Month: August 2019

“British Columbia has the largest and most diverse offering of Distance Learning Programs in Canada,” (“British Columbia Distance Learning Programs,” n.d.). “Since 1919, British Columbia has embraced open and distance learning to provide education opportunities across the vast province. British Columbia now has over 50 public and independent (i.e., private) schools offering distributed learning to almost 60,000 students in primary and secondary education” (Winkelmans, Anderson, & Barbour, 2010, p. 6). Although Distance Learning focuses on “using technology to overcome the barriers of geographical location” (Bacer, 2001), “distributed learning encompasses distance learning,” with an additional goal to “overcome the barriers of both location and time” (Bacer, 2001). I will be discussing both Distance and Distributed learning in this research post, therefore it is important that my audience knows the definition of each, in addition to being aware that these categories are often used interchangeably in the educational field. Before explaining the purpose of my research, I would like to mention that my initial plan for this research post was to critically examine the benefits and disadvantages of various online learning platforms for K-12 learners in British Columbia, based on research articles and reviews from the public. However, after many hours of searching, I have found that “Over the past fourteen years, there has been little federal funding for the development and research of K-12 online learning in Canada. This has largely been due to the fact that education is a provincial jurisdiction and there is no federal department with this responsibility in Canada” (Barbour & Stewart, 2008). Furthermore, there seems to be a finite amount of public review available that supports or expresses dissatisfaction towards any specific online K-12 educational platform in British Columbia. Due to this knowledge, I had then decided to search for and summarize specific Distance and Distributed learning platforms for K-12 learners, that are currently being used within the province. The purpose behind my research was to personally become aware of the various K-12 Distance or Distributed learning programs available for students in order to help guardians decided which program would best suit their child’s needs. The online programs that I have identified and summarized in this research post include SelfDesign, SIDES, and Heritage Christian Online School. The information that I have referenced was primarily derived from each school’s main webpage, as finding other sources was a difficult task. SelfDesign and SIDES were chosen due to their high enrollment rates. Heritage Christian School was selected on the basis of appealing to guardians who would like their child to practice their faith while learning.

   SelfDesign

SelfDesign’s primary webpage known as Selfdesign.org states that “The SelfDesign Learning Community is among the largest distance/distributed learning schools and personalized learning programs in British Columbia, Canada” (SelfDesign, 2018). SelfDesign is a Distributed Learning independent school for K-12 learners, that serves approximately 2,500 students (Ministry of Education 2015, p. 3). It is also mentioned in the document produced by the Ministry that the school is fully funded, therefore no-fees are required to be paid in order to enroll (p. 3). According to Selfdesign.org, the program allows students to pursue their own interests while also offering personalized guidance from educators during their study period (SelfDesign, 2018). Although the school aims to promote personalized learning, students are still required to take online programs that are approved by the Ministry of Education (SelfDesign, 2018). Because SelfDesign is a fully distributed school, it can be useful to mention the various types of online tools that teachers were using with their students during the 2014 and 2015 school year. Whether or not a parent or student has the knowledge or ability to access these online tools could be seen as a deterrent or an asset when deciding to enroll. These tools included “Skype, Go to Meetings, Zoom, Google Plus, telephone, face-to-face, and emails” (Ministry of Education 2015, p. 3). Selfdesign.org also states that teachers who work for SelfDesign are all BC-certified educators, and guardians get to select the educator they would like their child to be paired with by picking from a “diverse pool of candidates” (SelfDesign, 2018).

SIDES

SIDES is another online Distance Learning program that offers courses to K-12 learners in BC, in addition to offering courses to adult learners who have not yet graduated (SIDES, n.d). SIDES stands for South Island Distance Education School because it’s a member of School District 63, which is located on Vancouver Island (SIDES, n.d). Despite its location, as long as the learner is a resident of BC, the courses offered at SIDES are tuition-free (SIDES, n.d). “SIDES has over 3,500 students currently enrolled, from ages five to eighteen,” (Wikipedia, n.d). Approximately 20 percent of these students claim that they have taken most of their accredited courses through SIDES (Wikipedia, n.d). The program differs from SelfDesign because of its cohort style model, which requires students to interact regularly with their teacher and other classmates (SIDES, n.d). SIDES incorporates both a synchronous and asynchronous modality because students are required to attend weekly virtual classes in addition to completing coursework on their own time (SIDES, n.d). SIDES also expects students to submit coursework regularly in order for teachers to give summative feedback (SIDES, n.d). The K-9 courses offered at SIDES follows the same core competencies as the new BC Curriculum. These competencies include critical thinking, creative thinking, communication, positive personal and social identity, and social responsibly (SIDES, n.d).

Heritage Christian Online School

Heritage Christian Online School is another Distributed Learning school offered within the province of British Columbia. Similar to SelfDesign, the school aims to connect families with teachers in order to provide individualized support for their child (Heritage Christian Online School, n.d). Due to its status as a Christian school, Heritage only receives half of the amount of funding that a public school would receive (Heritage Christian Online School, n.d). The website also indicates that the school stands behind four fundamental values. These values include flexibility, relationships, integrity, and academic success. Teachers begin the school year by creating a Student Learning Plan (SLP) for the learner. SLPs must abide by the curricular competencies provided by the Ministry of Education (Heritage Christian Online School, n.d). Due to the importance of communication between a teacher and their student’s, staff at Heritage stay in contact with their students through email, phone calls, zoom, Facebook, and texting (Heritage Christian Online School, n.d). These teachers also keep in contact with families on a weekly basis, as the school believes that constant communication is critical when evaluating student progress (Heritage Christian Online School, n.d). In addition to offering a fully Distributed Learning program, Heritage also supports homeschoolers but has made it clear to parents that there is a distinct difference between their Distributed Learning program and the help that they provide to students who are participating in homeschooling (Heritage Christian Online School, n.d). Students can be registered with the school, but in order to be enrolled, student course work must be adhering to the Ministries standards (Heritage Christian Online School, n.d). Students who are enrolled in their Distributed Learning program must also participate in FSA assessments, as well as be evaluated by a certified teacher (Heritage Christian Online School, n.d). Students in the DL program receive several luxuries that a student who is homeschooled may not. These benefits include having the ability to receive funding from the Ministry of Education, as well as being eligible to receive a Dogwood Graduation Certificate (Heritage Christian Online School, n.d).

Conclusions and Recommendations

In conclusion, all three of these online schools have distinct attributes amongst each other, as well as similar ones. For example, SelfDesign and SIDES are both fully funded by the Ministry of Education, whereas the students enrolled at Heritage Christian Online School have the potential to receive funding, but the school only receives half of the funding that SelfDesign and SIDES receive. Although SelfDesign and Heritage take a more individualistic learning approach by pairing up their students with one selected teacher, SIDES requires students to be placed in cohorts where they must interact with a teacher and other students. In terms of similarities, all students enrolled in these schools must be doing coursework that follows the BC Ministries curricular competencies. Provided that there are limited research and reviews available online that have information about these schools that is readily available, I hope that these summaries offer some insight into the values and protocols of each school. At this time, I am providing no recommendations in regards to which school a student would derive the most benefit from due to my belief that each student would have a different success rate at each discussed school depending on their personal experience. However, I hope that this research post can provide parents with more information about various online options that are available for their child in British Columbia. Hopefully, this information can then serve to support their decision when they decide to enroll their child into their school of choice.

Pod Partner Significance and Final Thoughts

As a final statement, I would like to mention the importance of my pod partner. She reminded me that it is okay to keep my topic relevant to my practice. My topic of choice came with limited online resources and scholarly articles available to me, but regardless of this drawback, it was important for me to have an in-depth understanding of the online courses offered in my district before moving into a more complicated topic about online learning. This research likely would not have been as meaningful for me if I chose to do a different topic that was less relevant in order to meet every requirement of a typical research post.

 

References

Bacer, K. (2001). EDUC 515 –Emerging Trends. Retrieved from: https://home.apu.edu/~kbacer/515/dlearning.html

Barbour, Michael & Stewart, Robin. (2008). A Snapshot State of the Nation Study: K-12 Online Learning in Canada. North American Council for Online Learning.

British Columbia Distance Learning Programs. Retrieved from https://homeschoolcanada.ca/distance-learning-programs/british-columbia/

Ministry of Education. Knowledge Management and Accountability Division. (2015). 2014/15 Distributed Learning Enrolment Audit Report SelfDesign Learning Community. British Columbia.

SelfDesign. (2018). Retrieved from: https://selfdesign.org/

SIDES. (n.d). Retrieved from: https://www.sides.ca/en.html

South Island Distance Education School. (n.d) in Wikipedia. Retrieved from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Island_Distance_Education_School

Vancity. SelfDesign Learning Foundation offers children an alternative way to learn. Retrieved from: https://www.vancity.com/AboutVancity/InvestingInCommunities/StoriesOfImpact/Social/SelfDesign/

Winkelmans, Tim & Anderson, Barry & Barbour, Michael. (2010). Distributed Learning in British Columbia: A Journey from Correspondence to Online Delivery. Journal of Open. 14. 6-28.

 

 

 

My Pod Partner had a lot of insightful ideas and suggestions to give me in order to improve help me improve my research post. The most important one was adding in my citations. I was already aware of this but hadn’t completed it yet because I usually leave that as the final step for my research post. Another thing my partner mentioned was to add headings to my paragraphs as it would make each paragraph stand out more. After she mentioned that I did it right away because it does make each paragraph stand out, but it was also something in Colins suggested criteria that I missed. She also mentioned getting rid of some of the unneeded information in my initial paragraph. I completely agreed that getting rid of it would make my research post more concise and to the point, but I decided to keep it because it was important to me that my audience knew why I choose to switch my focus and to inform them on how little research is being done in the area of online learning for K-12 students. The K-12 system is already so grossly underfunded that I felt as though I couldn’t leave that part out.

To-do List

-Add in proper citations or missed citations + add in an explanation about Heritage funding + spelling and grammar check +Add in a picture??

“British Columbia has the largest and most diverse offering of Distance Learning Programs in Canada,” (Homeschool Canada 2019) allowing all school boards to offer distributed learning to their students (P.3) (Digital Learning Content Standards: Draft Document). Although distance learning focuses on “using technology to overcome the barriers of geographical location,” (Bacer, 2001) “distributed learning encompasses distance learning,” with an additional goal to “overcome the barriers of both location and time” (Bacer, 2001). I will be discussing both distance and distributed learning in this research post, therefore it is important that my audience knows the definition of each, in addition to being aware that these categories are often used interchangeably in the educational field. Before explaining the purpose of my research, I would like to mention that my initial plan for this research post was to critically examine various online learning platforms for K-12 learners in British Columbia based on research articles and reviews from the public. However, after many hours of searching, I have found that “with limited government, foundation, and private support for education research, K-12 online learning programs have not received financial support for research and evaluation” (Research Gate). Additionally, public reviews of any specific online education platform in British Columbia are scarce. Due to this knowledge, I will instead be identifying and summarizing specific distance and distributed learning platforms for K-12 learners, that are currently being used within British Columbia. The purpose of this research post is to help those who are looking to enroll their child in a K-12 distance or distributed learning program in BC, to be aware of the various online learning options that are available for their child. The programs that I will be identifying and summarizing include a SelfDesign, Sides, and Heritage Christion Online School.

“The SelfDesign Learning Community is among the largest distance/distributed learning schools and personalized learning programs in British Columbia, Canada” (selfdesign.org). SelfDesign is a Distributed Learning Independent school for K-12 students. The school only offers distributed learning and serves approximately 2,500 students (gov.bc.ca). SelfDesign is currently “fully funded by the Ministry of Education,” therefore no-fees are required to be paid in order to enroll (gov.bc.ca). According to the programs main webpage, selfdesign.org, the program allows students to pursue their own interests while also offering personalized guidance from educators during their study period. Although the school aims to promote personalized learning, students are still required to take online programs that are approved by the Ministry of Education (Vancity). Because SelfDesign is a fully distributed school, I thought it would be useful to mention the various types of online platforms that teachers were using to keep in contact with their students in the 2014 and 2015 school year. These platforms include “Skype, Go to Meetings, Zoom, Google Plus, telephone, face-to-face, and emails” (gov.bc.ca). Teachers who work for SelfDesign are all BC-certified educators, and parents get to select the educator they would like their child to be paired with by picking from a “diverse pool of candidates.” (selfdesign.org)

SIDES is another online distance learning program that offers courses to K-12 learners in BC, in addition to offering courses to adult learners who have not yet graduated (Sides Webpage). SIDES stands for South Island Distance Education School because it originates on Vancouver Island. Despite its origin, as long as the learner is a resident of BC, the courses offered at SIDES are tuition-free. “SIDES has over 3,500 students currently enrolled, from ages five to eighteen,” (Wikipedia), with approximately 20 percent claiming that they have taken most of their accredited courses through SIDES (Wikipedia). SIDES differs from SelfDesign because of its cohort style model, which requires students to interact regularly with their teacher and other classmates (Sides Webpage). SIDES incorporates both a synchronous and asynchronous modality because students attend weekly virtual classes in addition to completing coursework on their own time (Sides Webpage). SIDES also expects students to submit coursework regularly in order for teachers to give summative feedback (Sides Webpage). The K-9 courses offered at SIDES follows the same core competencies as the new BC Curriculum. These competencies include critical thinking, creative thinking, communication, positive personal and social identity, and social responsibly (Sides Webpage).

Heritage Christian Online School is another distributed learning school offered within the province of British Columbia. Similar to SelfDesign, the school aims to connect families with teachers in order to provide individualized support for their child. The school’s values include flexibility, relationships, integrity, and academic success. Teachers begin the school year by creating a Student Learning Plan (SLP) for the learner. SLPs must abide by the curricular competencies provided by the Ministry of Education. Furthermore, communication is a vital aspect of online teaching, therefore, staff and Heritage stay in contact with their students through email, phone calls, zoom, Facebook, and texting. These teachers also keep in contact with families on a weekly basis, as the school believes that constant communication is critical when evaluating student progress. In addition to offering a fully distributed learning program, Heritage also supports homeschoolers but has made it clear to parents that there is a distinct difference between their DL program and the help they provide to students who are participating in homeschooling. Students can be registered with the school, but in order to be enrolled, student course work must be adhering to the Ministries standards. Students who are enrolled in DL must also participate in FSA assessments, as well as be evaluated by a certified teacher. Students in the DL program receive several luxuries that a student who is homeschool may not. These benefits include being eligible to receive funding from the Ministry of Education, as well as being eligible to receive a Dogwood Graduation Certificate. (need to talk about funding)

In conclusion, all three of these online schools have distinct attributes amongst each other, as well as similar ones. For example, SelfDesign and SIDES are both fully funded programs, whereas the students enrolled at Heritage Christian Online School have the potential to receive funding, but it is not always granted. Although SelfDesign and Heritage take a more individualistic approach to teach by pairing up their students with one selected teacher, SIDES requires students to be placed in cohorts where they must interact with a teacher and other students. In terms of similarities, all students enrolled in these schools must be doing coursework that follows the BC Ministries curricular competencies. Provided that there are limited research and reviews available online that have information about these schools that is readily available, I hope that these summaries offer some insight into the values and protocols of each school. It is important to me that parents are aware of their options when deciding what type of education program, they would like their child to enroll in.

 

 

 

 

 

Within this post, I will be discussing what I have learned in regards to the 5R freedoms in open education, how teachers are currently moving towards more open educational practices, and the importance of technology in order to make these practices possible. Bronwyn Hegarty’s article states that “If the platform […..] somehow prevents users from exercising their 5R freedoms, then it is difficult to consider the material to be truly open.” From what I have learned, the 5R freedoms give any public user the “ability to retain, reuse, revise, remix, and redistribute online material”. With this knowledge at hand, I find myself contemplating how far an educator is willing to proceed with open education, depending on the context of the educational setting. As an individual who teaches elementary school children, I see the attributes of open pedagogy being used almost every day by elementary school teachers. The attributes that I have found to be most prevalent in this context include, but are not limited to, sharing ideas and resources, being open, innovative, and reflective. Despite the continuous use of these attributes, I can say for certain that most educators would not be adhering to a truly open platform within the context of a classroom setting. The platform would likely be seen as a danger to children due to public presence, and the ability for users to have access to and edit the information that children also have access to. However, I am curious as to whether or not an elementary school educator has ever used a completely open platform to teach their students, and if it was successful. One educational context where the 5R freedoms are being enacted is when teachers are learning from each other. For example, elementary educators are using online platforms such as teachers-pay-teachers to provide online educational resources for other educators to use for free. These free resources can be ‘reused, revised, remixed, and redistributed’.

Although I have only seen teachers truly using an open education platform in a teacher-to-teacher related context, there are some re-occurring themes within Bronwyn’s article that are directly related to what teachers are facilitating within their classrooms in order to move towards open education. These themes included the importance of collaboration, communication, community, and the willingness to share ideas. All of these themes seem to play a tremendous role in creating a space where open education can work effectively. I think that as an individual who has experience working with elementary school teachers and students, I would argue that elementary school teachers are becoming more aware of the importance of incorporating all of these themes into their classroom. Personalized learning and inquiry have recently become the new hot topic in elementary education, and both require a significant amount of collaboration, communication, community, and a willingness to share ideas in order to be successful in a classroom setting. Although it is clear to me that we are moving towards using more open educational practices at the elementary level, I would like to know how we could create a space where open education would be even more feasible in this setting. The current drawbacks to incorporating more open educational practices would include but are not limited to, teachers not having the time available to collaborate with other educators, in addition to feeling as though they need to “do it all” themselves in order to save face.

Bronwyn Hegarty’s article also discusses the importance of participating in the technological world in order to enhance the learning experience for students. Such participation can allow for more peer-to-peer mentoring during a task, as well as helping students to build on their collaboration skills. Roy, from our EDD 339 course, made a good point when he argued that “the educational system should branch out into other forms of materials, such as digital media, online discussions, and interactive media platforms”. Due to the fact that I have just completed a digital literacy course, I see the value in incorporating a variety of technological formats into a course because it can cater to different learning styles, in addition to giving educators more opportunities to differentiate their instruction. After doing the readings and learning some new information about open education, I would like to know if elementary school teachers are aware of what open-education means and if they are currently making informed steps towards using it as a platform.

Article Link:

https://www-jstor-org.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/stable/44430383?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents

 

Picture Link:

https://pitt.libguides.com/openeducation

In the article by Bronwyn Hegarty, a definition was included to describe how “Open Educational Practices constitute the range of practices around creation, use, and management of open educational resources with the intent to improve quality and innovate education (p. 4). I also noticed certain themes continued to arise in regards to open education. These themes included the importance of collaboration, communication, community, and the willingness to share ideas. All of these themes seem to play a tremendous role in creating a space where open education can work effectively. I think that as an individual who has experience working with elementary school teachers and students, I would argue that elementary school teachers are becoming more aware of the importance of incorporating all of these themes into their classroom. Personalized learning and inquiry have recently become the new hot topic in elementary education, and both require a tremendous amount of collaboration, communication, community, and a willingness to share ideas in order to be successful in a classroom setting. Although it is clear to me that we are moving towards using more open educational practices at the elementary level, I would like to know how we could create a space where open education was even more feasible in this setting. The current drawbacks to incorporating open educational practices would include but are not limited to, teachers not having the time available to collaborate with other educators, in addition to feeling as though they need to “do it all themselves.

Another theme that I mentioned earlier in this post was the willingness to share ideas. The article states that “Resources need to be freely accessed and shared so that they can be reused, revised, remixed, and redistributed (p.5). In my experience, elementary educators are willing to provide resources to other educators for free, but I’m curious about the educators that are teaching in a high school or post-secondary institution. What is their opinion in regards to open educational practices? Are they willing to share their resources for free?

 

Picture Link:

https://www.google.com/search?q=picture+of+students+collaboration&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=GC1lzoId7JASbM%253A%252C6MGqdgNwLHxsuM%252C_&vet=1&usg=AI4_-kTW86ZqGJz1t1-RFc6_O5bjIUkg7w&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjczbbg_O7jAhXhIDQIHfHRDR8Q9QEwAnoECAYQDA#imgrc=B57Stuxoww77TM:&vet=1

Article Link:

https://www-jstor-org.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/stable/44430383?seq=6#metadata_info_tab_contents

 

Blog Post 3

I think that using social media to connect a community of learners can be useful, but I do not think it can currently compare to the benefits of face-to-face communication. In my opinion, social media cannot create an environment where an individual can truly feel satisfied with the amount of social interaction they are receiving through an online course. My biased opinion is partly based on my belief that mirroring the emotions of others provides more empathy within an interaction. I also believe that more empathy will usually create an overall stronger emotional reaction for both parties. Therefore, if a positive emotional reaction is stronger, then the bond between two people will be greater. If you cannot see someone’s face and body language, it is much harder to mirror that emotion.

I do think it can be useful for a learner to interact with other classmates through websites such as slack and hypothesis in order to share information and ideas about the course work, but I think that a learner needs a support system outside of the online world in order to stay away from feeling socially isolated when taking full-time online studies. If online courses want to provide community and connectedness, I think they need to provide learners with a reasonable amount of time to make connections with people outside of the online world. Another solution to defeating social isolation would be to require online learners, in the same course, to meet in person to discuss and/or work on assignments. That solution, however, is creating a situation where an online course is no longer asynchronous. However, due to the fact that many students are currently taking online courses because they are asynchronous, this may cause a lower enrollment rate in online courses. I may not have a sound solution to this problem and also carry a very strong personal bias against using social media to minimize social isolation, but I am always open to learning more about the topic and being corrected if the research is out there that provides a different perspective.

It is rather startling how little some educators know about internet privacy. Morris and Stommel (2018) address their concerns in regards to a plagiarism detection software called Turnitin, suggesting that the software is stealing information from students within universities. They claim that Turnitin preys on educational institutions that are not critically thinking about the software they are using within their facilities. I am personally not surprised by this claim considering that many educators that I know have not had any training in the area of internet privacy. As an educator who has just completed a four-year degree in elementary education this past April, I too have had no training in this area. In my opinion, this means that our knowledge is limited, therefore our student’s privacy will continue to be violated until we have the proper knowledge in regards to how to store information safely on the internet. Luckily enough, this course is already helping me to become more knowledgeable in the area of protecting our privacy on the internet. The very fact that a course such as this is offered as an accredited course for my program means that we are moving towards becoming more aware of our internet privacy.

As an individual who loves a good TedTalk, I found the video “Tracking Our Online Trackers” by Gary Kovacs, to be intriguing in terms of how it can help viewers to visualize behavioral tracking by using a software called Collusion. After watching the video, I felt a sense of helplessness in terms of having the ability to keep any of my browsing information private, seeing as though the websites that I am not even navigating to have the ability to track my information. I already knew this was possible but wasn’t aware of how many websites were doing this. Despite this feeling of helplessness, it did remind me of the importance of teaching my students about confirmation bias from a very young age. It is very easy to be trapped inside your own perspective when companies who are tracking your browser activity are usually doing so in order to market to you. Companies tend to keep feeding people similar advertisements based on their current preferences in order to get people to purchase more of their products. Not only is this dangerous for adults, but I would argue it is even more dangerous for children because they are just at the beginning of learning what their perspectives and preferences are. I worry that this will lead to a close-minded outlook on the world in addition to being less tolerant of people who don’t share similar perspectives. With that being said, it is us to help students become aware of confirmation bias.

 

References

Morris, S. M., & Stommel, J. (2018). An urgency of teachers: The work of critical digital pedagogy. United States: Hybrid Pedagogy.