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Roland vanOostveen, Associate Professor
François Desjardins, Associate Professor
Shawn Bullock, Assistant Professor
Faculty of Education University of Ontario Institute of Technology
The problems associated with the initial education and on-going learning of professionals, such as teachers, are magnified in the absence of adequate technological resources. Traditional mechanisms used for professional development by way of government directives, guidelines, advisory bulletins, “train-the-trainer” sessions for centrally assigned consultants, workshops and seminars are unlikely to encourage large-scale change within the profession. In 1992 and 1993, Fullan argued that the failure of these approaches can largely be attributed to the fact that no account is taken of the individual teacher’s previous experiences, personal theories and values. Although many case studies acknowledge the uniqueness of individual educational environments, there is seemingly little general appreciation that teaching is a complex, fluid and uncertain enterprise.
In spite of profound, rapid changes in society such as the advent of high-speed access to the Internet and the inclusion of cell phones into most aspects of life, real reforms to the focus of education or the methods used by teachers have been slow to take hold in educational systems around the world. Speaking from decades of experience with educational reform, Sarason (2002) recently concluded that reform was unlikely given the current architecture of the school system in North America, particularly given that the ways we work, live and play have all gone through important transformations in the past generation. Employers, governments and institutions have all realized that the needs of society towards education systems have also changed. For example, in a short document titled “Employability Skills 2000+”, The Conference Board of Canada (2006) outlined the types of competencies that should be expected of graduates of Canadian school systems. The desired abilities are:
The new emphasis on both communication within teams and thinking/problem solving indicate that the critical skills required of citizens are profoundly different than just a few decades ago.
It is important to consider that this paper presents the results of a very short pilot study intended more to explore than to conclude. As initially expected, the pilot study was by no means long enough to foster the kinds of changes that would be desired. Nonetheless, it demonstrated that the developed tools are useable by students, and it would suggest that further investigation with larger samples over a longer period of time is warranted.
Overall, the initial reactions centred on two fronts, one being the technical issues and the second on more pedagogical aspects surrounding the Collaborative Online Learning Environment. On the technical question, the servers used for the main part of COLE were insufficient to handle the number of students, even in this limited experiment.
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