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OER stories/SCOLA pilot

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1 What is most important in your story?
2 The challenge or problem
3 Context
4 Action
5 What worked
6 What didn't work
7 Next steps
8 Notes
9 References
10 Websites
11 Other OER stories

[edit] What is most important in your story?

Map showing the Egadi Islands

The case study describes the collaborative design and development of an Open Educational Resource by a group of Italian teachers from the Mediterranean island of Favignana (part of the Egadi Islands, off the north-west coast of Sicily). The group was part of a larger project, SCOLA – Sviluppo COllaborativo Learning Objects Autoprodotti (collaborative design and development of self-produced learning objects), involving a network of 11 schools on the islands of the Eolie, Egadi, Ischia and Capri, San Antioco, San Pietro and La Maddalena in Sardinia, during the 2005/06 school year.

The project had three aims:

to improve the quality of digital content available for the schools of the small islands;
to introduce teachers to the issues surrounding production of digital content (e.g. granularity, context, content, interoperability, accessibility and standards), its integration in their teaching and its impact on the school curriculum;
to introduce innovative teaching and learning practices, taking a new approach to the learning environment and school time.

The project was designed as a pilot activity, based on action research methodology and, of course, ICT tools were at its core.

The project was designed and supported by the Department of International Relations of the Italian Ministry of Education, INDIRE (the National Agency for the Support of the School Autonomy), and the SIMI Consortium of small islands. This case study will focus particularly on INDIRE’s role, which involved a focus on the cultural issues related to the production of educational resources, and on setting up the technological infrastructure for the teachers involved.^[1] Both were achieved through collaboration with local authorities.

INDIRE developed a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) for cultural training activities, software tools and guidelines for the design of digital content, as well as collaborative tools so that the teachers involved could share in and discuss the production process.

[edit] The challenge or problem

The SCOLA pilot project was designed to promote the introduction and integration of ICT in the schools of the small islands of the Mediterranean. It was organised in two phases: the first focused on teacher training using collaborative methodologies; the second phase aimed to support the teachers as they designed and produced their own Open Educational Resource.

This double approach was proposed by INDIRE to solve two social and cultural challenges:

to include these island schools in innovative developments occurring in education throughout Europe over the last decade;
to use ICT to overcome the physical isolation of the islands and enable students to study.

Both challenges can be met only through building relationships between institutions, companies and the local authorities, and recognising the need to invest in human resources as the starting point for any process of change.

The project aimed to give teachers and students the opportunity to use ICT, and to appreciate its potential, not just as a classroom tool or for overcoming problems associated with the physical isolation of the islands, but for promoting equal opportunity for all students. In this respect, ICT has great potential for supporting and even transforming learning.

[edit] Context

The geographical isolation of the small islands of the Mediterranean has led to higher student dropout and higher staff turnover in their schools. Many teachers choose to stay for no more than one year, while poor ferry connections, particularly during the winter, lead many families to move to the mainland. There is a 'digital divide' between learners on the mainland, with access to cutting-edge ICT and digital content, and students on the islands, who have fewer opportunities to experience ICT, either at school or at home.

The SIMI Consortium proposed the project to the Mediterranean small islands school network. Open Educational Resources, delivered via a VLE, were envisaged as a solution to improving school quality in this context and, particularly, to personalising the students' learning curriculum.

The project was led and managed by Ippolito Nievo, a lower secondary school on the island of Capri, which also proposed the involvement of INDIRE to design and pilot a learning model that would be suitable for the island contexts. The project fits INDIRE's mission and experience in integrating technology, teaching and learning. Finally, PON funding was identified as the most appropriate way to realise the project. PON is an action of the European Union, managed by the Italian Ministry of Education, which gives financial support to deserving European regions. The project replied to a call in 2005/06 within the European Social Funding - Measure 1, Action 4, which promotes the development of centres for the autonomy of schools, ICT integration and school network activities.

International whitepapers and documentation, namely the Lisbon Strategy, focus on the strategic effect that ICT can have to realize the Information Society in education and to be a catalyst for the development of European social and financial systems. In this respect e-learning and digital content are envisaged as a means of overcoming isolation and improving the quality of the school system. The Amsterdam and Nice treaties identified insularity as an eligible condition for EU intervention; furthermore, the new cohesion policy (2007-2013) regards insularity, together with a mountain context, as a reason for extra EU financial intervention (in the region of 5-10%).

[edit] Action

[edit] Professional development: a collaborative model of training

INDIRE's first step was to set up a VLE and to start an online training course based on a collaborative work that, at the end, would produce an Open Educational Resource.

The work group met once in one of the schools of the network for a two-day workshop. On that occasion they met their e-tutor, planned their learning path and shared their course objectives with institutional policy makers. At the same time they were trained to use the learning environment. The collaborative environment offered a series of tools to support synchronous and asynchronous activities and communication between students, in particular, chat and forums, electronic message boards, a shared area to download/upload documents produced by the group. The environment offered also a meeting room (Macromedia Breeze) where the group met, synchronously, either on their own or with the e-tutor. The meeting room had chat, a whiteboard, the opportunity to share webpages or the computer of one of the participants. In another area of the environment, students were offered learning materials for designing and producing open learning resources. At the two-day workshop the group decided to produce a OER for teaching history, aimed at students aged 11-13.

[edit] Training steps

Although familiarity with ICT and authoring tools was one of the conditions for taking part in the course, training was organised in steps and started with a module introducing OER and the main issues associated with it (consistency, reusability, personalisation, granularity, context, content, standards). Personalised activities, articles and web-forum discussions were proposed by the e-tutor to introduce the students to the topic and to bridge the cultural gap between them. In this phase the group decided to produce an open and modifiable resource, but not one that follows a particular set of learning technology standards.

The second step was dedicated to the design of the storyboard for the OER. The group also looked at OER produced by other institutions, publishers and e-learning companies to compare how different resources have been structured. They then tried a number of authoring tools to find the one most suitable for the group. This was followed by an online instructional design activity with the e-tutor and, finally, testing the OER in the classroom.

[edit] Design and production

The design process began with an analysis of existing OER to compare the instructional models behind the resources. The group focused on the pedagogical standards that an educational resource should have as their basic element:

definition of the learning objectives of the OER
selection of the most suitable OER model for the learning objectives
structure of the OER, particularly the degree of granularity of content.

The learning objectives were organised in terms of:

knowledge acquisition
ability to use the acquired knowledge, according to the context of the learner
competence, interaction and flexibility.

The working group used the forum and the collaborative environment to agree the theoretical framework. The group then decided on the learning objectives of the OER:

Promote procedural abilities
Edutainment strategies
Create a story
Use problem solving strategies
Use the authoring tool in a innovative way so that the resource could be modified in the future.

The collaborative design process followed the following procedure:

Planning – observation/discussion and production of a plan to create the resource
Evaluation of the activity included in the resource
Documentation of the process (creation of the learning object).

The group decided to take a storytelling approach for an OER on the Great migration of the 19th century to America. The content of the story was realistic and engaging for learners studying history. The specific objectives were to develop the learners':

research ability
historical knowledge
capacity to use historial sources
ability to evaluate information from different sources.

The OER offered some schemes, to give the students the opportunity to identify abstract concepts in the concrete story, and text to assess the students’ acquired competencies.

After the development of the beta version of the resource, all of the resources were uploaded into the VLE used by the teachers for their training, as well as into the INDIRE repository for re-use by other teachers.

[edit] What worked

Over the course of the training activities the attitude of the teachers towards the use of ICT and digital content as educational resources changed enormously. The teachers started to perceive the potential of OER, as well as the essential role of the teacher in its use in the classroom. This position was supported by the opinions and experiences that they shared with the other team members and it added value to the design of the OER.

The group discovered that the design and development of an OER is a complex activity; it requires technical and pedagogical skills as well as an information architecture approach to content. The overall objectives of the OER should support and enhance students' motivation to study and learn. The use of problem solving strategies, and the application of an abstract concept to concrete problems seemed to be the correct approach, made easier by the use of digital content and pictures.

The group identified Breeze Presenter as the authoring tool most suitable for designing the story, importing existing content (e.g. in PowerPoint slides) and converting it into Flash format.

More broadly, the project showed that ICT is a valuable tool for overcoming geographical isolation, and promoting social inclusion and equal opportunities. The schools involved discovered that ICT can revolutionise pedagogical methods and the organisation of the learning system. Finally, PON funding emerged as a key instrument to meeting the EU's goal of being at the forefront of the knowledge society.

[edit] What didn't work

Poor Internet connectivity and a low level of ICT literacy were the critical problems for this project.

The group identified some key points for the successful development of an OER:

A new approach to the learning environment is needed, in terms of time and space, that could be seen as an ecological learning system.^[2]
More research and tutoring activities should be carried out in the field of the develoment and production of OER and/or digital assets for use by in-class teachers.
Teacher training is needed on the main cultural and technical issues related to OER creation.
Communities of practice need to be built up to link developers in the small island schools to the wider community of OER practioners.
Parents should be involved in ICT pilot projects.

[edit] Next steps

The OER created through this project has now been piloted with students in school. Students involved in the pilot were offered laptops and a dedicated VLE, containing all of the digital resources produced during the project. The availability of one laptop for each student has also helped to make parents aware of the potential of ICT to improve learning away from the traditional classroom context. Headteachers, teachers, students and parents have formed a community of practice to discuss education and the use of OER to improve student performance.

[edit] Notes

↑ INDIRE collaborates with the Italian Ministry of the Education in the management of EU programmes, projects and initiatives, including European Schoolnet, SOCRATES, Eurydice and the eTwinning National Support Service. It has participated in many Community funded projects in the 4th and 5th framework programmes, including the EUN Multimedia Schoolnet, the European Treasury Browser, EUNCLE, Valnet, Celebrate and eColours. Since 2001 it has conducted research on the use of elearning to train school personnel and students.
↑ Study on innovative learning environments: "The concept or notion of a learning environment as a separate topic has become current in educational discourse in close connection with the emerging use of ICT for educational purposes on the one hand, and the constructivist/constructionist concept of knowledge and learning on the other." Available at: http://www.elearningeuropa.info/extras/new_learning_env.pdf.

[edit] References

Biondi, G. 2006. La scuola dopo le tecnologie. APOGEO.

Casulli, L. 2004. Learning object: l’oggetto didattico, questo sconosciuto. Available at: http://www.comunedasa.it/elearning/learning_object.pdf.

Parrish, P.E. (s.d.) "The trouble with learning objects, the COMET® Program, University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado." In: Educational Technology, Research and Development. Available at http://www.comet.ucar.edu/~pparrish/papers/The%20Trouble%20with%20Learning%20Objects%20(1space).doc.

Wiley, D. 2000. The instructional use of learning objects. Available at: http://reusability.org/read/.