Support for distributed cooperative work between teachers.
An Education Sharing Platform to help schools
Teachers and learning and development experts are now focused on building new digital lessons and how to deliver them by trying to migrate their old paper-based lessons that they’ve used in-class to online platforms. The challenge is they are overwhelmed by all the new ways in which they have to build and deliver education and the limited time they have to do so.
- 80% of teachers said that the majority of their students were less prepared for grade-level work than they were at this time last year
- 56 % of teachers said that they had covered only half, or less than half, of the curriculum content that they would have gotten to by this time last year
- Only about 20% of teachers said that they were on the same schedule as years past
- Teachers in remote and hybrid environments reported more challenges than those in solely face-to-face instruction.
School closures have shown that many children and youth access school not only for academic purposes but also relief from difficult home situations, access to mental health and wellbeing supports.
The social and economic costs of an inequitable school system are high and the evidence suggests that it will continue to grow without the help of our community.
Building a one-stop platform that allows schools to share lessons, learning plans with other teachers, students and parents will give them a tool to access resources that otherwise are unreachable and provide them with a road map of the curriculum.
The Education Sharing Platform (EDHub) which is currently in the process of being developed has the primary objective to allow schools to work together on lessons, learning paths, resources, tools and practices that are free of legal, financial and technical barriers and can be fully used, shared and adapted by other schools.
The focus of LMS platforms like Moodle and Canvas, presentation tools like Zoom and Teams, Google Classroom and a long list of other tools helps us build engaging educations materials and provides flexibility we haven’t seen before.
Teachers and learning and development experts are now focused on building new digital lessons and how to deliver them by trying to migrate their old paper-based lessons that they’ve used in-class to online platforms. The challenge is they are overwhelmed by all the new ways in which they have to build and deliver education and the limited time they have to do so.
The challenge with this focus on delivering educational content is that it puts a lot of pressure on production of structured educational content across all grades for each elementary or high school unit. It’s not easy to produce lessons and educational content that is adaptive, can be reused across multiple channels, or mapped to the new online platforms. It actually turns out to be pretty hard.
EdHub is built to be a collaborative platform with API hooks & educational materials repository to support and maintain distributed education development projects.
Understanding the impact of COVID-19 on marginalised groups in society is critical. How are the current unprecedented changes impacting students with diverse needs; with disabilities and difficulties, from low social economic backgrounds, where English is a second language and/or trauma exists in their past? Continuing the status quo will not reduce disadvantage, and over time will likely continue to increase it. Improving educational opportunities requires a comprehensive and innovative response.
Recent research found that classes are not proceeding at the usual pace:
– 80% of teachers said that the majority of their students were less prepared for grade-level work than they were at this time last year
– 56 % of teachers said that they had covered only half, or less than half, of the curriculum content that they would have gotten to by this time last year
– Only about 20% of teachers said that they were on the same schedule as years past
– Teachers in remote and hybrid environments reported more challenges than those in solely face-to-face instruction.
– Online teachers were more likely to say that they needed guidance on how best to support students with severe disabilities, English-language learners, and students experiencing homelessness or poverty.
For too long, our educational systems have operated with a fundamental disconnect between schools, teachers and students left over from the analog world. The vast potential of technology and the Internet to support more affordable, effective teaching and learning hasn’t been achieved. Teachers and students are more isolated than ever.
The social and economic costs of an inequitable school system are high and the evidence suggests that it will continue to grow without community and government action.
The Education Sharing Platform AHA is working on seeks to close this gap. This can be addressed through innovating how teachers and students collaborate on:
– Lessons
– Resources
– Communication
Most teachers are in the process of building an entirely new online learning ecosystem, or, repurposing an online platform that used to complement face-to-face teaching before the novel coronavirus-related school closures. Since there are so many resources available, teachers often utilize a combination of multiple apps, media, websites, and teacher-created content. This can get overwhelming fast. It is important to shift from a deficit-based view of the “challenge” of translating face-to-face instruction into an online classroom, to an asset-based view: finding new and different opportunities in home learning.
In order to avoid fragmentation or confusion, teachers can build educational materials and resources working together maintaining connections across resources, activities, and lessons.
The pandemic is pushing educational systems to re-think and drastically change how schooling is provided
Sun, Tang and Zuo, 2020
The Education Sharing Platform will be a hub to share and discover information about activities at schools across the World. Each participating school will maintain a profile page about it’s curriculum, educational activities, which collectively populate a searchable directory that showcases best practices, learning paths, and collective impact being achieved through open education exchange.
Searchable Lessons Directory
A directory where users can search for schools based on their characteristics, types of activities, and key words. This directory will be populated with the content submitted from participating schools
ADVANCED HARMONY EdHUB PROGRAM
AHA is looking to team up with teachers, enthusiasts, parents, and youth to create the EdHUB Education Platform and Digital Library, a comprehensive resource of education resources.
