We are finding that this proposal continues to evolve as we experience new technologies and approaches to teaching and learning that we would like to include in our project. One of the major advantages we have is that our decisions are informed by the insights and experiences Rolland has gained as a result of his work on his current TLLP project. Instead of learning about the project planning process, we are able to focus on the project implementation and the resources we will need to employ to achieve our SMART goals.
There will be 2 significant changes to our project. Previously, my focus group for the blended learning model was to be junior students, but this will now change to include educators in our school board. Teachers that are interested in using blended learning in their classrooms will be invited to attend professional development sessions that will model the same method of delivery (i.e. they will experience blended learning from the perspective of a student - some face to face sessions and some online sessions). The main focus will be to use the same tools and approaches that they could incorporate into their own teaching. Their experiences as a student will help to inform their instructional practice. This is important because educators often lack the personal experience with the new methods and tools of delivery and therefore have a difficult time determining their value and how it would work in their classroom. The instruction in the blended learning course will follow a Collaborative Inquiry model as teachers reflect on their own teaching & learning to design blended learning activities for their own students.
Facilitating professional development for teachers is a passion of mine as I really enjoy the exchange of best practices that are shared between educators that have a variety of experiences. This type of interaction and model for professional development delivery is critical for the adoption of innovative teaching approaches as my rationale below explains.
The key question to address is how can we promote innovation in teaching? The important distinction for the context of our project is that ‘perceived as new’ is relative to the traditional educational practices of a school which consists largely of face to face classes. If blended learning delivery is adopted and used with the existing instructional paradigms, the effect on learning will be negligible and will therefore not represent an innovation in teaching. Ultimately, it is not the technology that matters, but how we design the learning through the technology (Miller). Advances in teaching may result when technology is used as an opportunity discover new ways for achieving learning outcomes. Blended learning can represent both a pedagogical innovation and a channel of communication capable of engaging the learner. Technology enables the instructor to create a different kind of curriculum and to establish a different relationship with the student. The virtual classroom provides a new environment for human interaction and allows the teacher to design learning which can be more student-centered and collaborative and focus on 21st century skills and literacies. Examining Blended Learning Models: Student To Teacher Interactions provides some great examples on how the role of the teacher in a blended learning environment could change.
According to Rogers, innovation is adopted by members within society at different times and at different rates. A steep learning curve is overcome quickly by early adopters who absorb the new skills and instructional paradigms quickly while late adopters acquire this knowledge over a longer time span. Information seems to flow easily from innovators to early adopters. The barrier for diffusion is identified by the gap that occurs between early adopters and early main-stream educators. The size of this gap can be attributed to the level of the inter-connectedness between schools in a school board. Often teachers have connections that do not extend beyond their department, division or school. This limits the reciprocal exchange of teaching methods and content. The number of nodes and connections between educators determines the complexity and richness of the network (Rueter).
Professional development is often seen as a key enabler of innovation in teaching as it may serve to link successful teaching initiatives and the broad expertise available throughout a school board. Such a network would facilitate the sharing of innovative teaching strategies and encourage the exchange of best practices in the development and delivery of blended learning and full eLearning courses. As Dr. Lieberman stated, 'teachers learn most from other teachers as they are real and have practical experiences you trust and can relate to.' This is why it would be important to include +Rolland Chidiac as a co-instructor in these sessions as he would continue to share his day-to-day experiences with blended learning and his primary students. These types of initiatives also help to raise the profile of innovative teaching practices, and foster communication and collaboration between teachers and programs.
The second significant change to our project is that we will be employing Acer chromebooks instead of the tablets we had initially selected. After rigorous testing we chose this system because it will enable our teachers to view the Flash-based learning activities in the Ministry's Learning Management System without additional configuration. The simplified yet powerful interface of the Chrome operating system will enable us to fully leverage the tools of the Google Apps for Education suite to empower the professional and personal learning networks of our teachers and students. My recent experiences with these tools has clearly demonstrated to me how effective they can be at extending our learning to include educators and students from around the world. In order to adopt these innovative approaches our teachers need to be exposed to these tools and strategies. An excellent study by +Ryan Bretag and his team provides clear and compelling evidence that we are making the correct decision. '100% of the Pilot teachers preferred the Chromebooks over Nexus tablets or reviewing other devices' and '65% of the Pilot students preferred the Chromebooks over the Nexus tablets (24%) or Reviewing Other Devices (11%)'. Another excellent case study by +Terry Korte revealed that, 'since moving to Google Apps, collaboration has flourished across the district. According to Korte, Google Apps is improving the way students learn and teachers teach. Today, students and teachers are blogging about novels, working out math problems using Google spreadsheets, sharing documents such as lab reports, research projects and surveys using Google Docs, creating sites with Google Sites that include links, pictures, videos and more - all using Google's tools. One teacher says that Google Apps has significantly decreased workloads and planning, because staff no longer need to create several different versions of material for different access methods.' Google's recent announcement of the Google Play for Education initiative will also make these devices easier for teachers and IT departments to administer (send out applications updates to their entire fleet of devices with one click and app purchases can be charged against an account that a school has on file).
My future posts will focus on the explanation for measuring the SMART goals for our TLLP project. We will be adapting the rating instruments and research methodology from a previous study I conducted on the A Study of the Design and Evaluation of a Learning Object and Implications for Content Development.
