CANARIE E-learning Program

1
CANARIE E-learning Program

• ACCC Symposium on Technology-Enabled Learning
• Victoria, BC
• February 5-7, 2004
• Jamie Rossiter Director, E-learning Program

2
Overview of Presentation

• Why is e-learning important?
• CANARIEs roles
• CAnet 4
• Applications programs
• CANARIE E-learning Program
• Examples of projects
• Lessons learned
• Future directions
• Planning for next programs
• Pan-Canadian E-learning Strategy

3
Why is E-learning Important?

• Canada is moving from resource-based economy to
  knowledge-based economy
• This direction is imperative to continuing
  economic prosperity
• Formal education and lifelong learning are key
• Fewer jobs for unskilled workers
• Many professions already requiring ongoing skills
  upgrading and continuing education
• Higher education strongly correlated to higher
  earning potential

4
Challenges!

• Access
• Location
• Time
• Disability
• Looming teacher shortages
• e.g. 20,000 40,000 university professors needed
  by 2011
• Similar issues in K-12, colleges
• Cost pressures
• Driven partly by increasing health requirements

5
CANARIEs Roles

• Infrastructure
• Four generations of advanced research and
  education networks
• Partnerships and communities
• Fifteen programs (gt300 projects, gt1000
  participants)
• Current focus advanced applications sectoral
  collaboration
• Brands
• International Canadian leadership in advanced
  networks
• Domestic CANARIE facilitation role

6
(No Transcript)
7
Building CAnet
8
Building Partnerships(1999-2004)
E-business
28 Million

27 47
E-content (ARIM)
6 Million

24 66
E-health 5
Million
23 39
E-learning
29 Million

32 265

• Program
• Total Funding
• Number of
• Projects
• Number of
• Participants

October 2003
9
Fourth Pillar Organizations
Minister of Industry
Return on Investment Accountability Information Co
nsensus-based Advice
Strategic Investments in Enabling Technologies or
Infrastructure
Fourth Pillar Organizations
Commitment
Commitment
Industry (receptors)
Government Laboratories
Leadership Facilitation Service
Leadership Facilitation Service
Links to commercialization agents
Links to provincial regional organizations
Leadership Facilitation Service
Commitment
Universities Colleges
10
CANARIE E-learning Program

• Where can advanced networks genuinely add value
  to learning (on or off campus)?
• Focus on reducing structural barriers
• Significant projects with potential national
  impact
• All projects highly collaborative
• Encourage synergy amongst projects
• Strong evaluation component to each project

11
E-learning Projects, LORs

• Learning Object Repositories
• eduSourceCanada (and predecessor projects)
  large, bilingual, pan-Canadian prototype
  development project
• TILE LORs for people with disabilities
• LOGIC LORs for case-based teaching approaches
• CMEC Pan-Canadian Online Learning Portal all
  provinces/territories participating

12
Why are LORs Important?

• E-learning content development is expensive and
  time consuming LORs provide a mechanism to
• share content easily
• update content that changes frequently
• modify content e.g. to another language
• locate desired content quickly
• Elegant structure that promotes sharing of
  content without giving up control of curriculum
• between jurisdictions, institutions, individuals
• mirrors current network implementations

13
E-learning ExampleLearning Object Repositories
14
eduSourceCanada Project

• A pan-Canadian testbed of linked and
  interoperable Learning Object Repositories
• Over 35 organizations from public and private
  sectors, anglophone and francophone,
  participating
• A forum for development of tools, systems,
  protocols and practices
• Based on national and international standards
• Accessible to all Canadians, including those with
  disabilities
• Leading to uptake by Provinces/Territories and by
  industry

15
E-learning Projects, DE

• New Organl Structures Communities of Learners
• Virtual Veterinary Medicine Learning Community
  all 4 veterinary colleges sharing synchronous
  asynchronous curriculum
• SportWeb learning for amateur coaches across
  the country
• Health Informatics Collaboratory across 14
  institutions
• Remote Distant Learners
• MusicGrid K-12 music education over CAnet 4
• RACOL K-12 classroom education in N. Alberta
  over SuperNet
• Llearn second-language training online
• Interactive Multimedia Learning System for
  Mathematics building upon The Learning Equation

16
E-learning Projects, Workplace

• E-learning in the Workplace
• TRADE complex radar mapping technologies for
  staff clients
• E-LIVE simulations for transit-system operators
• ELLnet leadership training for school trustees
• Open Network Craft how-to for remote network
  developers installers, including First Nations
• E-learning in health sector
• PLP enabler DCM.X tools for health care
  professionals
• 3 projects co-funded by HRSD Office of Learning
  Technologies

17
E-learning Projects, PD

• Teacher Professional Development
• ABEL K-12 teachers working in their classrooms
  using CAnet 4
• Collaborative Content Creation Lab
  post-secondary (college university) teacher
  development activities, content
• University Collaborative Communities for
  e-Learning Adoption (UCCELA) facultydevelopment.
  ca and E-Kit/La Trousse professional development
  tools

18

• E-learning to Learning
• E-learning Program projects demonstrated their
  results
• See CANARIE website for presentations
• Meeting-ground for emerging Canadian e-learning
  community
• 325 attendees from across Canada, several
  countries, all levels of education, training
• Plenary sessions
• Learning Object Repositories from development
  to uptake
• Expert panel discussion on a pan-Canadian
  e-learning strategy
• Demos of key network-enabled projects

19
Current Status of CANARIE

• Stand-alone CAnet 4 operation funded to 2007
• Current project funds fully committed
• March 2004 hard completion
• Government of Canada planning
• Possible transition support in March 2004 budget
• Election, spring 2004
• New policies, fall 2004 - SFT2
• Regular budget early 2005
• CANARIE working closely with Industry Canada to
  determine appropriate role

20
Education Committee Preliminary Feedback

• Needs of Learning
• Organizational change (institutions workplace)
• For both on-site and distance learning
• Faculty and learner tools that are
• Multi-functional
• Support a variety of delivery models
• Provide integration, security, authorization,
  personalization
• Less text driven, more intuitive and smarter
• Learning Object Repositories
• Positive results thus far, but still embryonic
• Need to be tailored to knowledge, sector by
  sector

21
Preliminary Feedback

• Potential roles for CANARIE
• Bridge between governments (including
  Provinces/Territories), academe and industry
• Honest broker of information on intelligent
  infrastructure
• Organizational change agent in the development of
  new organizational models
• Targeted funding programs for sustainable
  applications development testing

22
Preliminary Feedback

• Potential roles for CANARIE (contd)
• Fund large proof-of-concept projects leading to
  implementation
• Beyond startup or pilot to sustained, operational
  systems
• From institutional periphery to core
• Sufficient scope and scale to interest
  decision-makers (deans)
• Aggregating communities of interest
• Practitioners and researchers, early adopters
• Stay in the innovation space
• Neither pure research nor too close to the market

23
E-learning Strategy

• Emerging consensus that we have to work
  collaboratively i.e. we all benefit through
  collaboration
• Several indicators
• CeLEA industry e-learning association
• IDEA federal government inter-departmental
  working group
• CMEC Pan-Canadian Online Learning Portal
• CMEC-Industry Canada discussions
• Growing international opportunities key for
  Canada because of the size of domestic markets
• e.g. Jordan

24
Conclusions

• E-learning standards and technologies reaching
  maturity
• Consensus that course-by-course or
  pilot-study approach is not enough
• Strategic investments in e-learning are warranted
• Evolving strategies are fundamentally
  collaborative and match the evolving network
  architectures
• Emerging interest in a pan-Canadian e-learning
  strategy