Essential Skills Online: A Consortium Approach

Human Resources & Skills Development Canada, through its Office of Literacy and Essentials Skills, has funded a partnership of the Canadian Virtual College Consortium, Bow Valley College and Fanshawe College to develop online learning materials for Essential Skills and to test their effectiveness. Starting in February 2010, 240 students across Canada will be using industry-sector specific, online material developed by the TOWES unit of Bow Valley College to upgrade their Essential Skills. For those field-test students who are vulnerable learners, Fanshawe College has developed a technology/human interface solution to overcome their difficulties. Results of the pilot test will be available in December of 2010.

The Bow Valley learning system, called Essential Skills Direct (ESD), provides accessible, innovative and convenient learning options that aim to effectively remove barriers to learning and employment by teaching the skills needed for working in Canada’s highly skilled labour market. The ESD tool will help learners develop techniques for improving Essential Skills and introduce an integrated approach to training, in an online environment. The tool will improve the Essential Skill levels of learners in the context of specific sectors including: Health Care, Automotive, Oil & Gas, and Trades (pre-apprenticeship.) Bow Valley has been developing this learning system since the beginning of the project in February 2008.

The ESD consists of two main sections:

In addition, there is a Facilitator’s Guide, Project Mentorship and Technical support (the latter two via email or phone.) For details of these components, click here. The Modules are the heart of the learning system. They are composed of authentic workplace documents, documents that workers would use in carrying out their day-to-day tasks. Each Module contains one or more sector-specific documents and at the end of each module there is a self test and answer key. When students find they are lacking a certain skill, such as skimming when reading, they go to the SkillBuilders for help. For each sector, there are four modules specific to that sector. All of the SkillBuilders are available for each sector. It will take about 20 hours for students to complete the materials related to their chosen sector. The material can be delivered in online or blended versions.

Assisting Vulnerable Learners

To address the needs of vulnerable learners who will be studying online, Fanshawe College has been developing a technological and human interactive approach to help these learners to over come their learning barriers. Vulnerable learners are those students who have poor language skills, poor comprehension of textual material, poor numeracy skills, and may prefer a spoken presentation. Over the past year and a half Fanshawe has been testing out various technologies such as computers with text-to-voice software, to overcome these barriers. They found that the first barrier was the technology itself as learners became frustrated learning the technology. This was overcome by initial face-to-face tutoring and videoconferencing with the mentor.

As a result of working with learning vulnerable students, Fanshawe has developed a ‘Distance Education Assistive Bundle’ consisting of a netbook computer with regular software (Word, Internet explorer, Adobe Reader, and others as needed), assistive software (text-to-speech, text help, visual learning, and writing tools), and video conferencing software ( video/audio, document sharing, screen control and whiteboard) Each student will receive one of these bundles.

Fanshawe will be testing out their technology/human interface solutions with up to 140 vulnerable learners over the course of the three year project. They will also be using the ‘Assistive Bundles’ with 40 of the Bow Valley pilot students.

A full report on the effectiveness of these ‘Assistive Bundles’ will be available in the late fall of this year.

The Pilot Test

The project pilot test starts in February 2010 and lasts until the end of May 2010. Twelve educational partners are participating in the pilot bringing in over 240  test students from college apprenticeship programs and literacy community groups across the country.

All student participants involved in this pilot project will be required to complete a TOWES pre and post test. These test results, student and mentor evaluations, as well as information on the students’ activities in the ESD database will provide material for assessing the effectiveness of the project (see project objectives.)  A final project report will be available in January of 2011.

The Canadian Virtual College Consortium provides project management.

For project updates and a final project report please add your email address to our distribution list.

For further information please contact:

Paul Avon
Executive Director
Canadian Virtual College Consortium 
pavon@sympatico.ca
Fax +1 866 350 7685