Mobile and virtual learning through new pedagogy at school and at home

This year has been chal­len­ging for our in­no­va­ti­ve school. The buil­ding has hu­mi­di­ty prob­lems owing to which se­ve­ral stu­dents have had to stay at home. So, our chal­len­ge was or­ga­ni­zing schoo­ling at home.
The Kon­ne­vesi High School is a pi­o­neer of e-le­ar­ning, on­li­ne te­ac­hing/le­ar­ning and mo­bi­le le­ar­ning in Fin­land. Our staff have plen­ty of ex­pe­rien­ce of on­li­ne and vir­tu­al worlds. Most of the te­ac­hing staff of­fer on­li­ne or ot­her ty­pes of web cour­ses to schools around the count­ry.
We have also trai­ned ot­her schools’ te­ac­hing staffs to exe­cu­te cour­ses on sub­jects we can­not of­fer.

But now, we were fa­ced with a new prob­lem. Sin­ce some of our stu­dents could not par­ti­ci­pa­te in the dai­ly les­sons, we had to or­ga­ni­ze the les­sons in eve­ry sub­ject and from eve­ry class­room in tho­se stu­dents’ ho­mes. That me­ant ha­ving the stu­dents par­ti­ci­pa­te in the nor­mal les­sons as a group of their own.

So, we cre­a­ted a simp­le on­li­ne class­room set­ting, which only con­tai­ned a USB do­cu­ment ca­me­ra (Ipe­vo Zig­gi USB Web­cam Do­cu­ment Ca­me­ra). The cour­se con­tent, as­sign­ments and inst­ruc­ti­ons were pre­sen­ted as a di­dac­tic in­ter­fa­ce in a vir­tu­al plat­form. The plat­forms were cre­a­ted in the Peda.net le­ar­ning en­vi­ron­ment and the Se­cond Life vir­tu­al world.

The te­ac­hers taught their les­sons nor­mal­ly in the class­rooms for tho­se stu­dents who were pre­sent. The class was si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly bro­ad­cast to stu­dent ho­mes using the Web­LI vir­tu­al te­ac­hing en­vi­ron­ment.

The te­ac­hers used the USB ca­me­ra for mul­tip­le pur­po­ses. Thanks to a fle­xib­le stand, the ca­me­ra could be tur­ned to face dif­fe­rent di­rec­ti­ons. When the te­ac­her wan­ted to be vi­sib­le to ab­sent stu­dents, he/she just tur­ned the ca­me­ra to face her­self. If he/she wan­ted to show a do­cu­ment or work done on the black­bo­ard, the ca­me­ra was tur­ned to face the bo­ard. They also sho­wed their black­bo­ard no­tes, Po­wer­Point sli­des and any texts or prac­ti­ce book pa­ges to the re­mo­te stu­dents. Vice ver­sa, the ho­mesc­hoo­lers were equip­ped with si­mi­lar USB ca­me­ras and they sho­wed their ho­me­work and ot­her ma­te­ri­als to the class.

The ex­pe­ri­ment tur­ned to an eve­ry­day prac­ti­ce in a very short time, and the te­ac­hers quick­ly le­ar­ned to use the equip­ment. Of cour­se, using the equip­ment was no prob­lem for the stu­dents.

Af­ter coup­le of months, the need for re­cor­ding emer­ged. The te­ac­hers star­ted to re­cord their clas­ses and add tho­se re­cor­dings to the le­ar­ning en­vi­ron­ment. The­se re­cor­dings were first used when a stu­dent could not par­ti­ci­pa­te in the ac­tu­al les­son. The­re were, of cour­se, some prob­lems with con­nec­ti­ons, elect­ri­ci­ty, etc. All stu­dents also used the­se re­cor­dings as re­view ma­te­ri­al be­fo­re exams.  We are now buil­ding a me­dia lib­ra­ry con­tai­ning most of the les­sons in al­most all sub­jects. The re­cor­dings have now been in­de­xed as short clips ac­cor­ding to to­pic. The te­ac­hers can now col­lect pre­li­mi­na­ry ma­te­ri­al from the­se clips for flip­ped class­room les­sons, re­view ma­te­ri­al for exams, or for ot­her pur­po­ses.

The le­ar­ning re­sults pro­ved pro­mi­sing. We eva­lu­a­ted the stu­dents and com­pa­red their re­sults to their le­ar­ning his­to­ry ear­lier in the spring. The en­ti­re stu­dent group re­cei­ved bet­ter marks af­ter stu­dying on­li­ne. The stu­dents’ com­ments inc­lu­ded: “The best part was that I could le­arn when it sui­ted me best” and “You can lis­ten to the te­ac­hing as many ti­mes as you need”.

Also, the te­ac­hers were very hap­py af­ter the met­hod had been in­ter­na­li­zed. They found that af­ter ha­ving made their first coup­le of les­son plans very strict­ly, they star­ted to chan­ge their plan­ning to ac­com­mo­da­te for this mul­ti‑bro­ad­cas­ting met­hod. They felt like tele­vi­si­on di­rec­tors de­ci­ding what pic­tu­re they should send home for the stu­dents.

The ex­pe­ri­ment con­ti­nu­es and the re­sults are being me­a­su­red af­ter eve­ry term. The­se good tech­ni­cal, pe­da­go­gi­cal and di­dac­ti­cal prac­ti­ces are pre­sen­ted in our na­ti­o­nal plat­forms.