE 2010 Conference Coordinator

I believe the only paper that was submitted to the proceedings focused on K-12 online learning was:

Johnson, Trudi - Perceptions of distance education in NL secondary schools

And having sat through most of her presentation, I would recommend the paper.

EDGE 2010 – Perceptions Of Distance Education In Newfoundland Secondary Schools: A Qualitative Study

The final session of the EDGE 2010: e-Learning – The Horizon And Beyond… conference that I’m blogging about is entitled Perceptions of distance education in NL secondary schools by Trudi Johnson (MUN). The session was described in the program as:

During the winter of 2009‐2010 a province‐wide survey was conducted to determine whether the implementation of new on‐line computer technology, aimed at promoting meaningful teacher‐student interaction, is contributing to the successful integration of distance education programs in rural schools. This presentation will disclose the results of that survey and draw conclusions on changing views towards distance education.

Trudi began with the survey participants, which included:

• 33 teachers of the 35 online courses
• 106 schools (106 principals)
• 1476 registrants (884 students

The survey themes included:

• positive attitude towards distance education (100% of teachers / ~90% of principals / ~70% of parents)
• distance education represents perceived diminished support for rural schooling (59% of teachers / ~57% of principals / ~70% of parents)
• distance education represents diminished role of teachers (0% of teachers / ~20% of principals / ~55% of parents)
• should there be more courses online (67% of students / ~14% of parents/ ~70% of teachers / ~0% of principals)

When asked how they would prefer to take their courses, the students indicated (note this is a sample of students already enrolled in one or more online classes):

• no preference – 5%
• distance – 49%
• face-to-face – 46%

• reasons for their preference for distance courses: tended to be more relaxed, ability to review and pace, feel they become more independent, not pressured by their peers

In response to an open-ended question about the characteristics of a successful online student, the consensus among students, parents, teachers and principals were:

• dedicated
• independent
• self-disciplined
• determined
• committed
• computer literate
• patient
• responsible

The consensus of the benefits of online learning included:

• teamwork skills
• better communication skills
• become more self-reliant and self-confident as learners (and even as people)
• preparing students for future studies (e.g., university-level coursework)by gaining time management skills, independent learning skills, technology skills, etc..
• greater access to courses that they would not otherwise have access to.

Interesting, the principals qualified their responses to most of these benefits by questioning whether the students may have already been the better students and possessed many of these soft skills

Further, 64% of students feel that they do not have as much interaction with their teachers as they would have in a face-to-face classroom.  In their written comments, it became clear that students missed the physical presence of the teacher.  Students, or at least, 55% of them felt that they worked harder in their distance courses than their face-to-face courses, while 80% reported they did much more independent work in their distance education courses.  Finally, almost 50% felt distance education courses were more difficult than their face-to-face courses, with only ~40% indicating their face-to-face courses were more difficult and ~10% stating there was no difference.

There were a lot more statistics that Trudi presented, and she read out many quotations from the written comments, that I wasn’t able to capture.  The afternoon session was condensed due to the lunch-time activities running late, so Trudi (and all of the other presenters were rushing through their slides).

Overall, the feelings towards distance education were mixed with almost all of the groups…  Many saw the benefits of being able to provide access to courses and the potential of the technology, but there is also an undercurrent of disappointment with the student-teacher interaction and a sense of loss of more and more services in rural Newfoundland and Labrador.

Note that one of the activities during the lunch-time was the Set’A'newey Performance Choir from Conne River;
who I had never seen before, but was very impressed by their performance.

EDGE 2010 – Bringing Second Languages To Life In The Virtual Classroom

The third session on this final day of the EDGE 2010: e-Learning – The Horizon And Beyond… conference that I’m blogging about is entitled Bringing second languages to life in the virtual classroom by Lisa Brown‐Peters, Glenn Cake, Valerie Pike and Colleen Wadman (CDLI, French Department). The session was described in the program as:

This presentation will describe the distance education model used by CDLI, with a focus on the features of the high school French core program. The presenters will showcase the highly interactive virtual classroom and demonstrate strategies used during synchronous and asynchronous class time.

The session began with some background and a brief history of the Centre for Distance Learning and Innovation (CDLI).  Essentially, the CDLI is the province-wide, supplemental virtual school in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador.  It is a division of the Department of Education.  This year there are 1718 enrollments in 40 courses (with 6 more available as independent study courses) from 1038 students attending 107 different schools schools. The CDLI is staffed by 57 people (I believe the figure was 34.5 teaching units – but I wasn’t able to see the print on the slide, so I can’t be sure).

The next presenter described the instructional model used within the French department of the CDLI.  In Newfoundland, school use a 14 day timetable with five one-hour classes each day.  Each of the seven courses meets for 10 period over that 14 day timetable.  French through the CDLI is generally taught in a synchronous manner, with asynchronous tools being available for support.  I believe the presenter indicated that usually that means eight or nine classes were synchronous, but the teachers would log into the virtual classroom during the one or two scheduled asynchronous classes as well.  The presenter than described some of the features within their virtual classroom (which was Elluminate) that they use in their French language instruction.

The asynchronous course content is housed in the CDLI‘s learning management system (i.e., Desire2Learn), which houses content for each of the lessons in the course (regardless if the topic was covered during a scheduled synchronous class or not).  In addition, all of the synchronous sessions are recorded and available to the students in the LMS.  This means that students have the opportunity to receive almost all of the content in both a synchronous or an asynchronous fashion – although as a second language the synchronous is more valued because of the verbal component.

It was at this point that I had to leave for a session that I wanted to attend in another room that was overlapping in the schedule.

I should note that the following session was going on at the same time (and I chose the French as a second language one):

Arts Education: Creativity and innovation at play!
Kathy Bennett, Andrew Mercer, Andrea Rose, Craig Goudie and John Deeley (CDLI and MUN)

Panel Discussion – The purpose is to explore new and emerging technologies in arts education. Specifically it will explore how selected new technologies are being integrated and utilized in the design and delivery of secondary level arts courses in NL.

Again, I was only able to stay in this session for the first 30 minutes of the 60 minute session.

EDGE 2010 – e‐Challenge In Today’s Schools: Educators’ Perspectives

The second session on this final day of the EDGE 2010: e-Learning – The Horizon And Beyond… conference that I’m blogging about is entitled e‐Challenge in today’s schools: Educators’ perspectives by Jerome Delaney (MUN). The session was described in the program as:

This presentation will report on the results of a study asking educators for their perceptions of what are the most serious e‐challenges they confront on a daily basis and how they should be handled in today’s schools.

This study, which is still in the very early stages, came about by comments that his undergraduate students/pre-service teachers in a course on “Effective Teaching” were making after their observation days.  So, Jermone e-mailed 30 former students (a convenient sample) a survey and 21 have responded thus far. The survey had three columns (and the participant was asked to add five items):

1. List a technological challenge
2. Why is this a challenge
3. Rank this challenge from 1 to 5

With the survey, challenges were defined as “concerns/stresses for teachers caused or brought about by electronic hand-held or online devices.”

The top five challenges

1. cell phones
2. computers and technology in general
3. ipods and mp3 devices
4. Facebook and social networking sites
5. smartboards

Recording some of the notes on the issues that focus more on K-12 online learning, some of the specific concerns raised about cell phones included:

• disruption to the learning environment (classroom and subsequent loss of instructional times)
• medium for cheating on tests
• medium for bullying
• privacy issues
• sexting
• students “texting” each other during class
• the addiction to cell phone
• two others I wasn’t able to get before the slide changed
  

It was interesting in that the things that teachers suggested to remedy the problem all related to curtailing students use of the cell phone (e.g., having them turn them off during class in the same way you’re asked to turn it off during a movie, cell phones being taken by administration when used during class time, etc.).  It was interesting that with six suggestions for what to do about cell phones, only one had a somewhat positive tone – teach students about privacy issues to essentially discourage them from recording things from inside of the classroom and posting them publicly (which still isn’t really a suggestion for instructional use).  This was similar to the findings related to Facebook and other social networking sites, where one of the teachers’ suggestions was simply to filter Facebook and make it inaccessible to students while in school.

Finally, some other challenges that were raised (but did not make the top five) were:

• PowerPoint (i.e., students being PowerPointed to death)
• video games
• cost of technology
• plagiarism
• e-mail (amount of and demand for immediate response)

 

EDGE 2010 – The Conne River Project: Muinji’j Becomes A Man

The first session on day three of the EDGE 2010: e-Learning – The Horizon And Beyond… conference that I’m blogging about is entitled The Conne River Project: Muinji’j becomes a man by Marlene Brooks and Shayne MacDonald (Distance Education Learning Technologies).

The session began with a description of the community in which the project took place – Conne River. For those not from Newfoundland, Conne River is a Micmac or Mi’kmaq community of about 800. The tribe in Conne River is the Miawpukek First Nations. The community had a long history on the south coast of Newfoundland, however, with many of the elders dying out and many of the younger adults not remaining in the community, much of the history and oral tradition that existed in the community was being lost.

The project that was designed to capture that history and communicate it to the youth of the community through using Second Life. The story that was chosen was Muinji’j Becomes a Man – a fictional story set in the 18590s, which was described on the hand-out as:

Muinji’j has been waiting all his life to make this trip with his grandfather – a trip to the city to sell rich otter, beaver and muskrat pelts and bring back supplies to the village. It’s a long expedition that tests Muinji’j’s reserves of strength, patience and maturity. Just as he thinks he and his naskamij have faced all of their challenges, the worst happens – his naskamij falls ill. Although Muinji’j gathers the medicine his grandfather asks for, it doesn’t help fast enough. Both of them realize that there is only one solution: Muinji’j must continue the journey alone. He must face the challenges and mysteries of a city he has never seen, and return to help his grandfather as well as his villiage that relies on him.

The story was loosely based on the personal history of the current chief of the Miawpukek First Nations.

The presenters than spent a considerable time discussing the various aspects of the website, which can be found at http://www.storiesofconneriver.com. The website itself can best be described as an open access course on the history of the Miawpukek First Nation and Conne River specifically, and the Mi’kmaq people in general.

Next the actual space in Second Life was demonstrated – which you can visit yourself by searching for Muinjij Island in Second Life. The island, like the story, is focused on the Mi’kmaq life in Conne River in the 1850s and is loosely designed around the themes and activities in the story Muinji’j Becomes a Man. The Second Life environment allows users to actually do many of the activities that Muinji’j undertook during the story, including dressing in period costume.

I have to be honest and say that Second Life is something I have played with a few times (like less than a dozen) and I haven’t really gotten it. I think that may be because I don’t really know how to interact and move about in the environment. But having watched these presenter demonstrate the environment that they have created to keep this history alive and the experiential manner in which that history is delivered, this is an environment I need to become more familiar with.