I Have This Dream…                         

Where each child in my classroom is an achiever, is happy and eager to learn and confident in his/her ability to succeed.

In this dream, in spite of the extremes of abilities and learning styles they present, as their teacher, I am able to facilitate each student’s engagement in meaningful learning activities, 100% of the time.

Teaching individuals – rather than subjects

In my dream, my twenty Students have continuous access to over a dozen computers and each child confidently logs on to a personal account on the school’s intranet, then instantly has access to a fast, stable internet connection that allows access to a variety of learning experiences suited to each learning style and ability level.

Children participate in units that are individually tailored to interests, learning styles and abilities of each child, but are still part of the general classroom theme and core content of the moment. In this dream, data is collected from on-line surveys of the students I have in my classroom. From this, I glean for each child special interests and specific learning styles and ability levels. This is then matched via a computer database to the relative on-line unit activity for the child. This way, each child has a personalized learning program that is coordinated, supported and facilitated by the classroom teacher. Each unit we cover has components available on-line. Students can work in pairs at the computer with this system, each one being logged on at the same time, switching at will from one screen to the other, supporting each other in their learning, and learning from each other. As teacher, I am charged with the task of pairing up students for maximum productivity.

Teachers get the support they need

My school has supported the development of these programs through adequate funding from the Education Authority. Resources are sourced, adapted, developed and installed with myself as teacher in conjunction with Learning Support staff making the decisions about content and delivery.

 A Learning Engineer on staff guides and supports us, co-coordinating the whole staff approach to this venture. As the E-learning expert in the school, he keeps abreast of current developments and new initiatives and these are sourced and distributed to staff as they become available so that the unit content is continually being upgraded and kept current.  Our units become part of a forever-expanding bank of resources available to other teachers all over the country (and world) who in turn adapt and use them in their own contexts. A Curriculum Exchange is the server of a world wide web of learning modules that are to the students as engaging as Pokemon once was.

The School of Distance Education becomes as real a school as any in suburbia and not much different, as all students, no matter how remote, become part of vibrant on-line communities.

Children who are presently Home Schooled are making links with us, tapping into our programs and becoming part of our on-line community.

School Meets the Needs of Students

Sarah is absent for a prolonged period with a broken leg. She logged on to the unit from hospital and now continues her schoolwork with access from home. She chats via videophone with us and submits work and receives feedback on-line.

Joseph and Will love photography and participate in chat and discussion forums with students on the other side of the country who share their passion and are active participants in their on-line community, sharing and discussing photos with them.

Even when I, their teacher had to take leave to attend a conference, my students had a clear understanding of what work to do and were able to access my help via email as needed.

Jeremy and James were able to set up a video-message contact through Jeremy’s Dad with an expert in Geology. Everyone in the class found that one interesting, as we were able to project the live video chat on a big screen.

Janelle, our lone gifted child no longer feels isolated or without challenge as she works collaboratively on-line with several gifted students from other places (including other countries).

Peter is dyslectic and loves movies. He learns through audiovisual material as well as participating in comic chat sessions and illustrated discussion forums that strengthen his literacy. He is creating an amazing video with a digital camcorder, editing the footage on computer in collaboration with Janelle, who, besides being gifted, is a very talented musician, developing the music - again on computer.

Sam and Ben, both diagnosed with ADHD, are kept busy with a variety of small rich tasks that are challenging, but can be completed in a very short space of time – each task geared to the child’s level and interest.

Fiona and Gerard, as LD5 and LD6, have reading ages well below their peers so a lot of their independent instruction is audiovisual. They really respond to this and love the learning games on our content at their level of understanding.  The MOO rooms we have set up at the Ed. QLD Learning Place QMOOnity allow them to get “help” from the fun robots there as they work through their activities. Their modified programs include comic chat sessions and discussion forums where they can take their time to type and revise appropriate responses.

When Ashley was suspended from school for two weeks following a serious incident in the playground, his education was not seriously interrupted, as he was able to login to his work from home and still communicate with me via email. Keeping alive this connection was important not only for Ashley’s academic progress but more importantly for his self esteem. During his suspension, his access to the class discussion forums and chat was temporarily blocked.

Autistic Joel loves computers. It is wonderful to see his confidence in this medium spur him on to great heights. He still gets a bit confused with the appropriate use of emoticons, but is improving.

Not all work involves the computer. The blended learning approach is found to suit most students, with the tactile learner still able to “get down and dirty” with scissors and glue, paint and clay, rulers and pencils. We even do some “chalk and talk”, but unlike the olden days, this is more a novelty than the norm. When we conduct whole group discussions with only one person speaking at a time, everyone is so connected that each individual wants to have a say. To allow for this, we often continue the thread in our Discussion Forum.

E-Learning Works

A Learning Management System (LMS) that co-ordinates all of this and allows me as teacher to keep track of all the variety in my class, also keeps records of student progress as I assess their submitted work in a format that is easily understood. Parents (and students) can access these records at any time to review progress, and are real partners in the child’s education.

We have an email discussion list specifically for parents of my class. It is both lively and informative. As parents feel more a part of our class community, they are inclined to be more involved in the classroom when they are available. It is great to be able to tap into this wonderful resource – and wonderful for the kids too to have their parents so involved.

The LMS has the ability to evolve with developments in ICTs. It not only keeps track of student’s progress in a secure format but also allows for a variety of activities, learning objects, learning games, discussion forums, chat, messaging, videophone, wikkis, bloggs and spaces for photo albums, shared files and Community spaces for the class and special interest groups. (All of these are now available, but require a maze of registrations, logins and passwords just to get started. An “all under one roof” approach is needed, but one that can grow at the rate of technology development.)

Last year we adopted our Education Department’s new approach to Middle Schooling and having found that blended E-Learning works so well, I volunteered to be involved with the same group of students for two years. We now know the students very well making it easier to keep track of them, their special needs (each child) and their personalities.

Behaviour problems are a thing of the past (or are rare) as children now accept responsibility for their own education and actually want to learn (confidence is a wonderful stimulus). The odd occasion when a student brings an emotional problem to class, we can quickly identify it and intervene with appropriate support before the child has to revert to acting out for the attention needed.

This second year of Middle Schooling witnesses a Renaissance at our school with Happy teachers, happy students and very happy parents. Can I please sign up for another two years…?

… and then I wake up to The Reality.

(NB. Names have been changed to protect the innocent)

An Allegory:

(after Pravdoliub Ivanov’s Pessimism no more! - an installation at 2004 Biennale of Sydney
on Reason and Emotion)

In order to make Swiss Cheese, you need the help of bacteria.
Propionobacter shermani is one of the three types of bacteria used to make Swiss cheese, and it’s responsible for the cheese’s distinctive holes. Once P. shermani is added to the cheese mixture and warmed, bubbles of carbon dioxide form. These bubbles become holes in the final product. Changing the acidity, temperature and curing time of the mixture controls the size of the holes.

In the U.S., the Department of Agriculture (USDA) created new guidelines that regulate the hole size of domestically produced Swiss cheese. The standard size of the holes has been reduced by fifty percent because new cheese-slicing machinery got caught on larger holes. The Swiss weren’t pleased by the revised guidelines and insist that the cheese must have large holes.    (Yahoo)

Note: Our current school machinery is breaking down with the variety of holes in our swiss cheese clients, and no amount of bandaids and bandages will allow our clients to grow to maturity with dignity and pride. Regulating the size of holes is keeping the machinery operational but at great cost to the identity and self worth of our clients who each have the right to reach their potential, celebrating their uniqueness.

References: 
The Motivational Effect of ICT on Pupils Emerging Findings
http://www.teachernet.gov.uk/docbank/index.cfm?id=8053

Don Passey, Colin Rogers, Joan Machell, Gilly McHugh and Dave Allaway
Department of Educational Research Lancaster University 

Multimedia is not a panacea for all ills. E-Learning must be done properly to be effective.