SCD/SCD Case Studies

Introduction and purpose of this WikiBook
The case studies in this small WikiEducator book with accompanying multimedia are/have been created to support educators develop a range of approaches to personalise blended learning and teaching for school students, particularly school students in New Zealand. They are stimulated by and support a courses taught by the editor, Professor Niki Davis, and her colleagues in the University of Canterbury including Nicki Dabner. In particular, our courses with the title “Best practices in online learning and teaching” are contributing to and drawing upon this WikiEducator book.

A particular focus is our collaboratove initiative developing best practices within and across three e-learning clusters of schools. The Southern Central Divide Cluster (SCD) is joint project between the Aorakinet, Cantatech and WestNet eLearning clusters, spanning the Southern Alps (the 'Central Divide') of the South Island of New Zealand. The purpose of SCD is to lead the development of collaborative personalised learning across cluster schools by providing professional development to teachers and co-ordination of schools and resources.

A range of case studies are under development because we recognise that teaching online varies with the teacher as well as the needs of individual students and those who support them in the place(s) where they learn as well as those involved in the class or other educational experience from a distance.

It is important to recognise that personalised blended learning is under development worldwide and that no practice can be perfect. All the cases described should all be read as celebrations of the participants’ work in developing education – only supportive critique is acceptable and appropriate.

The case studies will include a wide range of teacher participation:


 * 1) A class in a New Zealand school where the teaching and learning is enhanced with web activities including online learning organised through a Learning Management System (LMS) such as Moodle
 * 2) A class with students in several New Zealand schools where the teacher is at a distance from some or all of the students and uses a LMS and other tools such as Video Conference to teach
 * 3) An extension activity where a group of students undertake a project to personalise and enhance their learning with activities undertaken mostly outside the school timetable and with relatively little intervention from a teacher in their school

Guidance in the collection and editing of these case studies is planned, and collaborative authoring is encouraged and expected.

Although this Creative Common licence is used, please request permission to reuse any material where any person or organisation can be identified and with a description of the purpose you propose in an email to the editor: Niki.Davis@Canterbury.ac.nz Please also see Wikieducator's disclaimer, and the creative commons licensing in English and in legalese.

Blended online learning in New Zealand
Niki thinks it might be useful to provide a brief description of the national and regional context in 2010 here, with help from her collaborators of course!

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CantaTech
Darren ...

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AorakiNet
Trevor

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WestNet
Vicki and Pete

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The Case Studies
As the case studies develop this section will be written and expanded ...

1. Case study of web enhanced teaching of Physics &amp; Chemistry
Authors: Matt Maude with support from Niki Davis

The school and department context for online learning
To assist Matt to uncover his extensive knowledge about his school where he is a teacher and champion for online learning and teaching we imagined that he was advising a teacher that we’ll call Mr A. who would be taking over Matt’s teaching of Physics and Chemistry to Year 11 students in the second stream of the Science class.

Online learning is underway in this school
Moodle was introduced to this school in 2008. In 2009 a group of staff begun some in-house peer professional development using Moodle. This has continued and taken off in 2010. A search on educo for this school returns 47 courses and 554 users. Not all of these will be current and active. The current (2010) Moodle group have shared 13 of their best Moodle courses in a discussion thread.

Computers and Internet access for and by students
Hardware access. This School has a roll of approximately 740. There are 2 computer labs of 30 PCs which are bookable at times when not in use for teaching Digital Technologies. In addition, there are 15 PCs in the library, a maths classroom and 5 PCs in an adjoining room. Last year saw the purchase of a COW (computers on wheels) a set of 15 mini notebook laptops complete with wireless router and charging station. After successful trailing of the COW and a high demand, a second COW was purchased in June 2010. There are a number of class rooms that have 1, 2 or 3 older PCs.

Booking Resources: All computer bookings are made using a "booking sheet" comprising of an excel spreadsheet accessible on the school's network. Teachers can add their name to any blank space on a first come first served basis.

Student Laptops: Students can bring their own laptops into school but as yet there is only a small number doing this and no established system for checking and connecting to the network.

Technical Support: There are 2 part time network administrators who both work Monday &amp; Tuesday. There is one other technician that has recently begun to do some network backup in addition to his other duties.

Professional Development
The school has joined an ICT PD cluster with contributing primary schools. As part of this, staff were baseline surveyed about their confidence and use of ICT in February 2010.

Staff were asked to rate their skill level in a range of ICT tools.


 * 1) Just under 40% of staff define themselves as having advanced skills in file management, using the interenet and basic computing skills including word processing.
 * 2) 74% of staff had either never used or were beginners in Web 2.0 tools and LMSs

More potential subheadings: review Online teaching and learning resources.

Perceptions and support for online learning
A range of staff were interviewed regarding their views on online learning. Interviewees were asked to comment on;

1. What their role was in regard to e-learning in the school. 2. What their view of online learning was. 3. What things help/hinder e-learning in the school?. 4. Views on whether these impacted positively or negatively on e-learning at the school. 5. What they saw as the future with regard to e-learning.

Attitudes towards online learning at the School

Questions developed with help from e-Principals and Case study by another student at another Secondary School. (Role within e- learning, Views on online learning, Issues +/-, Future) Principal Deputy Principal ICT manager Video conference and liaison/supervision with Te Kura/TCS students Staff champions Students

Acknowledgements
Thanks to Matt, his school and all the colleagues and ePrincipal who have supported the sharing of this Institutional Review by Matt for the SCD-BLP-UC course and larger Blended Learning Project. As course leader I (Professor Niki Davis) found with Matt's help that sharing this review while learning from it has raised many ethical issues. Therefore, we have moved to an alternative mode for submission of reviews from the rest of teachers in the project (at least for now).

2. UpStage Case study - performance and personalisation
Authors: Vicki Smith, Sylvia Lee and Niki Davis

Status: Incomplete draft

Background
This case study starts is an unfolding a story of the development of the web enhancement of English learning and performance in primary and secondary education that also blends with out-of-school activities. Parts of English and other curricula are being personalised for student volunteers.

Vicki Smith, Facilitator for WestNet, is also an Artist and Educator being one of the collaborators who developed the online performance venue UpStage.

UpStage is an open source application that allows participants to interact virtually to perform theatre. Audiences maybe anywhere and need only an internet connected computer to attend. The performances on this virtual stage are created and performed by many groups, including acting companies of primary students and senior citizens. One successful acting company from … primary school in Westland staged their own performance of … in UpStage090909. This year they have been recruited as mentors by Vicki Smith for others students who are preparing to perform in UpStage101010 on the 10th October 2010.

In May 2010 Niki Davis introduced Sylvia Lee to Vicki. Sylvia has taken a year off teaching English in a secondary school to focus on her studies for her Masters of Education at the University of Canterbury. As part of her studies Sylvia needs to develop a part of an online or blended course and so she is assisting the UpStage primary mentors and learning from them to inform her curriculum planning to use UpStage in her future teaching. The next section by Sylvia describes …

UpStage in the secondary curriculum
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