Effective Media for Virtual Schooling
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The document summarizes findings from the VISCED project on the use of media in virtual schooling. It describes the project's aims of identifying innovative practices, critical success factors, and policy recommendations for virtual schools. It then summarizes case studies of 8 European virtual schools and 4 pilots that were conducted. Key findings include the most commonly used media being visual materials, printed materials, images, and video. Schools found visual materials and video webcasts to be most effective. Communication was largely via email and Skype. Future plans focused on increasing interactivity and personalization through various software and conferencing tools.
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Effective Media for Virtual Schooling
- 1. The use of media in virtual schooling – findings from the VISCED project Giles Pepler, Sero Consulting – UK giles@sero.co.uk
- 2. VISCED project aims and scope • “To make an inventory and carry out a systematic review of international and national levels of innovative ICT-enhanced learning/teaching exemplar initiatives and „e-mature‟ major secondary and post-secondary education providers for the 14-21 age group (including Virtual Schools and Colleges)” • Identify and pilot innovative good practice in ICT- enhanced learning • Identify critical success factors for European virtual schools and colleges • Make recommendations on teacher training for virtual schooling • Make policy recommendations for virtual schooling to national education ministries and EU policy makers
- 3. VISCED case studies and pilots We describe eight case studies of European virtual schools and four from outside Europe. We facilitated four pilot studies in England, Greece and Sweden. This presentation uses material from seven European case studies: • Ensino a Distância para a Itinerância [Portugal] • InterHigh [Wales] • iScoil [Ireland] • Nettilukio – Otava Folk High School [Finland] • Rīgas Tālmācibas Vidusskola [Latvia] • Sofia Distans [Sweden] • Wereldschool [Netherlands] and one of our four pilot studies: • Notre Dame High School, Sheffield [England]
- 4. Case study schools: use of media for teaching Very often Fairly often From Rarely Never time to time Visual material ED IH IS OT SO WE RI Printed material RI WE SO IH ED IS OT Images IH IS OT ED RI SO WE Diagrams and IH IS ED OT RI WE charts SO Film & video IH IS RI OT SO ED WE Podcasts SO ED IS OT IH RI WE Webcasts OT SO ED IS IH RI WE
- 5. What the schools say about the most effective media for teaching • Visual material: “always good for interaction & participation, very flexible and can be used in conjunction with other classroom tools” – “engaging for our young cohort to use student interest led based visual material and facilitates students with weaker literacy skills” – “video webcasts allow the student to see, hear and „feel‟ the content when they like” • Printed material and e-books: “our e-books contain teacher examples and explanations about the most important information in each study module” – “printed material can be read at any time in any place without the use of a device” • Skype: “ when students have seen the video of a specific module, or tried to find unclear chapters in a book, it is possible to have a private lesson with the teacher via Skype and get immediate feedback”.
- 6. Case study schools: use of media for communication Staff/staff communications Staff/student communications Frequency 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Email IH OT ED IH OT ED IS RI SO IS RI SO WE WE Skype OT E RI IH IS RI OT ED SO IH IS D SO W WE E Adobe OT ED IH IS OT ED IH IS RI Connect RI SO WE SO WE Flash RI ED IH IS RI ED IH IS OT SO OT SO WE WE Other IH IS ED IS SO ED IH IH IS [mostly OT RI IH O IS RI OT various T SO chat
- 7. Case study schools: social media Staff/staff Staff/student communications communications Frequenc 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 y Faceboo RI IH ED IS SO RI OT ED IH IS k OT WE SO WE Twitter IH OT ED IS SO RI OT ED IH IS RI WE SO WE YouTube IH IS ED RI RI ED IS OT SO OT SO WE WE Other O IH ED OT [e.g. T „Other o„ Local RI ‘Faceboo k’
- 8. Using Twitter for revision – Notre Dame High School
- 9. Twitter for revision in action at Notre Dame High School
- 10. Case study schools: future plans for use of media Key aims are: • Increasing interactivity • Increasing personalisation through • Skype group calls • Developing uses of the learning platform • Animation & presentation software • Looking for alternative conferencing software • For some, increasing use of Twitter and social media
- 11. Links and more information • Project website: www.virtualschoolsandcolleges.info • Wiki: www.virtualschoolsandcolleges.eu • Bi-monthly newsletter • Project Handbook (Volume 1) and Project Brochure (an 8-page summary) available on Thursday at the VISCED stand
Editor's Notes
- Sero one of 10 partners in VISCED – EU project – others from Greece [LRF], Belgium [ATiT; EFQUEL]; Italy [Scienter]; Estonia [EITF]; Sweden [Ross Tensta]; Denmark [Aarhus]; Finland [TIEKE]; UK [Leeds Uni]
- Main vehicle for this is the project wiki, with country & region reports & pages on each virtual school/college. Address at end of talk.Documenting ‘exemplars’, especially in EuropeCritical and key success factors – Europe looks different from USA
- ED – originally Escola Móvel, for circus and traveller childrenIH – established 2005, now with 300+ students and a sixth form, plus 2 other businesses working with excluded childrenIS – based on Stephen Heppell’s Notschool.net, largely for referred excluded childrenOT – a division of Otava Folk High School, Finland, est 1998RI – first online school in Latvia, fully accredited by the Ministry for 6 years [the max]SO – initially solely for expatriate children, now for some [excluded] Swedish ones as well. Covers 12-15 age rangeWE – initially for expatriate children, now with a sister arm for Dutch childrenBednet [8th] excluded, as it facilitates connection for sick children, doesn’t teach itselfNotre Dame – IT training school in Sheffield, England – highly regarded for its innovative use of ICT in teaching and learning
- Initials for each school – 7 in allMost used in red – may be some overlap between visual material and film and videoNote that 3 are [heavily] dependent on printed material; 3 very rarely use it. Podcasts & webcasts least used, except for SO [both] and OT [webcasts]Use of media linked to some extent to technology in use and location of students – synchronous/asynchronous teachingAlso asked about use of media for different subjects: all main subject groups – languages, STEM, humanities, social sciences – make use a wide variety of media
- Home-produced e-books widely used by RI; WE also makes substantial use of ‘e-clips’ for quizzes etc
- Note that email [traditional!!] is much the most widely used, except for staff/student communications in 2 schools – ED and IS contexts‘frequency’ on Likert scale from 5 [very often] to 1 [never]Skype also widely used in some schools – increasingVideoconferencing software only used extensively for both staff & students in OT; Flash only used significantly for staff meetings in RIMany different chat forums used, either as part of the learning platform, or linked with it. Several are home grown
- Note the divide: 3 schools make quite extensive use of social media and 4 hardly use them at all. RI stresses the importance of Facebook [and Draugiem – the local Latvian version] for raising the profile of the school. It’s the first fully virtual school in the country and sees social media as a key means of attracting support. Interesting that IH makes relatively extensive use of social media for inter-staff communications, but not for students – though they are happy to encourage students to develop their own Facebook groups.YouTube unsurprisingly fairly extensively used for teaching – esp. Arts and humanities subjects
- Here’s a specific example of the effective use of social media for teaching – this was part of the pilot work developed at Notre Dame. Full details in the pilot report – available on the VISCED website before the end of the year.Maths department established a Twitter presence for helping students with final revision for external GCSE Maths exams. Note numbers of tweets and followers – just under half of the two pilot groups
- Note dates – these are actually during the period of exam study leave. Mixes guidance on specific topics with announcements and social matters.
- Personalisation – interesting, as almost all the virtual schools already stress that this is central to their philosophyQuite a variety of learning platforms at present, including several home grown. Moodle not as dominant as it is in, e.g. English further education colleges. Very pragmatic approach.Aware of possibilities of conferencing software, but generally unhappy with performance of current commercial productsSocial media important to some, but not all. But increasing interest.
- Website: project background & many news articles related to virtual schooling across the world. Also carries copies of the Newsletters and all the public reports and deliverables from the project..Wiki: all the country and region reports and separate entries for all the virtual schools and colleges identified. New contributor welcome – will be maintained until at least end 2014, for 2 years after project end.Project Handbook summarises all the main research topics and outputs. Is being published in 2 volumes. First [now available on VISCED stand tomorrow] contains background introduction; ‘world tour’; case studies; reports on pilot studies; challenges and opportunities for policy makers. Copies available free to take away.Volume 2 will be published in December: will contain chapters on key and critical success factors for European virtual schools & colleges; report on teacher training issues; policy recommendations; overall conclusions. Please leave your name with me on the stand if you’d like a copy.