 Ellen’s photo reflects the inner calm we will need as this new year carries us forward. It speaks to the new landscapes and new horizons we will discover as we move beyond two years of the pandemic. April 6-8 Digital Learning SymposiumNew landscapes. New practices.Featuring:
NEW “Practitioner Corner” in the JOLR journal Get involved in publishing in the Journal of Online Learning Research which is expanding its focus to include a practitioner’s voice. More information here. #OTESSA 2022: Critical Change — Call for proposals due February 15 As part of Congress, the OTESSA Conference encourages educators from K-12 or post-secondary, administrators, and policy-makers to share ideas on the complexities that technology and open educational practice raise for education while building connections, collaborations, and critical conversations. More information here. Read, watch, listenA Design Thinking Roadmap for Process Improvement and Organizational Change Design thinking “is a framework that provides a human-centered approach for problem-solving that provides a powerful set of techniques and tools for organizations to focus their attention on the most important problems that need to be solved.” Pulling Together: A Guide for Curriculum Developers This new book is part of an open professional learning series developed for staff across post-secondary institutions in BC. The sections are intended to help in the process of integrating, honouring, and respecting Indigenous culture, history, and knowledge in curriculum. Each section holds a series of self-exploratory and group professional development activities. Digital learning policy update In the early stages of the pandemic, seemingly every publication and website declared that “COVID-19 changes everything.” Whether or not the pandemic will have long-lasting effects on K-12 instruction remains to be seen. What is clear, as of late 2021, the pandemic had limited effects on policy. Less predicting, more shaping: Reflections on the upcoming year What’s going to happen with digital learning in 2022, in particular as the effects of the pandemic wane? Rather than predicting the future, contribute to shaping the future. Why NOT to Quit After First Attempts in Online and Hybrid Learning: Exploring the intersection and biases around pedagogy, modality, and access in schools There’s no return to pre-pandemic teaching. We must accept the reality that the need for flexibility is endemic in the K-12 education system. It makes sense that through fatigue and frustration, some may want to return to pre-pandemic teaching as quickly as possible; however, we must examine the privileges and biases that existed in the pre-pandemic school system and resist perpetuating them. We have an incredible opportunity to transform our systems and our practices.
Photo by @scottgraham on Unsplash How Much Do You Know About PD on Tech? Take the quiz and compare your score to other respondents, get the correct answers with detailed explanations, and be provided with additional readings and resources on the topic. Global Oxford University Press report reveals the most significant barrier to online learning The report captures the views of 1557 English language teachers from 92 countries. Sixty-eight percent of the teachers surveyed felt that poor digital access was the most significant barrier to online learning. Presenter Toolkit: Virtual Presenting Tips BCcampus developed The Presenter Toolkit to support educators in creating accessible and inclusive online and in-person presentations. How to Design Online Teaching for Engaged Learning: Merging Instructional Design and Teaching and Learning Research This webinar explored marrying substantial research on effective teaching and learning with knowledge and experience of instructional design to ensure effective learning and increase student retention and course completion. Recording and slides available here Indigenous learners face more challenges with virtual learning A report about the impacts of remote learning on children includes a section specific to Indigenous youth. Just 17 percent of on-reserve households in Ontario have access to high-speed internet. Attendance rates have long been a challenge at First Nation schools, and absenteeism rates grew during the first shift to online school. Read news stories about the report here and here Aurora Institute 2021 Symposium HIghlights Video recordings, slides, and resources  Learn with us – Share with us – Together in Vancouver2022 Digital Learning Symposium!April 6-8, 2022Book your hotel room at the 2020 rate – $185! Deadline March 7
Extend your stay in Vancouver! The rate is available before & after the event  Taking the pulse of online learning in Canada CANeLearn continues to build on its past research of online and blended learning and is embarking on building a base for quality in online pedagogy (see more about the design principles study here). What we have published:
A description of pandemic pedagogy is on our research site: https://sites.google.com/view/canelearn-ert/.  Photo by @eugenechystiakov on Unsplash Upcoming StudiesRemote Learning: How did we fare? – Jurisdictional study of successful practices, gaps, and challenges. Post-pandemic policy and practice – Implications for online learning’s future. Resources for the Digital Classroom Photo by Scott Graham on Unsplash 62 Educational Netflix Shows to Stream in Your Classroom Leveraging Tech Tools to Build Community in Your Classroom Common Sense Selections for Learning Best Digital Education Tools for Teachers to Teach Online Kahoot Guide to Creating Engaging and Fun Learning Games OER K-12 Resource List  Check out these sites with updates shared previously… Engagement Strategies for Hybrid & HyFlex courses Beyond the Basics: Teaching with Zoom’s New Tools
The link above will take you to more information and a schedule of live training sessions. What is a Padlet? Teachers’ Step by Step Guide WEBSITES you didn’t know you NEEDED to know!! A collection of video resources of websites you did not know you need! This is the winner from Jen Giffen’s BlendEd BC Demo Slam Videoconferencing Alternatives: How Low-Bandwidth Teaching Will Save Us All Teaching Online Resources Frameworks, Tools, Resources Information Directory: Blogs and Opinions, Books and Videos, News, Research and Reports Embracing Ways of Knowing
Conferencing Tools for teaching & learning: Best practices BlendEd Creating and Using Rubrics for Assessment Tips to Make Your LMS Content Accessible Designing for Accessibility (PDF posters) An Important Distance Learning Resource for Teachers, Students, and Parents Wide Open School offers free learning activities for all grades. Students can browse activities related to various subjects including social studies, emotional wellbeing, reading and writing, math, arts, music, science, English language learning, digital citizenship, and more. Within each of these activities, you can search for materials by grade level or search label. You can for instance search for activities that include videos, worksheets, lessons, etc. Some of these activities offer free downloadable materials. You can also share them to Google Classroom. Tools for Project-Based Learning Project-based learning, or PBL, challenges students to design and engage in more authentic, extended, and complex learning. But while PBL is a trusted strategy for increasing student engagement and learning, it’s not easy to orchestrate. If you’re doing it right, students will be engaging in a variety of interest-driven projects all with various needs and on different schedules. So how do you manage it all? Tech can be a huge help. This list gathers some useful productivity and organization tools that can help both teachers and students keep track of, finish, and assess projects. There are also a few tools designed specifically for PBL, as well as plug-and-play PBL experiences. Learn about these tools here Rough Guide for Spotting Bad Science Being able to evaluate the evidence behind a scientific claim is important. Being able to recognize bad science reporting, or faults in scientific studies is equally important. Includes 12 points to help separate the science from the pseudoscience. Download the PDF here ABC Learning Design Spreadsheet template to facilitate the collaborative design of learning scenarios. Check it out here |
