More on e-learning
Distance less of a barrier
Use of the internet to deliver distance learning to school students continues to develop
Ultra-fast broadband would increase speed and capacity to schools’ internet connections and could increase the potential to personalise learning.
Trevor Storr, e-principal of the Aorakinet e-learning cluster in South Canterbury, says larger capacity may have greater impact on his schools. It would allow more students to take part in online courses at the same time. With broadband, all computers become video-conference units.
“Long term, what that means is your teachers and your kids don’t have to be in the same place and you can cater for larger numbers of that happening, which means a personalised curriculum.”
Canterbury University professor of e-learning Niki Davis says the numbers of students using some form of distance learning could increase fast. She saw it happen in the United States.
She used to work at Iowa State University and led development of distance learning programmes there, including the preparation of future teachers for this new mode of learning and teaching.
“There’s massive levels of virtual schooling going on in the USA and it only started taking off in 2002,” she says.
In New Zealand there are several clusters of schools that combine to offer distance learning options. They increasingly work together across the country – for example youth enterprise teams in Otago and the West Coast are supported by teachers in Northland.
Over 1500 school students are enrolled on courses or receive mentoring through the Virtual Learning Network, the name applied to the decentralised network of online classes in New Zealand that is supported by the Ministry of Education.
About 185 teachers run 250 courses through the VLN and they are actively sharing expertise on how to best design their offerings.
Trevor and Volcanics Cluster e-principal Conor Bolton ran a ULearn workshop on the design of effective online classes.
They emphasised the importance of pedagogy – how teaching takes place in online environments, rather than seeing virtual spaces as repositories of content.
Creating appropriate activities for students comes ahead of selecting resources in one model of course design they find useful.
Conor says nurturing relationships between the students (who may not be in the same place) as well as between student and teacher are important.
“If your students are motivated and engaged, surely then they will learn.”
The VLN: www.virtuallearning.school.nz
Children speak up: Tawa Intermediate School student Scott Wilson explains to conference attendees how he uses the school’s learning management system.
The system gives students and teachers new ways to communicate at this school, where technology can help students conduct inquiries and express themselves.
For example, Scott was one of five Tawa students who ran a ULearn workshop on the importance of listening to students. They surveyed fellow students on what helps them learn and created an online presentation of the results, which include that teachers talk too much, working on computers is enjoyable and having choices is important.
But children also like a balance – they may log on to the intranet to do some homework before moving on to the trampoline. And one of the most important classroom innovations is to simply learn to get along.
“If a child has a good relationship with the teacher, the child is happier, the teacher is happier and it makes everything easier,” says Scott.
Their project is online: http://kidspeak.wikispaces.com
Teachers share expertise: At ULearn, early childhood teacher Jagruti Shirsat helps another teacher learn to use multimedia storytelling software.
Jagruti works at Kids Domain Early Learning Centre at Auckland City Hospital. Staff researched how they could use ICT to express their identity and learn more about each other. Since then they have used the software with children and families – running special workshops for parents.
“It really has created a greater sense of community,” says manager Julianne Exton.
Many early childhood centres now teach children how to use digital photos, video, microphones, blogs and other software to tell their own learning stories.