Education Commons^™

State Of The Nation: K–12 Online Learning In Canada, Michael K. Barbour

Education Faculty Publications

A variety of initiatives are driving online and blended learning in each of Canada’s provinces and territories. From teachers’ unions in Nova Scotia fighting to ensure online learning is an accepted method of educational delivery, to Ontario’s College of Teachers creating an e-learning endorsement for teachers or the British Columbia government creating policies to expand the growth and opportunities online learning provides, there are multiple, isolated initiatives happening across the country.

State of the Nation: K-12 Online Learning in Canada is now in its fourth year of publication and can be seen as a national guide for understanding the field …

Asynchronous And Synchronous Teaching And Learning In High-School Distance Education, Elizabeth Murphy, Maria A. Rodríguez-Manzanares, Michael K. Barbour

Education Faculty Publications

This paper presents the results of an inductive, interpretive analysis of the perspectives of 42 Canadian high school distance education (DE) teachers on asynchronous and synchronous online teaching. The paper includes a conceptual overview of the affordances and constraints of each form of teaching. Findings provided insight into the following aspects of asynchronous and synchronous online teaching: degree of use; the tools used; the contexts in which each occur; students’ preferences; and limitations. Pedagogy emerged as more important than media for both asynchronous and synchronous online teaching. Synchronous online teaching relied on teacher- rather than student-centred approaches. Asynchronous online teaching …