FREE Learning Technology Professional Development for IRCC-funded language training programs.

Teacher preparation to deliver online or blended learning & a leading-edge learning management solution for language learning on Avenue.ca.

Since 2010 New Language Solutions has operated the LearnIT2teach Project for the benefit of IRCC-sponsored language teachers. Until August 2020, our learning portal was EduLINC.org, but on August 17th we launched a new and much improved solution, www.avenue.ca.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT OPTIONS:

The Avenue – LearnIT2teach Project is supported by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) to offer LINC teachers and managers in IRCC-funded programs the tools and training to integrate Technology-enhanced language learning (TELL) into language training programs. Threaded throughout the training are Chickering and Gamson’s good teaching principles¹. Teachers in the online STAGEs have support from a TESL mentor with TELL experience, as well as access to a Live Help ‘on-call’ expert.

1 Seven Principles of Good Practice in Undergraduate Education By Arthur Chickering and Zelda Gamson.

We offer IRCC-funded language training professionals four stages of teacher professional development, plus a Learning Technology Innovation Leadership course for coordinators or teachers who want to lead innovation locally:

PRE-STAGE 1

This stage is only necessary if a teacher has lower digital skills. All teachers complete a diagnostic test and if they achieve 70%, they proceed directly to Stage 1. If they don’t, They’ll need to complete a digital skills development course that takes up to four hours.

STAGE 1

This stage takes place online and introduces the LearnIT2teach approach to blended and online learning. Stage 1 gives an overview of further STAGEs of training available to eligible teachers. Participants are oriented to important e-learning concepts. The stage emphasizes how the courseware and Avenue support PBLA through a guided tour of sample activities and resources available in the LINC courseware.

PRE-STAGE 2

This online training provides a fast track to the requisite skills teachers need to start deploying the courseware and using it with students. After successfully completing multimedia quizzes and software simulations, LINC teachers are ready to start using the courseware with newcomers shortly after entering STAGE 2.

STAGE 2

Upon entering this STAGE, participants start delivering and adapting the courseware to their teaching context. They identify their target CLB or LINC level(s) and are set up with their own courseware pre-loaded with activities, PBLA resources and PBLA-compatible modules at CLB3 and higher levels. The focus of STAGE 2 is on using the courseware in blended or online learning, and participants are required to deploy and manage the courseware with learners for a minimum of 4 weeks. Basic course editing is introduced in STAGE 2 and Tutela.ca integration requires participants to use an instructional resource from this site in their course delivery.

STAGE 3

STAGE 3 builds on the participant’s course editing skills, and it emphasizes using the courseware in ways that support best practices in settlement language training. Teachers in Stage 3 continue to develop more advanced course editing skills. Participants now have the option of choosing assessments related to blended delivery or fully online delivery. Participants must use the courseware with learners to complete STAGE 3, and they are required to create an assessment that is used as an ePortfolio artifact. Tutela.ca offers over 400 SCORM² and many many H5P learning objects in its collection, and the STAGE 3 training provides information about how to access these resources.

This stage offers TESL Ontario members a PTCT accreditation in “Online/Blended Language Training Using Moodle”.

2 SCORM, which is an acronym for Shareable Content Object Reference Model, is an international e-learning standard for packaging learning content.

STAGE 4

• Teachers master the creation of their own e-activities and the skills needed to upload them to a digital repository (Tutela.ca) where they can be shared with other professionals across Canada.
• Provides an introduction to Hot Potatoes and TexToys software, enabling teachers of all levels
• Introduces teachers to project-based learning and webquests
• Familiarizes teachers with Web 2.0 tools that can be used in language instruction
• Participants build on their Stage 3 H5P authoring basics, and learn to create more advanced H5Ps.
• Offers TESL Ontario members a PTCT accreditation in “Developing e-Materials for Language Training.”

Learning Technology Leadership Training

LearnIT2teach provides administrators & lead teachers & aspiring learning technology leaders with training resources to help them put the courseware to work in their programs. The LINC Administrator’s Guide to Integrating & Managing Blended Learning is available as a PDF (http://learnit2teach.ca/wpnew/support/administrators/Admin_Manual.pdf) or hard copy.

We also hold online webinars for lead teachers and administrators.

Certificates of completion will be provided at the end of each STAGE, and these can be used as part of the PD requirements to maintain your TESL Ontario teacher accreditation.

LINC TEACHERS:

“Many of our activities can be linked to the courseware, allowing students to try vocabulary or reading exercises more than once.”

“Students enjoy being able to share ideas with their classmates through the forums, and being able to see and benefit from their classmates’ work.”

“I know I am able to provide them with a much richer experience using this method than I would be in any other way.”

“I enjoy the creativity of customizing my courseware, and I also enjoy the convenience of being able to reuse the work for each subsequent session of my class.”

“I also have the opportunity to learn about new technology and new ways to interact with the learners.”

“The LearnIT2teach provided me with a mentor who was infinitely patient and responded to all my queries and questions. The Stages are designed with ESL instructors in mind. It’s very methodical, it’s step-by-step, there’s support every step of the way.”

“The forums and wikis create a collaborative and social learning environment for students. Students can be encouraged to reflect on what they are learning in the SCORM activities, relate it to their own experiences, share opinions, ideas and resources, and collaborate on creating common understanding.”

LINC ADMINISTRATORS:

“The majority of students have advanced technological skills and this feels natural to them. It’s what they want and it’s what they need.”

“Every teacher who has embraced it has realized the benefits. There’s a lot of work up front, but after that it’s smooth sailing. All of them feel it helps them be more organized and deliver a more relevant message to the students.”

“It helps me to define what I need in the 21st Century teacher. So the teachers who come with the skills or who are very willing to embrace the skills; that’s the teacher I’m looking for now. Having teachers at all levels with comparable skills makes my job easier.”

LINC LEARNERS:

“It gives you the opportunity to review, to listen, to take time to understand as often as you need and want.”

“I like it because I can study and practice language at home and anytime, when I need it or want it. Also, I can find information which I missed.”

IRCC’s new learning portal for online and blended settlement language training.

The time is now for a much improved and enhanced Moodle-based national learning management system for English and French settlement language training. EduLINC has been serving the LINC Sector for ten years, but it needed to do more.

Avenue, like EduLINC, is a four-skill modern solution to online or blended
language training. Soon, logging into Avenue will also mean logging into Tutela, providing access to hundreds of Made-in-Canada learning resources for LINC. The Avenue learning management system runs on the latest version of Moodle, and includes new activities, such as the Workshop module and improvements to existing activities such as H5P.

Avenue offers more tools to administrators and teachers, including a user account manager giving teachers control over their course enrollments, student accounts and making it easier to move students between classes. Avenue supports modernized task-based learning through an e-Portfolio solution. And the courseware inventory of PBLA-aligned learning resources is growing as developers like New Language Solutions and the Centre for Canadian Language Benchmarks release new modules.

PROVIDING ONLINE COURSEWARE FOR LEARNERS & TEACHER PREPARATION TO MAKE IT WORK

Why integrate Technology-enhanced Language Learning (TELL) into your class?

• Supports online distance learning with a full suite of synchronous and
• asynchronous learning and teaching tools.
• Multiple modalities (classroom and online) give your teaching more impact: provide learning opportunities in the classroom and again online, and learning is more effective.
• Supports the long tradition of using computers in the classroom and builds better practices in blended learning that benefit learners and their teachers.
• Social media like wikis and blogs provide opportunities for student-to-student communication and collaboration.
• Information technology in the ESL classroom helps prepare your learners for the worlds of work and education in Canada today.
• Improved learning tracking and accountability: you will have access to
• gradebooks and other reports documenting all learning activity in the courseware.

LEARNER COURSEWARE KEY FEATURES

• aligned with LINC Curriculum Guidelines and Canadian Language Benchmarks
• learner courseware & teacher training has tools and tips on how to support PBLA
• a growing collection of PBLA-aligned courseware modules
• social media like forums, wikis and blogs provide opportunities for student-to-student communication and collaboration
• supports best practices in blended learning when used with the LINC 1-4 and 5-7 Classroom Activities books
• hosted for free by New Language Solutions
• offers anytime, anywhere access to students using standard web browsers and free browser plug-ins
• mobile-friendly for those with tablets or smartphones
• tools for managers to monitor local courses, assign substitute teachers, and access detailed learner activity reports.
• Avenue is fully customizable by teachers entering training STAGE 2 in the teacher training.

Moodle is our LMS of choice because it’s open-source software and license free. And it’s supported by a worldwide community of millions of educators. It has about 50% market share in Europe and Latin America, and 30% in North America. An LMS provides a virtual private learning space that enables online distance learning and complements face to face learning when implemented in blended or hybrid learning.

What does an LMS solution represent for the LT Sector? It’s an opportunity for deeper engagement with learning, and building social engagement into an online classroom. It enables more flexibility in program design and delivery. It supports anywhere anytime learning.

User Account Manager

Avenue offers more tools to administrators and teachers, including a user account manager giving teachers control over their course enrollments, student accounts and making it easier to move students between classes.

Enhancements are on the way

• Important enhancements to the Avenue portal will roll out over the next few months. Getting the Class Register up and running is a priority for our developers. This will allow teachers to update their learners’ account information. It will also give teachers access to students ePortfolios. There will be a link to each students’ ePortfolios on the teacher’s course page.
• Avenue will support modernized task-based learning through an e-Portfolio solution [released on November 20th, 2020] and a growing inventory of PBLA-aligned learning resources.
• Tutela integration with the Avenue learning portal will allow teachers to access Tutela without the need to log in a second time [This change is imminent.]. When it’s fully functional teachers will be able to browse Tutela and choose resources and add them to their storage space on Avenue.
• A custom Moodle mobile application is in development for Avenue users. It will improve access to course content.
  
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To learn more details of the Avenue solution and the New Language Solutions response to COVID-19:

• Watch a 13-minute video Introduction to Avenue
• On, September 11th 2020 Jim Edgar, presented a Zoom webinar on
  10 Reasons to Migrate to Avenue from EduLINC

Hope to see you on the Avenue!