aligning the affordances of 21st century technology with 21st century pedagogy

8/13/2019 Aligning the Affordances of 21st Century Technology With 21st Century Pedagogy

1/4

Aligning the Affordances of 21stCentury Technology with 21stCentury Pedagogy:

A vision for the future of e-Learning in Ontario

Introduction

Technology in general has an important role to play in the Ministry of Educationsgoal to reach every student. With the admirable goal of ensuring that teachers and

administrators can employ technology to improve student achievement, close the

gap and improve public confidence in publicly funded education, skillful and

innovative use of technology is more important than ever. In particular, e-Learning

and blended learning currently play an central role in supporting student success in

Ontario, and that role will continue to grow given the Ministrys goal to make

blended learning available for all Ontario students from kindergarten to grade 12. i

The growth of technology provides todays young people with learning

opportunities that just fifteen years ago would have seemed hard to imagine. The

Internet is no longer a place where individuals go to retrieve information, but tocreate multimedia and publish to a world-wide audience. Todays youth aremembers of what American media scholar Henry Jenkins calls participatory culture,

a culture with low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement, strong

support for creating and sharing ones creations, and some type of informal

mentorship whereby what is known by the most experienced is passed along to

novices.iiWhile access to technology, to varying degrees, is ubiquitous in todays

schools, access to, and use of technology alone are not enough to achieve the

Ministrysgoals. We need to align the affordances of 21stcentury technology with

21stcentury pedagogy.

Current State of E-Learning in Ontario

Current growth strategies for e-Learning and blended learning in Ontario include

encouraging teachers to integrate blended learning into their teaching more often

and providing sustained support for teachers through a variety of local and system

supports while helping administrators see the connections to other Ministry

initiatives. E-Learning and blended learning offer students and teachers more

choice. Teachers have another tool at their disposal differentiate by content,

process, and product. As stated in the OPSBAs A Vision for Teaching and Learning

in the Digital Age e-Learning and blended learning support self-directed and self-paced learning as students take full advantage of anytime, anywhere learning that

can happen beyond the walls of the school. iii

Untapped Potential

The provincial learning management system has a wealth of potential. The

ePortfolio tool, for example, allows students to showcase and reflect

metacognitively on learning artifacts theyve created throughout a course,


2/4

demonstrating their growth over time. This is a powerful tool that many teachers

are just now becoming familiar with.

On the other hand, the provincial LMS still functions primarily as a content delivery

tool rather than a digital learning environment where students create as well as

consume rich multimedia material, which is not reflective of the web 2.0 world theyparticipate in every day. The content in the LMS is very text-heavy, relying primarily

on reading and writing which is not as inclusive as it could be, both in terms of

supporting students with disabilities but also in terms of supporting a variety of

learning styles.

Richard Mayers 2008 paper Applying the science of learning: Evidence-based

principles for the design of multimedia instruction applies cognitive science tomultimedia learning. Among several instructional design principles he discusses are

the coherence principle and the modality principle.ivThe coherence principle states

that good instructional design includes words and pictures, but reduces the amount

of decorative and representative graphics, thus reducing the cognitive load placedon the brain. Visuals that exist within the LMS are primarily there as decoration.

While the intent is to make the material more engaging, the end result may actually

be detrimental to student learning. The modality principle states that people learn

better from words and pictures when words are spoken rather than printed, as this

reduces demands on visual processing. If we truly want students to be authentically

engaged, we need to provide them with material that respects the way they learn.

Seeing the Possibilities

We need to take advantage of the affordances of the provincial LMS to authentically

engage students. This will require aligning multimedia rich content with pedagogycentered around scaffolded instruction and 21stcentury skills such as critical

thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity. This will happen through a

two-pronged approach.

First, we must rework the existing content in the LMS and OERB to reflect principles

of multimedia learning and effective instructional design. While acknowledging the

fact that some students have limited access to high-speed internet, we can still use

multimedia to provide more choice to our students in terms of how they engage

with and create content. This is not only more engaging for students but helps

provide more inclusivity by respecting different learning styles and ability levels.

This would also include revising the rubrics using student-friendly language tomake learning goals and success criteria clearer for students.Second, we must rework instructional approaches to include a gradual release of

responsibility framework of instructional strategies that take advantage of a full

range of online learning tools. Screen-capture software and document cameras

make it easier than ever for teachers to model learning for their students. While

collaboration does happen to a certain extent, we need to make it easier for students


3/4

in the e-Learning environment to learn from and with their peers. Discussion

forums do not adequately reflect the organic nature of small group discussions that

happen in face-to-face classrooms. Yet the technology exists to make these face-to-

face discussions possible.

How will this vision be implemented?

Luckily we already have a wealth of innovative e-Learning and blended learning

teachers in Ontario who are finding ways to authentically engage students in

exciting ways. We need to draw on the knowledge of e-Learning contacts and

district e-Learning Coordinators to identify these teachers and bring them together

to discuss challenges and best-practices in e-Learning. Then we survey teachers to

find out how to make the LMS content more engaging. Next, we establish a set of

norms for content design based on the principles of multimedia learning that are

easy for teachers to implement.

At the same time, we need to enlist teacher support to revise the LMS content tobetter reflect the gradual release of responsibility, incorporation of learning goals

and success criteria in student-friendly language, and instructional strategies that

foster critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity.

In order to maximize results, it would be wise to begin by revising courses that have

the highest attrition rates. Once we compare current attrition rates to attrition rates

after the revisions have been implemented, we can measure how these revisions

support the ministrys goal of reaching every student, and can apply what weve

learned to the remaining content in the LMS, starting with the most popular courses

in e-Learning and blended learning.

Finally, in addition to revising content, we must develop training for teachers of e-

Learning and blended learning, recognizing that we cannot simply apply traditional

methods of teaching and learning to the digital environment and expect our

students and teachers to be successful. Here too, we can draw on the expertise of

our e-Learning and blended teachers to help develop teaching and assessment

strategies that e-Learning contacts, and coordinators can use to support the

teachers within their own boards.

iOntario Ministry of Education. (2012, Sept 14). Blended learning. Retrieved fromhttp://www.edu.gov.on.ca/elearning/blend.html

iiJenkins, H. (2009). Confronting the challenges of participatory culture: Media

education for the 21st century. The MIT Press.

iiiOPSBA. (2013).A vision for teaching and learning in a digital age. Retrieved from

http://www.opsba.org/files/OPSBA_AVisionForLearning.pdf
http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/elearning/blend.htmlhttp://www.edu.gov.on.ca/elearning/blend.htmlhttp://www.edu.gov.on.ca/elearning/blend.html


4/4

ivMayer, R. E. (2008). Applying the science of learning: Evidence-based principles

for the design of multimedia instruction.American Psychologist, 63(8), 760-769.

doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.63.8.760

aligning the affordances of 21st century technology with 21st century pedagogy

Documents