March/April 2023 Newsletter

Photo credit: @rlabonte

Welcome to the March/April CANeLearn News.

As many educators and students across Canada begin to return after a March break, while others still await their break, this time marks the transition from winter to the feasts of spring and Easter. Thus begins the highly familiar march to another school year’s end with its abundance of activities, celebrations, final exams, and, oh, that marking and reporting.

Our focus with this newsletter is on our CANeLearn network’s activities to support e-learning growth and changes across Canada. After 10 years since its formal inception, CANeLearn is looking to reinvigorate, reengage, and redevelop its operations. To help, in this newsletter we provide you with some background on current initiatives in advance of our provincial partners and leaders reaching out to you with a short survey to gather cross-Canada voices and input into how best our national organization can support its provincial partners and members. Please take a few moments to add your voice when you see that survey in the next few weeks.

Scroll down to check out new initiatives, events, and research we are involved in:

Supporting teachers in Afghanistan who are teaching girls online banned from access to educational opportunities;
An update on the intersection of CANeLearn’s Design Principles, K-12 QM and NSQOL standards, and the Community of Inquiry model; and
Exploring Artificial Intelligence (AI) and how to harness it to support teachers.

Image source: DALL-E https://labs.openai.com/

CANeLearn Network Volunteer’s Afghan Support Work

As a result of the Taliban’s ban on secondary education for Afghan girls, Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan (CW4WAfghan) created a model “DD Classroom”, an online high school for girls in Afghanistan. CANeLearn was invited to support and mentor the teachers offering online classes for Afghan students in grades 7-8 (see CBC’s article on the initiative). Classes use the Afghan curriculum taught by Afghan-certified teachers who can no longer work for public schools and are in need of employment. These teachers receive training from educators in the CANeLearn network to assist them in transitioning to teaching in the online learning environment effectively.

If you would like to help our efforts, please email Randy at [email protected]

Image source: DALL-E https://labs.openai.com/

CANeLearn Design Principles Continuing Research

In February 2021 CANeLearn began engaging educators across Canada in facilitated conversations about teaching in online learning environments, generating design principles framing effective online practices. The confirmation of the principles from participants across Canada in both anglophone and francophone programs was an important step in ensuring the principles serve as a framework for conversations about e-learning design, needed support, and implementation strategies.

CANeLearn’s next step in the iteration of the design principle is engagement with a broader audience. As such, we are exploring the intersection of CANeLearn’s Design Principles with published standards for K-12 online learning. We are currently preparing to publish a review of the design principles’ intersection with Quality Matters K-12 Rubric Standards and the Online Instructor Skills Set, combined with the National Standards for Quality Online Learning. Based on that publication CANeLearn will be including a broader connection between standards, principles, and the well-researched Community of Inquiry model. Watch for additional updates soon.

Cross-Canada Roundup: K-12 Provincial e-Learning Changes

CANeLearn has been sharing important changes and centralization of K-12 e-learning across Canada (click here for a previous summary), recent updates include:

BC: The Ministry of Education created a hub, Online Learning BC, listing all 21 public and 16 independent designated Provincial Online Learning Schools, a course and program finder, and enrollment information along with ShareEdBC, a resource-sharing platform for educators. New policies and procedures include an accountability and quality assurance process and provincial LMS (D2L’s Brightspace). Full implementation planning is underway for the September launch.
SK: Implementation is well underway for the new provincial online school, Saskatchewan Distance Learning Corporation (Sask DLC), with one central and nine regional campus sites announced, and hiring for up to 90 teaching positions is underway. A Quality Assurance Framework for K-12 Online Learning has been published that guides online learning for Sask DLC and all other school division online learning schools. Course options and more information can be found on the Sask DLC website. Find out more on the State of the Nation website.
MB: There have been no new announcements but planning is still underway for an expansion of the province’s Web-Based Course Option for an online high school. As well, Manitoba will be winding down its Remote Learning Support Centre at the end of June.
ON: The OeLC has grown to include 55 public boards with just under 50,000 students. Their focus continues to be on planning the implementation of two mandatory e-learning courses in the province that is requiring the expansion of e-learning program offerings through the consortium. For more background on mandatory e-learning in the province, see the OeLC blog post on the State of the Nation website. More will be shared at the May BOLTT conference (see below).