Virtual Schooling is taking off in many places all over the world - and in a number of different guises, but the basic issues and drivers are very similar
In New Zealand we've seen the development of clusters of schools sharing staffing and resources to provide students with access to the range of curriculum areas that they desire, using video conferencing. I've been involved with the development of such clusters since 1994 in the days when we used audio-graphics conferencing.
More recently I've had an involvement with the development of the Virtual Learning Network, an online brokerage service that is designed to help schools link with each other to provide courses and support for students.
The virtual learning network provides a powerful solution to many of the challenges and concerns facing secondary schools today… BUT, some of the questions below still linger…
- Is what we are doing truly learner-centric?
- Are we simply replicating the practices of the f2f classroom?
- How can we get policy change to provide the flexibility we require?
- Is our view of the technology future-proofed?
- Where is the evidence that what we are doing is supporting the claims we are making?
Issues to be addressed before the use of distance/eLearning methodologies can become truly systemic in NZ include:
Policy issues- How can student funding be shared between schools?
- How can staffing, including management units, be shared among schools
- What evidence needs to be gathered to demonstrate the worth of this?
Technology issues- Connectivity and interoperability – who sets the standards?
- Networks – VPNs or MUSH etc
- Bridging – what is required? What technologies must be supported?
- Scheduling – enable direct access and school level control?
Curriculum issues- assessment – developing consistency in approach
- reporting – enabling a unified student report from several ‘schools’ etc
- modularisation – a different view of ‘course’
- RPL – includes recognising the value of informal learning
Staffing issues- Creating more flexibility in recognising teacher roles: e-teachers, m-teachers, c-teachers,
- How to involve those with real subject expertise as mentors, hotseats etc
Pedagogical issues- “personalisation” – what does it mean? How do we make it happen?
- staff training – how to train a large group of the teaching force in these new approaches?
Leadership and coordination issues- where does the leadership come from?
- What form should leadership take?
- What coordination is required nationally, locally etc?
Learning Resource issues- How best to provide resources for learning to support teachers in this environment
- learning objects, repositories, search tools – who provides them, who manages them etc?
- how to cater for user-generated resources?
- Copyright and IP issues – how are these to be managed?
Quality issues- What is best practice?
- What are quality indicators?
This community is designed to engage practitioners and policy makers in discussing some of these issues and sharing experiences and solutions!
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