Future+Directions+of+DL


 * Future Directions of DL - Discussion Summary**

**Triggering Events - **//Key questions://
 * Do you think technology is influencing education to the point that we must develop new philosophies, methods and curricula?
 * Do you agree with the article that the future is in our hands or do you think the way in which technology advances and therefore affects education is inevitable?
 * How does informal learning (outside the educational institutions) play into the development of technology in education?
 * How can we effectively blend new technologies like cell phones, blackberry's and laptops into the teaching and learning of our students?
 * How can we effectively teach our current students how to become good digital citizens? **CW**

//Opportunities and challenges that were discussed://
 * Exploration**

**Opportunities ** In this section many opportunities and challenges regarding distributed learning were discussed. In order to facilitate distributed learning for teachers and students,one of the tools that were discussed that may be most applicable was Desire2Leran (D2L). D2L is a learning management system that is being used by many boards of education around north america including the Calgary Board of Education and the Calgary Separate Schools Division as well as post-secondary institutions like SAIT. D2L is a tool that employs the use of many different functions of online learning that do a great job of facilitating distributed learning for teachers and students in both synchronous and asynchronous environments. In D2L teachers can start, monitor and contribute to discussion board questions that stimulate the class into learning more about a topic. D2L also has the ability for teachers to put quizzes and tests in D2L for students to attempt when they are ready. Questions on tests and quizzes are constantly randomized to ensure a sense of security when tests are administered. But D2L also has places where teachers can upload content for their students to see in many formats (html, word documents, hyperlinks, PowerPoints, video files, audio files, pictures, etc). D2L has also recently introduced ePortfolios to its platform. ePortfolios are a tool that can be used by teachers and students. More specifically it is a tool that according to the D2L website "takes the best of both worlds: it pairs engaging social networking and self-directed learning concepts with proven traditional education to produce a unique and powerful solution that enables our clients to shape the learning paths of their users and give them the opportunity to create and share their own eLearning journey." ( [] ) This tool can facilitate the distribution of learning for our students and provide them with feedback from peers and others to make learning more personalized for individual students. Teachers can use ePortfolios as part of the process of educating their students over the course of a semester where their learning can be tracked and directed, however it can also be used as an end product for students who are applying to post-secondary institutions or for jobs. It has many different facets to this great tool which will be the future of great learning for our students. Blackboard, as on the University of Calgary's website, is very similar to the D2L tool just mentioned. It has many similar traits and functions. It is up to individual institutions to decide which of these tools they want to employ with their students. Further opportunities that were discussed in our discussion board included the opportunity that we will have as teachers to use various current and new technologies in the future to blend them into our teaching practices. A question that was posed by Crystal in the discussion board asked "Do you think technology is influencing education to the point that we must develop new philosophies, methods and curricula? Explain why we should or should not do this." The discussion board responses told us that technologies are certainly challenging us as teachers to find new ways to integrate and make use of new technologies at our disposal to help our studnets achieve in our schools, however we didn't think that it was necessary to change the end goals of what we were teaching. In most cases, what we are currently teaching are things that should be relevant to studnets in the futures as they are fninishing school and entering post-secondary school or the world of work. **SP **

**Challenges **  We also discovered some challenges with the future directions of distributed learning through our discussion board. Some of the smaller challenges that we discovered were that not all institutions use D2L, ePortfolio, or Blackboard. Most institutions do, but if they are not using one of these tools within their board or institution, students in these jurisdictions may not be getting the same opportunities for success in distributed learning as other students. Even within the CBE, some teachers and schools make great use of D2L, whereas there are other schools who don't use it much at all. It depends on the administration of the building and the desire of individual teachers and whether they want to use these tools or not. Generally people can't be forced to use a tool they don't want to use. Another challenge with distributed learning and technology is that as teachers we have to find a balance with each of our classes and each of our students between how much face to face time they need, with how much online time they need in our classes to help them best achieve their learning needs. Discovering what types of learners we have in our classrooms is important to know how they will best learn. As a response to one of the three questions that Crystal posed, it was suggested that in our future the constantly evolving nature of the technologies that will be at our disposal, and at the disposal of our students is going to force us as teachers to be constantly challenging how we teach, what tools we use, and how we engage our students in their learning. From the discussion board the postings suggested that we don't need to change what we are teaching our students (curriculum) because what we are teaching them is still relevant, but we do need to change how we teach them. The final challenge that was mentioned was that of digital citizenship. Especially with the current generation of students in our schools they are learning how to use technology without much guidance from their parents as the technology is coming out so fast that parents don't always know how to use it before kids are bringing them to school (ie. Twitter, Facebook, video messaging, etc). As adults, we have a responsibility to teach students and the youth of our society how to appropriately use the technologies at our fingertips. We need to teach them how to use them safely, and effectively as educational tools. They need to know when to use them and when not to use them. Cell phones are the biggest distraction to students in our school because for the most part, studnets are just using them wherever and whenever they want. The following quote made in the discussion board by Danny is a great statement about the opportunities and challenges that we will face as teachers using distributed learning in the future. "I think that technology is influencing education to a point that we need to change our educational philosophies, methods and curricula. Although educational methods and practices have not changed drastically over recent decades, the steep advancement in technology will ultimately force us to change the way we approach education. The world has become much more global and the use of technology has changed before our eyes. Students are demanding that we catch up with the way they live and socialize. An example of this is mobile learning. With the rapid advancement of portable devices, such as smart phones and tablet computers, students will want more involvement with these devices in their education and we should work together to give it to them." **SP **

What recommendations and conclusions can you draw from the discussion?
 * Integration**

From the discussion board contributions it can been deduced that many people are excited about the future of Distributed Learning and that people involved in education are attempting to discover its potential. However, there are also individuals on the other side of the fence that are overwhelmed by its potential and feel traditional methods are a much safer route. My personal recommendation is that technologies are advancing at a rate that we as educators cannot keep up with and the sooner we accept that it's prevalence within education is inevitable the more equipped future generations will be to utilize it. It should be further recommended here that at the school level more and more time needs to be committed to professional development of teachers in order to better inform teachers of technologies that are available to be used in schools with our students, and how to best employ the use of these technologies. **CW** We are already as teachers doing a great job integrating tools like elluminate, D2L, ePortfolio, polleverywhere.com, as well as devices like laptops, ipods, video cameras, video conferencing, podcasts, etc as part of the work we are doing in school. WE don't need to be experts on how to use all of these tools, but need to provide opportunities for our students to work with what best suits their learning needs. How teachers use professional development, and how much access they have to opportunities that will help them learn how to integrate technology into their teaching practices will really determine how responsive their students may be to them in the future. It may not be long before textbooks as we know them are obsolete. All readings will be digital and available anywhere and at anytime. As teachers, the better we are at learning how to accept and integrate new technologies into our teaching and learning, the better our classes should be for our students. I really believe that schools are going to have to spend more time focusing on PD for our teachers in the future just to try and keep up with our students. Technology is not becoming as obsolete as fast as it was five or ten years ago, but there are still constant improvements being made to current technologies (iPod is a great example). **SP**

//Application of "lessons learned"://
 * Resolution/Application**

// Although there are challenges with implementing various technologies into the classroom, the best way to overcome them is to continuously experiment with them. Personally, I plan to use these technologies without reservation and learn with and through my students as we test the waters and discover capabilities together. After reading the article by Facer and Sanford I feel compelled to place an emphasis on global and digital citizenship, and the idea of lifelong learning. I think providing our students with skills to navigate their net generation is crucial. // // Technology is rapidly increasing in the lives of our youth. This calls for educators to incorporate it into the education system through daily activities. Obvious problems can arise regarding valid resources or overabundance of resources. This as well as digital citizenship must be addressed regularly with students so as to aid in their positive interactions with the wired world. **CW** //


 * Key Resources**

Bencze, J.L. (2008). Science, Technology, Society and the Environment Education. Retrieved June 14, 2010, from // [] //

Bencze, J.L. (n.d.). //STEPWISE (Science & Technology Education Promoting Wellbeing for// // Individuals, Societies & Environments). // Retrieved June 14, 2010, from // @http://webspace.oise.utoronto.ca/~benczela/STEPWISE.html //

Coiro, J., Knobel, M., Lankshear, C., & Leu, D.J. (Eds). (2008). //Handbook of research on new// // literacies //. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Retrieved June 14, 2009, from [| http://www.newliteracies.uconn.edu/pub_files/Handbook_of_Research_on_New_Literaci] [|es.pdf.]

Conde Nast Digital. (2009). //The Rise of Crowdsourcing.// Retrieved June 13, 2010 from //http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.06/crowds.html//

Dede, C. (1997). Rethinking how to invest in technology. //Educational Leadership//, //55(3)//, 12-16.

Desire2Learn Innovative Learning Technology. (2010). //EPortfolio in D2L.// Retrieved June 14, 2010, from []

Facer, K. & Sanford, R. (2010). The next 25 years?: future scenarios and future directions for education and technology. //Journal of Computer Assisted Learning// , 26, 74-93.

Government of Alberta Education. (2010). //Flexibity Enhancement Project.// Retrieved June 13, 2010 from [|http://education.alberta.ca/admin/highschoolcompletion/projects/high- school-flexibility-enhancement-project.aspx]

Hinkey, D., Honeyford, M., McWilliams, J. (2010//).// // Re-mediating ////Assessment Wherein we// //Consider the Possibilities for Participatory Assessment Models in Education [Web log].// Retrieved June 14, 2010 from []

Howell, S., Williams, P., Lindsay, M. (2003). 32 Trends affecting Distance Education: An informed Foundation for Strategic Planning. //Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, 6(3).// Retrieved from // [] //

Jenkins, H., Purushotma, R., Clinton, K., Weigel, M., & Robison, A.J. (2006). Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century. //Building the// // new field of digital media and learning. // Chicago, Ill: The MacArthur Foundation. Available online from [| http://www.newmedialiteracies.org/files/working/NMLWhitePaper.pdf] // [| Jin] **, **//G.B. (2008-2010). //Smoothboard//. Retrieved June 14, 2010, from // [| http://www.smoothboard.net/faq] // // Open Course in Education Futures //. Retrieved June 13, 2010, from // [] //

//Poll Everywhere. (n.d.).// Retrieved June 14, 2010, from [| www.polleverywhere.com] Ted Ideas Worth Spreading. (2009). //Pattie Maes and Pranav Mistry demo SixthSense.// Retrieved June 14, 2010, from
 * // [] //**


 * CW**