Introduction

The traditional brick and mortar high school is undergoing a renaissance as more and more schools and school boards are embracing the concepts of e-learning and blended learning.  No longer can schools rely on just textbooks and teacher directed lessons. Today’s student has grown up in a completely digital world and it is the job of educators to prepare these students for the world at large. This has resulted in a massive shift in the way teachers approach their jobs. Past models that were essentially a ‘one size fits all’ approach have been replaced with student directed learning; and the role of the educator has changed along with it.  Needless to say, the school system itself must evolve along with it. One of the ways to address the rapidly changing educational environment is to add e-learning and blended learning to the system.

There are many reasons why e-learning and/or blended learning can be a very valuable tool. These include:

• the ability to adopt 21st Century Learning skills
• the ability to deliver content and curriculum in an innovative and interactive way
• the ability to allow flexibility in learning (location and time)
•  the ability to meet diverse learning styles, needs and preferences
• the ability to increase student success and achievement

In addition to these student centered reasons, practical reasons include low or limited cost for cash strapped systems and the ability to deliver more programs to places that are disadvantaged (i.e. low enrolment or distance).

21st Century Learning Skills

While traditional skills like reading and writing and arithmetic will always be important, a new century requires new approaches. The 21st Century Learning Skills Framework created by P21 – the Partnership for 21st Century Learning is not necessarily a new idea, but they provide a new focus and consist of skills that will certainly be necessary in this ever changing digital world. They are: critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity. While many teachers in high schools have attempted to integrate these skills into their classrooms, there is a long way to go as this graphic illustrates.

Innovation and Interactivity

By delivering curriculum online, there is opportunity for using some excellent web 2.0 tools to enhance learning. Students can participate in interactive lessons and participate in discusions. This is especially helpful for students who have difficulty participating in traditional oral classrooms.

Flexibility

By providing e-learning and/or blended learning options, students have more access to courses that they may not necessarily have access to otherwise. For example, schools that are small can offer more subjects; high performance athletes can train and still attend school; summer school can be completed without actually stepping into the classroom; credits can be earned for students who missed one and need to complete another one in order to graduate.

Diverse Learning Styles, Needs and Preferences

Not all learners learn in the same way. By providing e-learning options, many more learning needs can be met. By having e-learning and/or blended learning,  there are more opportunities to explore multiple intelligences.

Student Success and Achievement

The ultimate goal of the school system is to allow students to achieve success. E-learning is another tool to provide students with even more opportunities to succeed. Students who are familiar with e-learning are setting themselves up for future success as studies show that more than half of workplaces use e-learning in training and by 2019, nearly 50% of students will have at least one post secondary course online.

Practicality

E-learning can have some practical cost benefits as well. While start up costs may be higher, the maintenance of e-learning is relatively low cost. Also, if an organization chooses a free service like Eliademy, then costs are eliminated altogether.

Elements

Using the seven criteria suggest by (Zaied, 2007) in the effective evaluation and selection of learning technologies, best practices for teaching and learning can fall within this framework. The seven suggested criteria for implementing effective online courses are: ease of access, usability and reliability, feedback of capability, professional development, student/instructor satisfaction, student motivation/self learning, and instructional time (Zaied, 2007, p. 145). Given that all seven criteria are situated in best practice for the 21st Century classroom, these elements will also help secondary instructors become more reflective and adaptive to the needs of the students as both stakeholders familiarize themselves with the capabilities of Eliademy. In addition, the Bates (2014) methods for online teaching in Chapter 4 helped gear the focus on select criteria in the analysis of Eliademy.  

 

Qualities

Eliademy appeals both in it’s marketing and design features. The accessibility of the platform and ease of use via social media outlets allows the course design to be well advertised and appealing to online learners. The appeal for educators and academics to market their own unique brand, while building a virtual client base becomes more appealing given the control the instructor has over how and what content is delivered, and to whom and how many students they desire. Instructors can bypass the red-tape of institutions because content can be designed using a mixture of embedded digital objects, webinars, live tutoring to name a few engaging capabilities of the platform.  

 

Affordances

Eliademy has a wide range of accessibility as it can be accessed using many different operating systems from a computer, tablet, or smartphone. Students at the secondary level typically have smartphones, making it is very appropriate to use the technology Eliademy provides for this age group. Eliademy, like many other LMS platforms makes it easy to have all resources easy to locate in one place, allows support in communication-discussion boards, includes grading centres, allows for instructor feedback, and includes email, chat, and group centers. Offering a wide range of interactivity options for students. From my experience, students can be driven in their academics as they like knowing ahead of time all the details of their assignments, readings, potential tests, and projects. With the use of an online calendar or communication board students are better able to predict their class schedule, enabling them to use their time effectively and look ahead in class work. As well, students collaborating online together create a community of inquiry. Online learning or the use of a LMS along with face to face instruction has become more common at the secondary level. For many students this type of learning is seen as a novelty, gravitating them towards this type of course structure. Most students have internet connection at home and have a device to use at school, in order to access this type of course set-up. Additionally, since Eliademy is an open source LMS, a larger range of resource and materials are made available (Coates, James, & Baldwin, 2005) as the pool of contributors is larger.

Limitations

The one major drawback is that Eliademy is a cloud based system that saves its data from its users on a server outside of Canada which is not currently supported in public schools due to Bill 73 that requires that “personal information in its custody or under it control is stored only in Canada and accessed only in Canada” (Cate, 2008). For our example, this acts as a drawback as our group teaches in Canada. Eliademy prides itself in offering a free open source platform however a paid premium version is available allowing a course instructor to conduct a private course with unlimited webinars and advanced management applications. Another difficulty is that this platforms relies on instructor expertise as it offers many different opportunities for customization for the instructor to create the online course outline instead of having the software modified by the school or institution.

Features

Students are able to sign-up for a class through social media invites through sites like Linkedin, Facebook, Gmail. In the premium option of the program the instructor can set up private courses and invite a select number of students. Courses can be set as “self-paced” or “timeline.” The premium setting also includes live tutoring and webinar with desktop presentation features. This option allows the instructor to tutor live while demonstrating a concept or diagram simultaneously. This is an interesting development into the face to face capabilities and personalized learning that opens up more feedback potential and communication between instructor and students. Digital objects can be created using Vimeo, Youtube, as well as it is compatible with Google Apps. This accessibility to other Apps may prove invaluable as more and more K-12 schools implement Google Classroom.

Impacts on Implementation

Eliademy was created in the spirit of open source education, with the intention to make education as accessible as possible to all stakeholders. Crowdsourcing allows group members to come together to improve their knowledge collectively and share it with others. In the context of a public Secondary system that is already strapped for cash, this platform would give teachers more autonomy in the creation of individualized education, and less emphasis on traditional classroom settings to deliver pertinent curriculum to students who seek alternative educational settings to accomplish their individual learning needs. As (Bates, 2014) discusses the pitfalls that an overly complicated course design can have on time constraints and financial overruns, the simplicity of features found in Eliademy address the needs for a streamlined approach to online instructional design.

Learning and Teaching Practices

In this 21st Century teaching practices have evolved to offer more personalization by meeting the needs of one’s diverse set of learners by offering different pedagogical and administrative tools such as synchronous and asynchronous communication and formative and summative assessment (Coates et al, 2005). Many post secondary institutions offer online classes and so it becomes necessary to introduce this style of learning at the secondary level in combination with classed based instruction in order to prepare students as independent learners and learning by the sole use of technology (Bates, 2014). As an open source platform Eliademy offers opportunities for customization for instructor’s preferences. As education continues to evolve and impact the changes of Eliademy, the fact that is acts as open source will aid in its transition to adopt new changes more readily such as giving more choice of control to learners.

Future Development

For development, Eliademy prides itself in that suggestions and requests from its users are viewed by administrative staff as valid inputs to help with improvements or additional options. A user can also also agree with someone else’s comments in the feed of the ideas forum by casting a “vote” in favour of a certain request. This, escalating its pertinence as an impending improvement, as the highest rated suggestions are dealt with prior to the next release update. The future of Eliademy is bright as it was found to be one of Europe’s 20 fastest growing and most Innovative e-learning companies in 2014 (Scott, 2014). The company values its relationship with educators and students and continues to promote the community acceptance of both stakeholders adding value to their company. With respect to course instructors, Eliademy encourages teachers to continually request feedback on their course from their students in order to try to adopt the necessary additions to make it better increasing their credibility.

Summary

Clearly, there are many benefits to adding e-learning and/or blended learning to the high school learning environment. It addresses 21st century learning skills, it provides opportunity for innovation and interactivity, it allows for more flexibility and it meets learners’ diverse learning styles, needs and preferences. In addition to all that, e-learning can increase student success and achievement while meeting budget restraints in a cash strapped school system.

In order to do this, a system must adopt a learning management system (LMS) that can deliver all of the above. In this case, we have examined Eliademy and have concluded that it certainly could be suitable for a high school setting.

References:

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Bates, T. (2014). Methods of teaching with an online focus. In Teaching in a Digital Age.

Blended Learning. (2013, November 07). Retrieved January 28, 2016, from http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/elearning/blend.html

Cate. F. (2008). Provincial Canadian Geographic Restrictions on Personal Data in the Public Sector. The Centre for Information Policy Leadership. Retrieved from https://www.hunton.com/files/Publication/2a6f5831-07b6-4300-af8d-ae30386993c1/Presentation/PublicationAttachment/0480e5b9-9309-4049-9f25-4742cc9f6dce/cate_patriotact_white_paper.pdf

Coates, H., James, R., & Baldwin, G. (2005). A critical examination of the effects of Learning Management Systems on university teaching and learning. Tertiary Education and Management, 11,(1), 19-36.

Framework for 21st Century Learning – P21. (n.d.). Retrieved January 30, 2016, from http://www.p21.org/our-work/p21-framework

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Multiple Intelligences: What Does the Research Say? (2015, April 09). Retrieved January 29, 2016, from http://www.edutopia.org/multiple-intelligences-research

Scott, L. (2014, June 6). Europe 20 Fastest Growing and Most Innovative E-learning Companies Named. “Readwire.” Retrieved from http://www.realwire.com/releases/Europes-20-Fastest-Growing-and-Most-Innovative-e-Learning-Companies-Named

Spiro, K. (2014, February 25). 5 eLearning Trends Leading to the End of the Learning Management System – eLearning Industry. Retrieved from http://elearningindustry.com/5-elearning-trends-leading-to-the-end-of-the-learning-management-system

Zaied, A. N. (2007). A Framework for Evaluating and Selecting Learning Technologies. The International Arab Journal of Information Technology, 4(2), 141-147. Retrieved January 29, 16, from http://ccis2k.org/iajit/PDF/vol.4,no.2/8-Zaied.pdf