2003 Paper Presentations

AN E-LEARNING CLASSROOM: THE STUDENT'S PERSPECTIVE

Louise Smith
Virtual Schooling Service, Access Education, Queensland, AUSTRALIA

Abstract

The paper focuses on the student's perspective of elearning in a hybrid course environment. It includes the rationale, development, every day practice and future directions of the Queensland Virtual Schooling Service. Teachers identified the types of student behaviours that lead to online success and provide opportunities for students to adopt these. Effective communication between interested parties is crucial in building support into the learning community and is critical to student learning outcomes. Teachers were faced with the challenge of incorporating courseware that suited their students with specific teaching and learning strategies into the elearning medium. Once they have honed their technological and independent learning skills, students enjoy learning in an interactive setting to share ideas and information and to work collaboratively to solve problems.

Rationale

Now in its fourth year of delivery, the Virtual Schooling Service (VSS) an initiative of Education Queensland (EQ) serves students based in Queensland state schools who otherwise would not be able to take certain subjects due to small class sizes or the unavailability of specialist teachers. In March 1999, the Education Queensland New Technologies Project reported on the "application of new technologies to enhance learning outcomes". The report recommended the development of online services and flexible curriculum delivery options required to maximise the educational benefits of EQ’s considerable investment in network infrastructure. In 2000, VSS commenced delivery and has continued expanding until the present.

Delivery

All the students log in to the EQ network from their schools for their lessons. Students have two 50 minute synchronous lessons a week. The rest of the time allocated to the subject is spent working on the web/paper based materials. Extra lessons and tutorials are added as needed. The synchronous environment at present is comprised of NetMeeting based on an Exchange server and a Genesys voice conference server. The voice and data connections are kept separate so that at least one works in the case of network failure or phone problems. The asynchronous environment was previously websites constructed by the VSS teachers. Due to an EQ decision to standardise all online training, learning materials are now available in a Blackboard environment which provides students with free access from state schools. Students have access from home through the network firewall.

Activity Types

VSS teaching materials are developed by experienced teachers in accordance with Queensland Studies Authority (QSA) subject relevant syllabus and Queensland School Curriculum Council (QSCC) P4 to 10 Japanese Syllabus. These materials are designed to meet the specific needs of the students. Most activities have been created using the Microsoft Office programs, as EQ has an agreement with Microsoft and the software is freely available to schools and teachers. With the continual delivery of lessons and materials, production time is limited with work being prepared 1-3 weeks ahead of time.

The Student's Perspective

Students become part of an elearning community and can learn during real time interactions with the benefit of off line consolidation.

• students may be shy at first online but with a supportive sympathetic teacher soon gain confidence
  
• then students learn to be more assertive and ask questions where they wouldn't normally in a larger face to face class
  
• in offline time students can phone direct or email to ask questions

Teachers identified the types of student behaviours that lead to online success and provide opportunities for students to adopt these.

• technology skills
  • emailing, using word documents, doing online quizzes, progressing from making word document and power point to real self constructed web pages
    
• independent learning skills
  • students who can access Blackboard at home and have moderate technology skills experience very positive learning and excel
    
• following directions
  • clear step by step directions for each task are given
  • students are encouraged to inform teacher of any anomalies they encounter

• problem solving skills- tasks that require analysis and synthesis
  
• organisational skills
  • students are provided with general overview information sheets for log on and term outlines
  • students are provided with information about skills for successful study
  • students are provided with a task sheet of weekly tasks, a simple explanation of attack and a due date
  • students are encouraged to record tasks completed and are sent a summary sheet of tasks successfully completed every few weeks
    
• creativity
  • students enjoy exploring and constructing new environments
  • using technology gives opportunities for extension and enrichment
  • self development is an important end result of successful online learning

Effective communication between interested parties is crucial in building support into the learning community and is critical to student learning outcomes.

• in the receiving school the student has a teacher who is the study coach or mentor to help with more immediate problems

• the better the relationship between them, the better the outcome for the student

• some schools have a single person who coordinates VSS across all subjects and a dedicated space and hardware which students have easy access to throughout the school day. This has been the best model to date

• students need to start the course positively; if technology problems are fixed quickly students tend to remain in the course and achieve

• outside synchronous lessons students experience a quick response rate through email from teachers over any questions they may have

• parents, especially in junior classes, enjoy the opportunity of joining a synchronous lesson to "meet" their child's teacher

Teachers have trailed various courseware to find those that suit the needs of their students. They were faced with the challenge of incorporating these with specific teaching and learning strategies into the elearning medium.

• producing their own videos for online use

• learning to incorporate multimedia into lessons

• finding and using appropriate existing websites

• creation and translation of mirror sites from all over the world

Students enjoy learning in an interactive setting to share ideas and information and to work collaboratively to solve problems.

• in synchronous and asynchronous lessons students can work with others from different towns and cities
  
• there is the opportunity to expand activity types to include Web quests, comic chat, key pals, epals and video conferencing

Meeting academic challenges facilitated through technology has given students a broader career scope and chances to make new friends both within their state and internationally, leading to a richer more global life experience.

• students can exchange ideas and learn about different lifestyles, promoting acceptance of demographic and cultural difference

• students post school options are enhanced, especially where international links have been made

• students are learning skills to become lifelong learners HOME

Where to Next?

There is a possibility of delivery of new Senior subjects. There are plans for a trial delivery of an EFL program "Hello Queensland" to two Japanese Senior High Schools. This will involve the first foray into voice over IP (VOIP). Although there are still issues which need to be addressed, there are many positive outcomes, the least of which is students and teachers have fun navigating these new cyber educational waters.

References

Brown, G. & Johnson-Shull, L. (2000) Teaching Online: Now We're Talking The Technology Source May/June http://horizon.unc.edu/TS/reading/2000-05.asp

Burnett, B. (2001) Online Delivery Versus Online Pedagogy (QUT lecturer paper)

Education Queens land Website Home Page www.education.qld.gov.au

Education Queens land (1999a) Application for New Technologies to Enhance Learning Outcomes for Students http://education.qld.gov.au/public_media/reports/1999/pdfs/newtech.pdf

Education Queens land (1999b) Towards a Networked Learning Community: Executive Summary of Education Queensland Directions in Learning Technologies

http://education.qld.gov.au/itt/committee/it-matters/pdfs/exsumfi21.pdf

Education Queensland (2000) Queensland State Education: 2010

www.education.qld.gov.au/corporate/qse2010/strategy.html

Elliott, B., Lundin, R. & Richardson, A. (2000) The Queensland Virtual Schooling Service; An Evaluation of the Pilot Project January - June 2000 Education Queensland

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http://www.ercim.org/publication/Ercim_News/enw33/mckendree.html

Moallem, M. (2002) The implications of research literature on learning styles for the design and development of a web-based course Paper delivered at International Conference on Computers in Education, Auckland, New Zealand, December, 2002. 'Conference Proceedings' (CD) A1 Computer Society, Auckland, New Zealand

Palloff, R. M., & Pratt, K. (1999) Building Learning Communities in Cyberspace.Jossey-Bass Publishers, USA.

Reushle, S. (2000) Critical Elements : Online Teaching and Learning Distance Education Centre, USQ

Rodenburg, D. (1999) Web Based Learning: Extending the Paradigm The Technology Source Nov/Dec http://horizon.unc.edu/TS/default.asp?show=article&id=621

Schmidt, K. (2002) Students' choice of leaning methods: seeking the best mix of face-to-face and e-interactions Paper delivered at International Conference on Computers in Education, Auckland, New Zealand, December, 2002. 'Conference Proceedings' (CD) A1 Computer Society, Auckland, New Zealand

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http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~btruman/dist-lr.html#int

 

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