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Aligning the Affordances of 21stCentury Technology with 21stCentury Pedagogy:
A vision for the future of e-Learning in Ontario
Introduction
Technology in general has an important role to play in the Ministry of Educationsgoal to reach every student. With the admirable goal of ensuring that teachers and
administrators can employ technology to improve student achievement, close the
gap and improve public confidence in publicly funded education, skillful and
innovative use of technology is more important than ever. In particular, e-Learning
and blended learning currently play an central role in supporting student success in
Ontario, and that role will continue to grow given the Ministrys goal to make
blended learning available for all Ontario students from kindergarten to grade 12. i
The growth of technology provides todays young people with learning
opportunities that just fifteen years ago would have seemed hard to imagine. The
Internet is no longer a place where individuals go to retrieve information, but tocreate multimedia and publish to a world-wide audience. Todays youth aremembers of what American media scholar Henry Jenkins calls participatory culture,
a culture with low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement, strong
support for creating and sharing ones creations, and some type of informal
mentorship whereby what is known by the most experienced is passed along to
novices.iiWhile access to technology, to varying degrees, is ubiquitous in todays
schools, access to, and use of technology alone are not enough to achieve the
Ministrysgoals. We need to align the affordances of 21stcentury technology with
21stcentury pedagogy.
Current State of E-Learning in Ontario
Current growth strategies for e-Learning and blended learning in Ontario include
encouraging teachers to integrate blended learning into their teaching more often
and providing sustained support for teachers through a variety of local and system
supports while helping administrators see the connections to other Ministry
initiatives. E-Learning and blended learning offer students and teachers more
choice. Teachers have another tool at their disposal differentiate by content,
process, and product. As stated in the OPSBAs A Vision for Teaching and Learning
in the Digital Age e-Learning and blended learning support self-directed and self-paced learning as students take full advantage of anytime, anywhere learning that
can happen beyond the walls of the school. iii
Untapped Potential
The provincial learning management system has a wealth of potential. The
ePortfolio tool, for example, allows students to showcase and reflect
metacognitively on learning artifacts theyve created throughout a course,
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demonstrating their growth over time. This is a powerful tool that many teachers
are just now becoming familiar with.
On the other hand, the provincial LMS still functions primarily as a content delivery
tool rather than a digital learning environment where students create as well as
consume rich multimedia material, which is not reflective of the web 2.0 world theyparticipate in every day. The content in the LMS is very text-heavy, relying primarily
on reading and writing which is not as inclusive as it could be, both in terms of
supporting students with disabilities but also in terms of supporting a variety of
learning styles.
Richard Mayers 2008 paper Applying the science of learning: Evidence-based
principles for the design of multimedia instruction applies cognitive science tomultimedia learning. Among several instructional design principles he discusses are
the coherence principle and the modality principle.ivThe coherence principle states
that good instructional design includes words and pictures, but reduces the amount
of decorative and representative graphics, thus reducing the cognitive load placedon the brain. Visuals that exist within the LMS are primarily there as decoration.
While the intent is to make the material more engaging, the end result may actually
be detrimental to student learning. The modality principle states that people learn
better from words and pictures when words are spoken rather than printed, as this
reduces demands on visual processing. If we truly want students to be authentically
engaged, we need to provide them with material that respects the way they learn.
Seeing the Possibilities
We need to take advantage of the affordances of the provincial LMS to authentically
engage students. This will require aligning multimedia rich content with pedagogycentered around scaffolded instruction and 21stcentury skills such as critical
thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity. This will happen through a
two-pronged approach.
First, we must rework the existing content in the LMS and OERB to reflect principles
of multimedia learning and effective instructional design. While acknowledging the
fact that some students have limited access to high-speed internet, we can still use
multimedia to provide more choice to our students in terms of how they engage
with and create content. This is not only more engaging for students but helps
provide more inclusivity by respecting different learning styles and ability levels.
This would also include revising the rubrics using student-friendly language tomake learning goals and success criteria clearer for students.Second, we must rework instructional approaches to include a gradual release of
responsibility framework of instructional strategies that take advantage of a full
range of online learning tools. Screen-capture software and document cameras
make it easier than ever for teachers to model learning for their students. While
collaboration does happen to a certain extent, we need to make it easier for students
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in the e-Learning environment to learn from and with their peers. Discussion
forums do not adequately reflect the organic nature of small group discussions that
happen in face-to-face classrooms. Yet the technology exists to make these face-to-
face discussions possible.
How will this vision be implemented?
Luckily we already have a wealth of innovative e-Learning and blended learning
teachers in Ontario who are finding ways to authentically engage students in
exciting ways. We need to draw on the knowledge of e-Learning contacts and
district e-Learning Coordinators to identify these teachers and bring them together
to discuss challenges and best-practices in e-Learning. Then we survey teachers to
find out how to make the LMS content more engaging. Next, we establish a set of
norms for content design based on the principles of multimedia learning that are
easy for teachers to implement.
At the same time, we need to enlist teacher support to revise the LMS content tobetter reflect the gradual release of responsibility, incorporation of learning goals
and success criteria in student-friendly language, and instructional strategies that
foster critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity.
In order to maximize results, it would be wise to begin by revising courses that have
the highest attrition rates. Once we compare current attrition rates to attrition rates
after the revisions have been implemented, we can measure how these revisions
support the ministrys goal of reaching every student, and can apply what weve
learned to the remaining content in the LMS, starting with the most popular courses
in e-Learning and blended learning.
Finally, in addition to revising content, we must develop training for teachers of e-
Learning and blended learning, recognizing that we cannot simply apply traditional
methods of teaching and learning to the digital environment and expect our
students and teachers to be successful. Here too, we can draw on the expertise of
our e-Learning and blended teachers to help develop teaching and assessment
strategies that e-Learning contacts, and coordinators can use to support the
teachers within their own boards.
iOntario Ministry of Education. (2012, Sept 14). Blended learning. Retrieved fromhttp://www.edu.gov.on.ca/elearning/blend.html
iiJenkins, H. (2009). Confronting the challenges of participatory culture: Media
education for the 21st century. The MIT Press.
iiiOPSBA. (2013).A vision for teaching and learning in a digital age. Retrieved from
http://www.opsba.org/files/OPSBA_AVisionForLearning.pdf
http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/elearning/blend.htmlhttp://www.edu.gov.on.ca/elearning/blend.htmlhttp://www.edu.gov.on.ca/elearning/blend.html -
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ivMayer, R. E. (2008). Applying the science of learning: Evidence-based principles
for the design of multimedia instruction.American Psychologist, 63(8), 760-769.
doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.63.8.760