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:
Image source: DALL-E https://labs.openai.com/ CANeLearn Network Volunteer’s Afghan Support WorkAs 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 rlabonte@CANeLearn.net Image source: DALL-E https://labs.openai.com/ CANeLearn Design Principles Continuing ResearchIn 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 ChangesCANeLearn has been sharing important changes and centralization of K-12 e-learning across Canada (click here for a previous summary), recent updates include:
May 3-4, 2023 — Ottawa, ONView the ProgramRegister hereCANeLearn will be offering sessions at this year’s eventRooms must be reserved by April 2 to secure the preferred rate (while supplies last).
AI: Ideas & ResourcesChatGPT and other AI have captivated the education community in the past months. The curation below is what you need to know. Teachers and students warm up to ChatGPT – Axios How to Use ChatGPT as an Example Machine – Cult of Pedagogy ChatGPT & Education – Overview and Examples – Torrie Trust AI Articless on ChatGPT and Education – Padlet live curation – Dr. Heather M. Brown A Snapshot of AI Tools to Create and Curate Content – and AI Resource Hub – TeachOnline.ca Content Creation Using AI: How AI Can Be Used to Build Courses and Learning Experiences – TeachOnline.ca recording Photo by DALL-E https://labs.openai.com/ Worth Noting… |