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The Case for Teaching Grammar
Comments Off on The Case for Teaching GrammarIt is not often that I get emails and faxes from strangers informing me that I am utterly unqualified to be a university professor and that I am personally responsible for the terrible condition of the English language in the 21st century. It is especially rare to receive such communications at the same time that my inbox is flooded with messages telling me that I am an astute observer of the modern condition.
This tsunami of contradictory correspondence was precipitated by a short interview I did with a journalist who was interested in the impact that social media – texting, blogs, Facebook, Twitter – was having on student writing. I prefaced my comments by pointing out that, first, I am not an expert on the impact of technology on literacy. There are many fine people in faculties of education who do such work. I am, however, interested in the subject and recently co-edited a book of essays on the usefulness of literary criticism to assess such media. Second, I emphasized that as long as I have been teaching – 20 years at a university in B.C. and five before that in the Ontario college system – instructors have been complaining about student writing. So yes, there is a problem with student writing, but no, it has not been caused by social media.
The journalist captured these points, but they seem to have been ignored by everyone who read the article, by the radio reporters who called me up for interviews, and by Maclean’s magazine, which ran a brief excerpt from the piece. These people seem to have come to the article with a set idea: social media is making young people into illiterate, emoticon-addled boobs, and it was brilliant of me to have said so. At the same time, I was clearly a boob myself because in one quotation, not realizing I was being taped, I used the word “go” to mean “say”. Further, the journalist put an extra comma in one of my sentences, effectively making me an illiterate complaining about illiteracy.
Students leaving high school and entering university do not have, for the most part, the necessary skills to make themselves consistently understood in writing.
I am entirely innocent of that comma error. The journalist – or, oh I don’t know, the editor – should have caught that mistake. I am guilty of using the word “go” to mean “say”, but then I have never tried to speak the way I write. The people I know who do speak in perfect sentences, devoid of colloquialisms or common shortcuts, sound like pompous newscasters. Further, I talk to young people all day, I have young people in my household, and their speech shortcuts have rubbed off on me. Mea culpa. I shall endeavour in the future to speak like Stephen Lewis.
But my slip of the tongue proves a point about writing. Most of our casual speech acts are not recorded and parsed for grammatical exactitude – but writing, by definition, is a recording and is usually divorced from the originator’s tone of voice, gestures, and disposition. Writing stands by itself and must, therefore, be more precise than verbal communication or it risks becoming confusing. This is the issue that I was trying to get at in my interview. Students leaving high school and entering university do not have, for the most part, the necessary skills to make themselves consistently understood in writing. And so here at Simon Fraser University, all students must take at least two courses that are designated as “writing intensive”. I recently taught one of these courses and found myself having to explain the rules of punctuation to a class of first year students who had just been accepted into what Maclean’s ranks as Canada’s top comprehensive university. These university students had no idea why or how to use a colon, semi-colon, apostrophe, or comma. They tended to guess. The better students guessed more accurately than the others, but they were still guessing. How can that be? How can they have passed through high school without ever being taught simple grammar and punctuation rules?
We teach students skills in physical education class so they can play sports; we teach them skills in music class so they can play instruments. But somehow, since the revolution of ’66, skills have been seen as an enemy to writing.
Well, I was never taught grammar in high school, and I graduated in 1975. What grammar I learned I picked up in Latin class. I didn’t really know the rules of English grammar until I began to teach composition in the Ontario college system. I sat down and memorized the rules so I could teach them to aspiring morticians, fashion models, automotive mechanics, and tool and die makers. In doing so, I discovered something quite surprising: they are easy to teach. Not the fancy stuff, not the subjunctive and past pluperfect, but the basic stuff needed by the majority of people to make themselves clear in a memo or e-mail is really not that hard to grasp or communicate to others. Why not teach it then?
To find out, I contacted a colleague in our Faculty of Education, Dr. Paul Neufeld. He told me that writing in grade school is largely taught through “process”. Students are asked to generate ideas, plan their writing, do the actual writing, get feedback (often from peers), and then “publish”. This is in accord with what my own children experienced in grade school: they regularly produced little “books”. They were charming and creative but, like much of the work my university students are doing, full of grammatical errors.
This “process” method became the standard after a seismic shift in the philosophy of writing instruction. In 1966, at a conference at Dartmouth College, a new pedagogical model that emphasized “personal growth” was proposed and quickly gained popularity.[1] This new model “sought to move the focus of curriculum and instruction away from traditional models of cultural heritage and skills” (emphasis added).[2] Now, I have no problem with moving away from teaching a specific cultural heritage to something much more inclusive; in fact I encourage it. But basic writing skills? How are they a problem? We teach students skills in physical education class so they can play sports; we teach them skills in music class so they can play instruments. But somehow, since the revolution of ’66, skills have been seen as an enemy to writing.
By 1973, Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores in the U.S. had fallen dramatically; students coming out of the public school system could not write.[3] The editors of the 2007 essay collection Best Practices in Writing Instruction cite studies that show that “the writing of approximately two thirds of students in elementary, middle, and high school [is] below grade-level proficiency. Moreover, one in five first-year college students requires a remedial writing class, and more than half of new college students are unable to write a paper relatively free of errors.”[4] This sort of negative outcome would, in most areas of human endeavour, be taken as empirical evidence of the failure of a technique. Even reading instruction methods have been re-evaluated in response to negative results: in 1987 the state of California passed bills promoting the teaching of whole language reading; reading scores went down disastrously within a few years.[5] The system was reformed with relative speed to produce much better results. But that does not seem to have happened with writing. Even though student writing has been demonstrated again and again to have deteriorated since basic grammatical skills stopped being taught, there is no impetus to go back and reintroduce them. There are thirteen essays in Best Practices in Writing Instruction, a book that tracks the decline of student writing in its introduction, but not one of them is on teaching grammar.
Rather than revisit the decision to abandon the teaching of writing skills, education theorists seem to have moved on to a series of new concerns. The most recent appears to be with alternative or multiple literacies. The argument here is that “the multiplicity of communications channels and increasing cultural and linguistic diversity in the world today call for a much broader view of literacy than portrayed in traditional language-based approaches.”[6] That proposal, made in 1996, has gained more urgency as technology and social media have become more prevalent. Donald J. Leu et al have argued that the Internet and what they call ICTs (information and communication technologies) demand “new literacy skills and strategies.”[7]
Here’s what I suspect will happen if the basics of writing continue to be ignored: not only will students become worse writers than they are now…they will become less adept users of new technologies.
Let us pause here. Yes, text is moving from the page to the screen. Yes, it is easy to incorporate image and video into web pages. But no, that does not mean the end or even marginalization of traditional reading and writing. If anything, it means more. The most popular websites are search engines; after that, they’re sites like Facebook, Myspace, and Wikipedia, sites on which users spend most of their time posting messages (i.e. writing) or reading. Even cellphones are encouraging more reading and writing; some of the most popular novels produced in Japan over the past few years were composed and – originally – transmitted on cell phones.[8] Now, certainly much of the writing being done on those social media is at the level of “U R GR8 ; )[MC1] ”, but that is hardly surprising. Because students haven’t been taught writing skills, they are going to take the most convenient shortcuts that the media interface they’re using allows. In other words, social media are not making young people bad writers; young people are bad writers who happen to be using social media. We are in the middle of an information revolution, and we have not given our students the tools they need to write clearly, tools that even Leu and his fellow researchers are forced to admit are crucial: “Slow readers and writers are challenged within traditional literacies; within the new literacies these individuals will be left far behind.”[9]
Here’s what I suspect will happen if the basics of writing continue to be ignored or are marginalized in favour of “new literacies”: not only will students become worse writers than they are now, requiring universities to spend more of their scant resources to teach them basic skills, they will become less adept users of new technologies. If the pedagogical ideology of our present education system is preventing students from learning simple writing skills, skills that have remained stable for hundreds of years, it will never be able to teach students skills that are evolving in parallel with technology that is changing at a dazzling speed. It will, instead, slow them down. Let us remember that Marc Prensky famously distinguished between digital natives – those young people who have grown up with new technologies – and digital immigrants – older people who have had to learn (or have simply ignored) those technologies. Prensky calls the discontinuity between these two parts of the population so fundamental that it is almost a “singularity” and supports his argument with statistics that may be alarming for the professor of literature: “Today’s average college grads have spent less than 5,000 hours of their lives reading, but over 10,000 hours playing video games.”[10] Put another way, reading accounts for 16.1 percent of the time that college students spend communicating in any one day. Of that 16.1 percent, 37 percent is spent reading on the internet or text messaging.[11] While media-savvy instructors can certainly learn about these new technologies, they will always be immigrants, never fully integrating the new technologies into their lives as those who grew up with them have. This process will continue as new technologies proliferate and replace each other.
Instead, let us try an experiment and re-introduce grammar to students at some point in their K-12 experience. I know it won’t be easy; our schools are largely staffed by teachers, like me, who were never taught these basic writing skills themselves in high school or, indeed, at university. This goes a long way to explaining some of problems I’ve had with my children’s teachers over the years (one instructor told my son that the word “the” was an adjective) and a number of school newsletters that I’ve read. So step one is to give the teachers the basic skills they need to teach grammar.
Step two is to carve out a bit of time in the K-12 years to teach those writing skills. I am not calling for the complete abandonment of process-based writing instruction. I really do mean “a bit of time.” This is what needs to be taught: first, that a sentence is a complete thought. Next, that a sentence, which can also be called an independent clause, is different from a dependent clause, which is an incomplete thought. Once students grasp the difference between an independent and a dependent clause, they can tell the difference between a sentence fragment, a run-on sentence, and a comma splice, and they have the basis for understanding the proper use of commas, semicolons, and colons. Six of the most common and confusing writing errors can be clarified by teaching our students two grammatical terms. I know; I’ve done it. Now, explain the proper use of an apostrophe and you will eliminate another whole galaxy of writing errors. Set that as the base minimum and then, if time allows, add some instruction on agreement of verbs and pronouns.
I will leave it to the education experts to decide at what point these skills should be introduced, in grade school or high school. Perhaps we should split the difference and do it in the first year of high school as a sort of rite of passage into the world of adult communication. I’m willing to pick up the fancy stuff at the post-secondary education level, the dangling participles and infelicities of style, if my students show up with the basic skills.
There are two objections to the teaching of grammar that still have to be addressed. The first, which comes up again and again, is that teaching these “rote” skills stifles the creativity of students. I doubt it. I have seen many high school students become fascinated with musical theory, chess, and sports. Learning the complex skills (and rules) of those activities heightens, rather than diminishes, the students’ creativity. A more serious objection is that teaching traditional writing skills imposes the arbitrary standards of a hegemonic cultural elite on a youthful population who are creating new forms of literacy. Maybe, but it will also give them the tools to critique that hegemony with clarity and precision. And I think that would be GR8 ;).
EN BREF – Bien qu’il soit vrai que le texte se déplace de la page à l’écran, cela n’implique pas la fin ou même la marginalisation de la lecture et de l’écriture conventionnelles. En fait, elles augmenteraient. Pour la plupart, les diplômés du secondaire entreprenant des études supérieures ne possèdent pas les habiletés requises pour que leurs écrits soient toujours bien compris. Les médias sociaux ne sont pas à blâmer, comme d’aucuns le prétendent. Dans les cours d’éducation physique, nous montrons aux élèves des habiletés leur permettant de pratiquer des sports; en musique, nous leur enseignons des techniques pour qu’ils puissent jouer des instruments. Mais depuis la révolution des « processus d’écriture » des années 1960, les habiletés ont, pour une raison ou une autre, été considérées comme nuisant à l’écriture. Sans abandonner l’enseignement des processus d’écriture, nous pourrions enseigner à nos élèves du primaire et du secondaire des règles grammaticales de base qui pourraient éliminer une foule d’erreurs d’écriture.
[1] Martin Nystrand, “The Social and Historical Context for Writing Research,” in Charles A. MacArthur et al, eds., Handbook of Writing Research (New York and London: Guilford P: 2006), 12.
[4] Steve Graham, Charles A. Macarthur and Jill Fitzgerald, eds., Best Practices in Writing Instruction (New York and London: Guilford P, 2007), 3.
[5] Slanislas Dehaene, Reading in the Brain: The Science and Evolution of a Human Invention (New York: Viking, 2009), 220.
[6] The New London Group, “A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies: Designing Social Futures,” Harvard Educational Review 66, no. 1 (1996): 1.
[7] Donald J. Leu, et al. “Toward a Theory of New Literacies Emerging From the Internet and Other Information and Communication Technologies,” in Robert B. Ruddell and Norman Unrau, eds., Theoretical Models and Processes of Reading, 5th ed. (Newark, DE.: International Reading Association, 2004), 1579.
[8] See the website Textnovel <www.textnovel.com > for a collection of such works.
[10] M. Prensky, “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants,” On the Horizon 9, no. 5 (2001): 1
[11] see Richard Emanuel, et al., “How College Students Spend Their Time Communicating,” The International Journal of Listening 22 (2008): 22.
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Skilled Trades as Intellectual Engagement
Comments Off on Skilled Trades as Intellectual EngagementA review of Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work by Matthew B. Crawford. Penguin Press, 2009. ISBN-1594202230, 9781594202230.
In the 1990’s, many jurisdictions eliminated industrial arts from their elementary schools and dismantled many secondary school technology programs. Ultimately, this short-sighted policy resulted in a critical shortage in the skilled trades. As in many sectors, the retirements among skilled tradespeople are outpacing people coming into those trades. The skills shortage has finally caused politicians to take notice, leading to a resurgence of interest in the trades and in technology programs. Even so, there is a long way to go because there is still an unfair stigma attached to the trades.
Matthew B. Crawford’s recent book, Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work, speaks not only of trades as a worthy vocation but also of their place in a well-rounded education. We do students a genuine disservice if we steer them away from what could be a very rewarding career – or simply an enjoyable pastime.
In his introduction to the book, Crawford says, “While manufacturing jobs have certainly left our shores to a disturbing degree, the manual trades have not. If you need a deck built, or your car fixed, the Chinese are of no help. Because they are in China. And in fact there are chronic labor shortages in both construction and auto repair.” How true: many jobs have gone “offshore”, and not just manufacturing jobs. Even some “knowledge economy” jobs are now outsourced to other countries. When you call for technical help for a computer problem, for example, you could very well be talking to someone in India. However, jobs that require the worker to be onsite and/or face to face with the consumer or client are not going to go away, and these are the very jobs that are in demand today.
Crawford knows whereof he speaks. He has a Ph.D. in political philosophy from the University of Chicago and has worked in the “knowledge economy” in several capacities – among them, as a writer of abstracts of academic journal articles and as the executive director of a Washington-based think tank. In both cases, he found the work soulless and mind-numbing instead of intellectually stimulating. In the former, it turned out that he had a quota of abstracts to fill every day, and the only “quality control” was that of grammar internal to the abstract, not of whether the abstract did justice to the original article. In the case of the latter, his job was to “com[e] up with the best arguments money could buy.”
Disillusioned, Crawford quit after five months at the think tank and opened up a motorcycle repair shop. He explains how much thinking actually goes on in his bike shop when he is confronted by a motorcycle that doesn’t work: “You come up with an imagined train of causes for manifest symptoms and judge their likelihood before tearing anything down.” Ultimately, he says, “[m]ost surprisingly, I often find manual work more engaging intellectually. This book is an attempt to understand why this should be so.”
Along the way, Crawford also describes how our society evolved from one that valued craftsmanship to one that became increasingly automated, how that evolution changed both the nature of work and how it was regarded, and how those changes, in turn, influenced our education system. With the advent of factory work, federal funding in the United States for manual training came in two forms: as part of general education and as a separate vocational program. Only the former “emphasized the learning of aesthetic, mathematical, and physical principles through the manipulation of material things.” The vocational programs were meant to produce factory workers who would work without questioning and who could be paid less. No wonder people tried to steer their kids away from such programs. However, not all manual work is mindless – the skilled trades certainly aren’t.
Crawford explores his topic in terms of both the work world and the education system. “Corporations portray themselves as results-based and performance-driven. But where there isn’t anything material being produced, objective standards for job performance are hard to come by.” When this type of theory is applied to education, similar problems arise, as Crawford points out: “When the point of education becomes the production of credentials rather than the cultivation of knowledge, it forfeits the motive recognized by Aristotle: ‘All human beings by nature desire to know.’ Students become intellectually disengaged.”
Students aren’t widgets; they are human beings. We need to give them a well-rounded education that does not separate thinking from doing, whatever the subject area, and that allows them to live rich and satisfying lives intellectually, socially, and economically. Technology programs need to be expanded and valued so that the skilled trades can be seen and promoted as worthy, rewarding careers.
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Inviting the World into the Classroom: Video Conferencing in Big Valley
Comments Off on Inviting the World into the Classroom: Video Conferencing in Big ValleyVideo conferencing is impacting education. Gaining real world experiences and sharing first-hand information with experts, lecturers, and peers from around the world is enabling students to solve problems, develop knowledge and understanding of different cultures, and gain an interest in community and global events. Video conferencing will definitely influence 21st century learning and students’ ability to participate creatively and effectively in a growing, competitive society.
In this small, rural, K-9 school, with a population of about 100 students, video conferencing is enhancing student learning through live, global communication.
At Big Valley School in Alberta’s Clearview School Division, video conferencing is enhancing student learning through live, global communication. Our small, rural, K-9 school, with a population of about 100 students, has spent the past four years improving course delivery by expanding our knowledge and use of video conferencing in the classroom.
In 2005, we received video conferencing equipment to develop a team teaching approach among rural schools. At the end of that year, we were left with the experience of having tried the approach, and some very expensive equipment. We had also gained a valuable understanding of how this equipment could enrich curricular content and classroom instruction by allowing us to access information and programming outside of our area. We were determined to find a way to continue utilizing this precious resource.
The Alberta Initiative for School Improvement (AISI) program was established to improve student learning and performance by fostering initiatives that reflect the unique needs and circumstances of each school authority. The focus of AISI’s Cycle 3 Projects was to emphasize innovation and research, analyze project outcomes, enhance professional practice, focus on professional development, and expand knowledge sharing and dissemination. Clearview School Division’s AISI Cycle 3 Project was Real World Literacy, and we felt the use of video conferencing would open new doors to literacy in our school. Over the next three years, our video conference programming was funded through this AISI project.
During the life of the AISI project, video conferencing expanded and enriched our daily studies. Programs were booked based on specific objectives, and what participants experienced was far beyond our expectations. Video conferencing became a tool to enhance and enrich curriculum; increase access to professionals in specialty areas of study; link our school with the outside world and current events; give the class access to experts in career fields of choice; develop knowledge and understanding of different cultures and global areas; and create community awareness on a provincial, national, and international scale. We participated in over 30 video conferences during our second school year. Today, our classrooms continue to take part in over 40 video conference programs yearly, offering many experiments and hands-on activities, learning new songs (in other languages) and games, speaking to experts about careers, and discovering new adventures from around the world.
When developing new approaches in a school community, it is important to effectively communicate with parents. In September 2008, we held an open house to welcome students back to school and to showcase our video conference programming. We video conferenced to the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. Due to the time difference, it became an evening program that provided an excellent opportunity to show parents and community members how their children were learning. It was a very big success as the students and parents were able to communicate directly with the underwater divers as they took us through a tour of a reef.
Video conference programs are used to enhance curricular content. Often content providers send “kits” containing materials, as well as pre- and post-study activities that supplement their programs. When our science teacher wants to explore space, he conferences with the Houston Space Center. Students experience a space station tour on how the astronauts eat, sleep, exercise, and go to the bathroom. Students interact through questions and learn a great deal from this real-time communication with experts. When the unit of study is biology, the classroom teacher turns to The Center of Science and Industry (COSI) where a doctor from the St. Louis University School of Medicine leads the students in a pig heart dissection. Each student dissects a pig heart while the doctor answers their questions and uses models to show them diseased hearts and hearts with artificial valves.
Many students believed the video conference to the Holocaust Memorial Center was “life changing” for them.
Students have also been able to access experts regarding career choices. The National Science Center in Augusta, Georgia, offers a video conferencing program involving a panel of experts (including a chemist, an accountant, a doctor of research, and a mechanical engineer) who discuss how math shapes their careers and everyday life. We have video conferenced with Adora Svitak, a 12-year-old author from Washington, to learn strategies and techniques for creative writing, poetry, editing, and revising. The younger students particularly enjoy these programs as they interact with someone their own age.
Our entire school division has benefited from our AISI project. Last year the high school theatre arts group was performing The Diary of Anne Frank. The students were not familiar with the Holocaust and did not really understand the play. In order to improve their knowledge and understanding, the class took part in a video conference to the Holocaust Memorial Center and spoke with a Holocaust survivor. For one hour the students were engaged in conversation with a real person who lived through everything these students were trying to portray on stage. They went back to the stage with an intensity and personal involvement that made the play a huge success. Many students believed the video conference to the Holocaust Memorial Center was “life changing” for them.
When our students are asked how video conferencing has changed their learning, the most frequent answer is, “It’s a fun way of learning.” Often students will say they can remember the information better because they are involved in the program. Some say they achieved higher test marks and that it is a valuable extension to their classroom learning. It is very exciting, as an educator, to listen to the students’ hallway conversations as they enthusiastically discuss a video conference program they have just experienced. Often the students spend additional time after a program discussing the events that just took place, or sharing information that they have just learned with other students.
Our video conference program has evolved. During our first and second year, the equipment was set up in the Grade 9 classroom, causing disruption of class time and inconveniences. Time was spent arranging the classroom to meet video conference needs, and then rearranging it again. With this in mind, we developed the concept of creating a “professional video conference room” in our old computer lab, where we felt the space could be effectively and creatively utilized. A “professional” video conference room would open yet another window of opportunity for our students to expand their knowledge and experience.
Our professional video conferencing boardroom would be based on the realization that this technology was not only improving student learning in our school, but was being utilized by corporations and businesses to improve their productivity, cut costs on business travel, and communicate more efficiently with their partners. We would advertise our boardroom as a place for companies to make their global connections, and it would be available to oilfield companies, health care services, banks and financial institutions, law firms, trades people, real estate companies, educators, farmers, and even non-profit organizations like churches, museums, and community groups. Students would be involved with planning for the utilization of this room. Professionals would rent our room with the expectation that they would speak with the students about their specific positions in their companies, how corporations function, and share some important factors about success in the work place. The student role in these conferences would be to have the room prepared for meetings and to be available to assist where required.
A “professional boardroom”, using state of the art video conferencing equipment, would elevate our students to a higher level of learning and contribute to their development as confident, productive citizens. Exposure to new ideas, professionals, and real world experiences would open doors to limitless possibilities. Students would be required to play a significant role in this project, helping them develop into valued community members. We knew this project would be a solid investment for the future of our students, school, and community. Today, this boardroom is about 90 percent complete. We have used it for our video conference room all year, and it has already been used by community businesses.
As we continue to enhance education through video conferencing, our students are becoming familiar and comfortable with this way of learning. If you ask Big Valley students to research a topic, they will search for video conference programs where they can speak with someone directly about the specific topic. This spring, our junior high students put together a presentation for the AISI Conference held in Edmonton, Alberta. The students, together with teachers and parents, delivered their presentations via video conferencing. This was the first time the AISI Conference offered a video conference presentation, and it was very well received. The accolades that followed provided the acknowledgment that our project was worthwhile.
The successful development of video conferencing within a school division depends largely on the acceptance of this new tool. It is also dependent upon a financial commitment. This year, through the new AISI Cycle, we were able to staff a part-time Video Conference Consultant. This individual coordinates all our video conference programs including researching programs, matching curricular content with programs, communicating with content providers, booking programs, and all the follow-up work – including preparing the room and materials for each conference. Our video conference consultant leads information sessions and trains school division staff to effectively utilize video conference technology in their schools. She also presents to division administers to keep them informed of the progress and success the Big Valley School project.
Video conferencing has removed some of the traditional classroom walls in our school, allowing our students to experience the world that is waiting for them.
As more schools and businesses use video conferences as a routine way of learning, programming and content providers are becoming more available and simpler to access. Alberta has developed a Videoconferencing Regional Leads Network to support the use of video conferencing in our province. It is a non-profit organization operating under the 2Learn.ca Education Society. This volunteer group of teachers, administrators, and video conference technical experts offers support to teachers in their attempts to use video conferencing technology. They have been a big part of our success this year.
As students experience changes in learning related to developing technology, their daily instruction experiences change. Our school will be participating in some innovative projects with energy conservation next year. It is our intention to use the knowledge and experience we have learned in energy conservation to create a video conference program and have the students present their program to the rest of the world. The students and staff are very excited about this future project.
Video conferencing has removed some of the traditional classroom walls in our school, allowing our students to experience the world that is waiting for them. As schools become more familiar with this technology and its use in the classroom, learning will dramatically change. Collaboration will take on new dimensions. Classrooms will be able to share ideas, projects, and presentations with other schools around the province, across the country, and globally. Learning will evolve as students share and work with the wealth of information they have gained through video conferencing with experts. Video conferencing will improve the effectiveness and productivity of teachers and school administrators. Professional development is limitless as professionals and specialists on every subject area become accessible. In fact, every program that a classroom participates in becomes a professional development opportunity for the teachers involved. They may learn a new approach to a specific topic, an additional way to teach a concept, new experiments, or projects and lessons on similar curriculum objectives. Sharing information and resources translates into new ideas and new teaching methods.
Video conferencing is improving education now and holds even more promise for the future.
EN BREF – À l’école Big Valley School de la Division scolaire Clearview, en Alberta, les vidéoconférences favorisent les apprentissages des élèves grâce à une communication mondiale en direct. Cette petite école primaire rurale d’une centaine d’élèves améliore ses cours depuis quatre ans en élargissant l’emploi des vidéoconférences en classe. Les programmes de vidéoconférences servent à enrichir le contenu du programme d’enseignement, à consulter des experts à propos de choix de carrières et à effectuer des recherches sur des sujets en parlant directement à des spécialistes du monde entier. Lors de la préparation d’une pièce de théâtre sur le journal d’Anne Frank, les élèves ont parlé à un survivant de l’Holocauste du Holocaust Memorial Centre. Lorsqu’on a demandé aux élèves comment les vidéoconférences avaient changé leurs apprentissages, la réponse la plus fréquente insistait sur le plaisir d’apprendre ainsi.
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Alberta Responds to Inclusive Education Framework
Comments Off on Alberta Responds to Inclusive Education FrameworkIn 2009, a steering committee for special education in Alberta developed a framework to address systemic shortcomings and ameliorate learning opportunities for students with special educational needs. Alberta Education has accepted all of the proposed strategic directions, which include developing accessible learning resources, increasing access to technology, and creating an accountability system for measuring success.
Setting the direction framework : Government of Alberta Response (PDF, 8 pages, 545 KB) -
Student Engagement and WEB 2.0: What’s The Connection?
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Research, Policy and Practice in Education/La recherche, les politiques et les pratiques en éducation
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Digital Storytelling: Preserving a Cultural Tradition
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Holding on to our Kids in a Peer Culture
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Seeing With Both Eyes/Double regard
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WIER: An Innovative Online Writer’s Salon Marks 20-plus Years
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Witnessing the Future from the Shoulders of Giants
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Transformational Innovation: This Is No Time for Tinkering
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Online ATM Helps Youth Smarten Up Around Spending
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Program Integrity, Controlled Growth Spell Success for Roots of Empathy
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